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[Fewah]

Hey im making parts for them right now..

whats better and why.. and should the catapult be built on like a ledge of something... thanks for the info

also can a balista shoot through a fortication?
also someone needs to use them... how does the operater still use it if he ends up getting called back to my burrow when a siege or ambush happens...?

[Fewah]

bump

[Astramancer]

Seriously?  Bumping after 15 minutes?

You should build both, because setting a catapult on repeat builds up Siege Operator without using up labor-intensive balista bolts.  Note that neither catapults or balistas have a parabolic shot.  This means that if what you want squished isn't on the same zlevel, it's not going to get hit.

Balistas can shoot through fortifications, but the same rules apply -- the further it is from the fortification, the more likely it is to get stopped by the fortification.

As for what's better and why ...  uh, none of the above?  Siege operation is rather hit-or-miss, for a variety of reasons.  For one, it's not aimed.  You can set up a balista at the end of a very long hallway have have a decent chance to wipe out gobbos (and dwarves...) that are in the hall, but out in the open?  Not so much, and if you're already funneling them through a long hall, why not just trap the hell out of it and be done with it?

Another problem:  Siege Operators are civilians.  Yes, that's right, those same little girls who run in abject terror when a gopher shows up.  Again, unless you can hit them from very, very far away (such as the aforementioned why didn't you trap this?! hallway), they're going to run away the moment they have a decent chance to actually hit the gobbo.

Oh, look, another problem: You know how crossbow bolts have this annoying tendency to bounce off of clothing?  Well, those same algorithms determine if a balista bolt pierces clothing/armo (unless this has been changed?)

This isn't to say that you can't engage in the wholesale slaughter of gobbos using siege equipment, you just have to be aware of these issues and take steps to adjust for it, but you probably don't want to use balista's unless you want to.  Traps are much better, as is a well equipped and trained squad.

[Ahp77]

But, depending on the trap you use, you have to deconstruct and reconstruct the trap, and the trap may not work in the first place.

Between that and that the crossbow bug has been fixed, I'd say it may be worthwhile to make the ballista.

[Fewah]

?wait.. so catapults shoot straight.. they dont like lob ? or fly type of thing

[Trekkin]

For training, build catapults. For actual defense, use ballistae if anything.

Catapults basically turn stones into grenades lobbed through the air on the same z-level. As the rocks are flying and aren't therefore considered to be in the same space as ground-based things (I think), they won't hit anything that doesn't take up the entire space like a wall until they reach their destination, at which point they do damage in a small radius. Ballistae shoot prepared bolts in a straight line that will go through anything on the same z-level until they either hit a wall or are destroyed by going through too many things. If you go through the effort of tipping them with steel heads, they tend to be very deadly indeed, especially if you trap your target in a hallway as has been suggested.

That said, you want a set of three masterwork parts firing a masterwork bolt to have any hope of precision (dwarves apparently believe in accuracy through serendipity) so be prepared to go through forests of wood in training and then production. In all, its inefficient but supremely satisfying, especially if you don't want to deal with the death, injury, and subsequent tantrum-fest that a military can engender.

As a final note, if a bolt or stone drops a z-level on impact before hitting a floor, it's saved. This can be of great use in trying to salvage precious, precious masterwork bolts, as well as in making nice compact siege operator training centers by pointing catapults at a wall, channeling away the space directly in front of the wall and building a stairway next to it back up to the catapult.