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[DanielLC]

Currently, there are angles you can't shoot. This would fix that problem.

I originally was going to suggest this so you could build star forts. After reading that, I realized that it's possible to build them with current methods. Of course, they're useless until enemies have ways of climbing or breaching walls.

[Starver]

Indeed, diagonals would help.

What I have done in the past is set up a corner defence two (or more) in a diagonal so I can simultaneously get multiple launchers overlapping their fields of fire in either of the two main outwards directions, and if they get in close (at least until the enemy starts to spook the crews) they can fire along a wider front.  (Or, indeed, in both axes at the same time.)

Code: [Select]

    #:::#
    :SSS#
    :<--#
    :SSS#
#:::X####
:S^S#
:S|S#
:S|S#
#####
(You can guess the notation for wall, fortification, etc.)


But I quite like my design for the outlier-'bunker' (usually surrounded by a couple of widths of channel, though it takes a few more to make it 'disturbance'-proof) that can bring 3/4 of it's firepower to bear in any major axial direction.  I often construct one of these along the roads I set running to my borders, if the land is sufficiently flat to make it useful.  [Edit: Forgot to say...  And construct strategic barriers to ensure most enemies are funnelled into the best areas of overlap!]

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   #:::#
   :S^S:
   :S|S:
#::#S|S#::#
:SSS...SSS:
:<--.X.-->:
:SSS...SSS:
#::#S|S#::#
   :S|S:
   :SVS:
   #:::#

Though to be honest I've never fired one in anger, and generally have just filled it with 'spare' Catapult parts used to train up the Siege Engineer and fire rocks back to home base from the mineworkings out of which it is sprung, to expediate the SO's training and the transfer of material closer to home (with strategic walls and channels to catch most of the rocks intact....).

Of course, as you point out, diagonals aren't protected.  I've generally looked at planting emplacements strategically to cover all possibilities, or add pinch-points, but I remember when I first set up a firing emplacement.  It had the disadvantage of having only 3/8ths of it's firepower aimable in any particular orthogonal, and I built it on a Z above ground level (which wasn't any use, however logical it might have been to do so. .  Slightly modified, however, and it would be set just so:

Code: [Select]

:::::::::::::
:\SS.S|S.SS/:
:S\S.S|S.S/S:
:SS\.S|S./SS:
:...X...X...:
:SSS.....SSS:
:---.....---:
:SSS.....SSS:
:...X...X...:
:SS/.S|S.\SS:
:S/S.S|S.S\S:
:/SS.S|S.SS\:
:::::::::::::

Up to five siege machines pointing along a diagonal.  Of course,  reworked into a

Code: [Select]

  *
 * *
*   *
 * *
  *
...pattern is the equivalent that works best  without diagonals, and is what I hope to set up at a key  road junction in future DF versions where roving armies are commonplace and someone expects me to do my bit to keep the peace (or at least keep the noise well away from the majority of my fellow countrymen. .  Still needs clever positioning/funelling, though,