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[franti]

1) Can Balistae fire through multiple Fortifications?
2) What is the radius of the balista's firing area. If I place a balistae, does an enemy have to be exactly in it's line of fire?
3) Does Balistae ammo go in the "ammo" stockpile? Is it possible to designate a stockpile for just Balistae ammo?
4) Does Siege Operator make Balistas more accurate, powerful, or quicker to reload?
5) If a goblin gets hit by a Balistae bolt from ~12 tiles away, will it kill it?

[SpiralDimentia]

I'm relatively new to ballistae, but here goes.

1. Yes.
2. It's target area is directly infront of it, but due to many [many] (MANY) factors, it's almost never shot there. The ballista can have wild shots that hit the ground right infront of them, or way off in the distance. Imagine it's firing area as a tight frontal cone.
3. It goes in the Seige Ammo stockpile. That would be... uhh... Furniture/Seige Ammo stockpile. You can designate it to hold ONLY seige ammo with a custom stockpile. p-c-t.
4. They make it faster to reload, and I think it increases accuracy. They do not increase power [as far as I know, anyways.]
5. Depends on what the bolt is made of, and what the goblin is wearing. A wooden bolt will bruise muscle and break bones, but armor easily deflects it. Metal bolts are better at penetrating armor. But if it gets a good shot at any distance, it will kill. and probably whatever was standing behind it too. And behind him as well.

I recently had a goblin seige, and I only have wooden bolts [because copper arrowheads are 3 bars per, and I haven't been mining alot of it.] and a wooden bolt struck a goblin in the hand and throat. It broke the hand, but only bruised the throat. The other goblins it sailed through were fine because it hit them in armored parts.

[franti]

So if I have a bridge and two balistae facing it at a perpendicular (90 degree) angle, they will be able to hit targets other than those in a straight linear path ON PURPOSE?
Also, will studding balistae bolts with lead increase weight enough to increase damage?

[SpiralDimentia]

This is my entrance hall. It's not pretty, or well designed, or anything like that. However, due to the wildness of ballista shots, both of those ballista can hit anything in that hallway. Ballista shots, however, are almost purely luck. You only control which direction the cone faces.

But like I said, it's luck. See that pit under the bridge? I've had my ballistae fire bolts directly into it.

And no, I don't believe studding bolts increases their damage.

Oh, and ignore the blood... nothing to see here, move along, citizen.

[Fredd]

 Fortifications do not impede a ballista bolt. Neither does a goblin, orc, or a friendly dwarf in its line of fire. Only thing that does if it strikes a wall, which will either destroy it, or cause it to fall into a trench dug along along side the wall it hit. Similar to digging trenches for archery targets, to collect used bolts.
 Siege operator skill helps with reloading speeds. The material quality of its components seems to help narrowing field of fire, at long ranges, but not consistent enough to be considered a viable defense, unless you use multiple units firing along a narrow corridor repeatedly.
 The material composing the bolts does help with damage, along with the quality of materials involved. To sum it up, siege machines are not really that effective a defense, but still have the "Shiney" effect. What is a fort without several. Besides, catapults are a great rock disposal tool, and give jobs.

[Aranador]

To best of my knowledge - the siege weapon shot flies in a dead straight line, but that line can be ~15-20 degrees off plumb.  The weapon never tries to 'aim' at anything down range, it just fires off.  If it so happens that something hittable is in a square that the projectile passes though, then I believe it tests to hit, based on operator skill (this is anecdotal, based on having projectiles pass through targets without hitting sometimes).

As stated above - better bolts are more likely to penetrate armour.

I had once set up a fort with a battery of 5 catapults (3 in the first row, 2 immediately behind them) who's field of fire covered a funnel choke point.  A siege turned up, and funneled through the choke point.  About three dozen rocks were fired.  2-3 passed through squares with goblins in them (and there were a dozen or so goblins in the 'kill' box.  One goblin appeared to actually get struck, and appeared to have the rock make 3 attack rolls (or - maybe he actually got hit by 3 rocks - but it seemed the former).  2 of the hits glanced away, the last caused a slight bruise.

This was with catapults - ballista can be slightly more effective as they can potentially hit multiple targets.

I am underwhelmed with siege engines - the effort to get them doing anything seems to be beyond the likely return.  I prefer marksdwarves and dwarves with axes instead.

[SpiralDimentia]

To best of my knowledge - the siege weapon shot flies in a dead straight line, but that line can be ~15-20 degrees off plumb.  The weapon never tries to 'aim' at anything down range, it just fires off.  If it so happens that something hittable is in a square that the projectile passes though, then I believe it tests to hit, based on operator skill (this is anecdotal, based on having projectiles pass through targets without hitting sometimes).

As stated above - better bolts are more likely to penetrate armour.

I had once set up a fort with a battery of 5 catapults (3 in the first row, 2 immediately behind them) who's field of fire covered a funnel choke point.  A siege turned up, and funneled through the choke point.  About three dozen rocks were fired.  2-3 passed through squares with goblins in them (and there were a dozen or so goblins in the 'kill' box.  One goblin appeared to actually get struck, and appeared to have the rock make 3 attack rolls (or - maybe he actually got hit by 3 rocks - but it seemed the former).  2 of the hits glanced away, the last caused a slight bruise.

This was with catapults - ballista can be slightly more effective as they can potentially hit multiple targets.

I am underwhelmed with siege engines - the effort to get them doing anything seems to be beyond the likely return.  I prefer marksdwarves and dwarves with axes instead.

One hit three times. Like I said, I had 1 bolt hit a goblin 3 times, breaking her hand, hitting her throat, and another hit I don't remember where. But yeah, ballista are definately superior to catapults when it comes to actual combat. A catapult's ammo will glance off armor regardless, if I recall correctly, but a metal-tipped ballista bolt will skewer goblins, ripe for the fire pit.  They are definately mostly for show, I just love the way they look, but when the shit hits the fan, they're pretty good for softening up a group of goblins. I intend to make a ''Seige Training Room'' thats like 5x5, with the bolts hitting a wall and falling into a pit for reuse, to train my seige operators up. Hopefully, this will mean more kills when an actual seige happens.

[Uristocrat]

It probably won't count for much, but I recommend using cobaltite exclusively for your catapult ammo (unless you really want to use native silver, gold or platinum).  It's the densest rock that's not smeltable right now, unless they ever give more of the stones proper densities, in which case things like ilmenite will suddenly become heavy.

Naturally, pretty much all of the heavy rocks are metal ores, but I doubt we'll ever be able to smelt titanium or cobalt, so it doesn't matter much.

[franti]

It probably won't count for much, but I recommend using cobaltite exclusively for your catapult ammo (unless you really want to use native silver, gold or platinum).  It's the densest rock that's not smeltable right now, unless they ever give more of the stones proper densities, in which case things like ilmenite will suddenly become heavy.

Naturally, pretty much all of the heavy rocks are metal ores, but I doubt we'll ever be able to smelt titanium or cobalt, so it doesn't matter much.

Wouldn't Pitchblende be the heaviest due to the high Uranium count?

[EmperorJon]

It would seem it has no set density.

Therefore, it uses the STONE material template. [SOLID_DENSITY:2670] Fail.

[acer_palmatum]

Just a note on ballistas and batteries in particular- make sure that you place a line of fortifications on all sides of the ballista that will not be used for operating- this is key to prevent paniced dwarves from jumping out of the ballista when enemies come too close and taking a ballista shot from ballistas behind him or his own ballista if the timing was correct.

also make sure that your ballistas are at least 20 units away from any possible incoming unit, they have a range that is greater than catapults at 150+ units so as long as they are made out of good parts they will fire near plumb.

and I believe that operator skill has no bearing on accuracy- only the constructed parts.

bonus- 9 ballista battery that covers the southwest corner of my fort firing at a few military squads danger room style

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

steel bolts do absolutely devastating damage but can be blocked or dodged like any other attack.