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Author Topic: Siege weapons  (Read 617 times)

xzzy

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Siege weapons
« on: February 24, 2008, 12:04:00 am »
The wiki spends quite a lot of time warning about the risks of siege weapons, but none of it appears to be true.

I recently set up a ballista to deal with HIDDEN FUN STUFF, firing down a long hall. The wiki claims the ballista will kill anything that the arrowhead hits. This does not appear to be the case.. only the first monster the arrow hit would be damaged, and it would pass harmlessly by any other creature in its route.

Additionally, ballista arrows do not appear to hit unconscious creatures, or creatures in a trade depot. Is this a bug?

Catapults seem to not do splash damage either. In fact I haven't been able to witness a single case where they did any damage.. direct hit or otherwise.

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Slappy Moose

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Re: Siege weapons
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2008, 02:32:00 am »
Catapults are almost useless. I haven't tried/killed my own dwarves with the the ballista yet, so I can't help you there,

However, it seems catapults are only good for destroying stone, training siege operators, or killing things in a 1 tile wide corridor, and even then you need 6 or more to get any results.

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Zaneg Thazor: Armok Reincarnate Story http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=19291.msg196691#msg196691

[Healthcare Update Thread] Personally, I can't wait for doctors to get possessed and start surgically attaching axes to champion soldier's arms.

Foxy111

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Re: Siege weapons
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2008, 09:40:00 am »
My experience is different...

I broke into the hidden fun stuff, with the only access to my fortress via a very long 1 tile wide corridor, with a ballista at the top next to a large ammo stockpile.

Couldn't swear that the ballistae went through the enemies, but it didn't matter - the result was total carnage. Most enemies were destroyed before they uncloaked. My marksdwarves were in position in case anything got through, but the only action they saw was when one of the ballista operators got thirsty and decided she needed a break, at the same time as the other two went off to bed.

This was with an exceptional quality ballista and ammo, and three legendary siege operators. On the other hand, 20 out of the 21 hidden fun enemies were of the relatively easy kind.

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