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[Liamar]

Hey, I havn't been around for a while, but I'm extremly excited about the progress made during this time! It looks like Dwarf Fortress remains the best game ever created, with still infinite potential for improvement!

So, having that out of the way, my suggestion is: (Pardon me, if it's already in and I just don't know )

Automatic artillery that self-loads and possibly shoots, using the power of a wind or water turbine, which would redefine the meaning of a Gattling siege engine.
The up-side would be increased rate of fire to insane levels and no operator required.
The down-side would be the insane ammount of ammunition required, and close to zero accuracy.

The rate of fire could depend on the amount of power transefered to the engine and quality of over-all parts of the system.

The question is, how would the ammunition be handled, since as it stands, the operator needs to place it inside from his/hers/its inventory into the engine.
It could be either stockpiled inside the siege engine, or the system could require another building that would hold and load the ammunition, requiring more power.
If the latter option would have been chosen, the loading building would have to be placed next to the siege engine, and connected via mechanisms, rendering the siege engine orientation-dependant, if automated reloading was to retain it's functionality. So it could fire only in the direction in which the entire system was built.

Here is another, new idea for a siege-engine feature: Caged creatures, dwarfes or corpses as ammunition.
Just how funny would it be to fire their friends (still alive and dead) at the retreating assailants, making them all vomit cause of the gore?! How funny would it be to role-play insane king who want's to beat the dwarfen record of firing a dwarf from a catapult furthest, without killing him?
The ballistae is far more effective then the catapult, and adding this kind of features to the catapult, which are quite historically accurate I think, would add a lot of FUN to the game! Maybe an insane engine operator could, in his madness wrestle other dwarfes and fire them into a volcane from his catapult?! Imagine the possibilities! Fireing a caged dragon into the sieging army to wreack havock, or possibly get released when fired, exterminating entire fort! So, much, FUN!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Seems a wee bit past 1400s-era tech...
Maybe hook ballistae up to pressure plates or levers, but that's about it.

[Mr. Palau]

Well there should probably be a seperate building above the seige engine. The engine should be around 5x the parts of a normal catapult/ballista, all in a 5x3x2 ( x2 is height) space, with many more mechanisms, no siege operator, of course, and a high power requirment (I'm thinking around 5 water wheels).

Both catapults and ballistas are wound up before being fired, which gives them their power. So you need to attach the ropes winding them up to an axle, which pulls it taunt and then spins in the other direction to release it, and then you could simply have the ammo drop from above a set number of second after the axle switches it's roatation, reloading the machine.

There was appearently a actuall semi-repeating ballista in REAL LIFE, called a Polybolos. It was small, had horrible aim, and a short effective range compared to a regular ballista. If we simply make the ballista bigger, then you could make it more powerful and increase it's range. (hence the x3)

No way for it to detect enemies though, so it would have to be attached to pressure plates or a lever.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The repeating ballista that I read about was precise, which was a major issue.

Regardless, it seems stupid to me to say "You need to spend way more resources and space on this 'cuz it does special stuff." That's not how DF rolls.

[Mr. Palau]

But this is exactly the sort of ridiculously complicated device that characterizes Dwarf Fortress. Most of the increased parts are only necessary to get the 5x fire rate, which is done by the effective integration of 5 different siege engines, in the model described. All of the devices parts fall within the time period, you are simply replacing the manual cocking of the firing mechanism with the axle and a rope. 

And actually the historical device has a chain drive, so you would not need an extra building above the machine, it could hust fit in the 5x3.

[Liamar]

I am not very keen towards the increased costs idea myself, as the downsides of no accuracy, no aiming at particular enemies, and ridiculous amount of ammunition required seems to be enough, to offset and balance it's additional functions. Besides, rate of fire would depend on power applied, and could be limited to, say, twice the fireing rate of a legendary operator.
But what's importnat about this concept, is not exactly how effective it is, and how hard should it be to make. The important bit, is that it should be allowed for the player to be able to do something like this.

Also, here is another idea.
The ballistae is far more effective then the catapult. So lets give the catapult it's historical use by allowing the player to fire creatures from it! What can be more funny then fireing a caught goblin form a catapult?! Or fireing rotting carcases and corpses of the assailants at their retreating comrades, making all of them vomit cause of the gore? This must be in!

[10ebbor10]

Then again dwarf fortress is not a game where you invest X resources to get Y superweapon, but a game where you get many small parts, and are allowed to construct a doomsday weapon of your own design.

Hence why I propose to allow siege weapons to be moddable, maybe attachable to switches and power, and that there should be an ammo select button for catapults. With these you can make a rapid fire ballista with some clever stacking. Or you can mod it in yourself.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also, here is another idea.
The ballistae is far more effective then the catapult. So lets give the catapult it's historical use by allowing the player to fire creatures from it! What can be more funny then fireing a caught goblin form a catapult?! Or fireing rotting carcases and corpses of the assailants at their retreating comrades, making all of them vomit cause of the gore? This must be in!

Planned.

Then again dwarf fortress is not a game where you invest X resources to get Y superweapon, but a game where you get many small parts, and are allowed to construct a doomsday weapon of your own design.

Hence why I propose to allow siege weapons to be moddable, maybe attachable to switches and power, and that there should be an ammo select button for catapults. With these you can make a rapid fire ballista with some clever stacking. Or you can mod it in yourself.

I quite agree. Ballista bolts are moddable, why not ballistae?

[Mr. Palau]

Then again dwarf fortress is not a game where you invest X resources to get Y superweapon, but a game where you get many small parts, and are allowed to construct a doomsday weapon of your own design.

Hence why I propose to allow siege weapons to be moddable, maybe attachable to switches and power, and that there should be an ammo select button for catapults. With these you can make a rapid fire ballista with some clever stacking. Or you can mod it in yourself.

+1

[Revanchist]

Wasn't a mid-way improvement to get moddable seige equipement?

[katana]

What if we met midway and made ballistae and catapults automatically fire any objects that's dropped onto their center tile if provided power?
You get a much less accurate siege engine (no operator means no legendary skill bonus) that can fire at a rate based on how much power is being linked to it, and all you need to do is keep dumping stuff from above.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think it would make more sense to just have catapults loadable with any object.

[Revanchist]

That would make the most sense, but when do Dwarves care about sense? Efficiency, Industry and working, but not sense. Although yes... Catapults should fire whatever you can load in it.

[AutomataKittay]

Hmm, I wonder how a catapults hooked up to a power system to pull the arm down would work for DF.

Probably not much better, unless it's got a minecart's volume for flinger so you can jam in more stuffs

And throw corpses!