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[joostheger]

I know the max wide-range of a ballista is about 10% (so one tile off by 10 tiles straight)
When invaders are in front of the ballista, within this range, do ballista operators actually shoot as much as poissible at the invaders? assuming they have the highest possible skill, and the invaders are not to close by.

And does someone have more accurate info about the width of its shooting range? My testing showed a max of 10%, but the wiki says 20 degrees, which is much more. 

[PatrikLundell]

I think operators try to fire as straight as possible. In order to aim they would have to see the targets, and that is generally their cue to flee.

[Quietust]

I think operators try to fire as straight as possible. In order to aim they would have to see the targets, and that is generally their cue to flee.

Catapult operators actually do aim for units, but only in the sense of determining how far the stone will fly before it hits the ground. In that particular case, an unskilled operator who shoots off to the side will actually aim for units off to that same side.

For ballistas, no aiming is necessary because the projectiles simply travel in a straight line and punch through everything in their path.

[joostheger]

Well in case they do have a wider range, i'd like to use that an a above ground devensive plan. So in this case, they need to be able to aim.

[Quietust]

In case it wasn't clear from the above comments, siege operators cannot "aim" sideways - they always try to fire perfectly straight, but if they're unskilled there's a chance that the shot will "go wild" and veer off to either side by a random amount. In the case of catapults, however, these "wild" shots will actually calculate their arc height based on whatever enemy units are present off to that side (rather than based on what would've been directly ahead).

As for the actual amount of variance, siege engines aim at a location exactly 60 tiles away and up to 10 tiles to either side (if the shot is "unskilled"), which works out to a 19 degree spread (9.5 degrees to each side). As of version 0.47.04, the game generates 3 random numbers from 0 to 14 and checks if any of them are less than the unit's effective Siege Operator skill level (where Dabbling is 0 and Legendary is 15, and status ailments such as Nausea/Winded/Stunned/Fever/etc. can each reduce the level by as much as 50%) to see if the sideways drift should be eliminated. This works out to the following probabilities:

Dabbling - 0%
Novice - 18.7%
Adequate - 34.9%
Competent - 48.8%
Skilled - 60.6%
Proficient - 70.4%
Talented - 78.4%
Adept - 84.8%
Expert - 89.8%
Professional - 93.6%
Accomplished - 96.3%
Great - 98.1%
Master - 99.2%
High Master - 99.76%
Grand Master - 99.97%
Legendary - 100%

[joostheger]

Alright, its clear now, thanks!