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[Iren]

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere before, I've been looking for a similar thread but couldnt find it.

I have set my fort defenses to use several ballistas and luring the goblin sieges to them with a special division of cannon fodder high ranked and glorious nobles, while fortified marksmen rain bolts over the siege (which somewhat keeps the goblins in place unless a caravan or migration wave appears) and a raised bridge and pit prevents everyone for going in and out. Problem is, after depleting about 15 iron headed ballista ammo, I couldnt see any goblin falling to any ballista shot, even when many shots went straight through the goblin army.

I wonder where i'm failing to set a decent siege weapon defense, I considered making adamantine heads but I'm not sure if it would mean something. Luckly some adamantine bolts helped to kill the goblin commander and the others simply escaped.

[KtosoX]

From wiki:
"Ballista arrows tipped with softer materials (such as wood) can glance off ordinary clothes, making the choice of arrowhead significant. "
You should go for heavy and sharp materials, bronze maybe? Or steel?

[Iren]

From wiki:
"Ballista arrows tipped with softer materials (such as wood) can glance off ordinary clothes, making the choice of arrowhead significant. "
You should go for heavy and sharp materials, bronze maybe? Or steel?

Well I'm waiting for the next caravan to bring me a lot of bronze and steel, will try it and report.

[AWdeV]

But iron should theoretically work too.

[MonkeyHead]

I have had wooden balliste bolts seriously maim gobbos... then they bleed out. Silver and copper are my main boltheads, and they work well against bunches (common sense dictates this really doenst it), and according to the combat log (pun intended) tend to injure more by combining lots of bruises/broken bones and such like....

Cheap edit: too many poor typos.

[Girlinhat]

Wooden bolts do good against goblins because they can hit the unprotected arms or barely-protected lower body.  Metal bolts will generally punch through armor though.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Unless you are playing 40d, ballista bolts currently do BLUNT damage proportional to the bolt's weight. Wood and addy bolts suck, while silver bolts don't suck as much. Read the combat reports!

[Iren]

Well I used to make wooden ballista bolts but they werent knocking any goblin either, that's why I tried doing iron tipped ballista bolts to see if a difference was made... either my dwarves are aiming too high, or those goblins are from the Matrix.

[CriticallyAshamed]

I thought there was a problem with the game using the wrong material reference for the damage? Instead of using the tip it used the whole bolt? Maybe I'm dreaming though.

[Greiger]

I'm not sure why you would not have them getting hit. I seem to have no trouble myself.

If it helps, only the center tile of the ballista arrow does damage (the front and back are decoration), lying down creatures seem to be immune to them, and the creature must be in the tile when the center of the arrow enters the tile.  A creature that enters a tile occupied by the center of a ballista arrow takes no damage.