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[ChaosOrdeal]

PLEASE make ballistae and catapults work something like their real-world counterparts!!

[GreatWyrmGold]

More specifically?

[IT 000]

I think he's talking about making them do more damage than oversized pillows. Also to have them stay in a straight line when launched from a legendary operator with masterwork parts.

Either way, both of these are bugs and I'm sure they're already in mantis.

[Uristocrat]

Presumably this would be fixable by having them use the new projectile/falling code?  By all appearances, they have not been updated, so maybe Toady will work them in while working on this stuff.

It is kind of weird when shooting someone with a catapult isn't as harmful as dropping the rock on them directly

[10ebbor10]

Presumably this would be fixable by having them use the new projectile/falling code?  By all appearances, they have not been updated, so maybe Toady will work them in while working on this stuff.

It is kind of weird when shooting someone with a catapult isn't as harmful as dropping the rock on them directly

The problem with the new parabolic paths and such is aiming. We don't want to have a whole lot of catapults in a hidden cave continously shooting the ceiling in an attempt to to toss a stone onto a goblins at the other side of the map.

[cybergon]

The problem with the new parabolic paths and such is aiming. We don't want to have a whole lot of catapults in a hidden cave continously shooting the ceiling in an attempt to to toss a stone onto a goblins at the other side of the map.

Which is the problem with real life catapults to begin with. What you want are cannons.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Or ballistae.

[Waparius]

The easy solution would be to put your catapults outside or, as suggested above, use a ballista. It becomes easier to put said catapults outside when they can shoot vertically as well as horizontally, since they can sit on towers, behind walls, and so on. For underground work there's always minecart and (when they get implemented) rolling boulder traps.

[ChaosOrdeal]

By "like their real-life counterparts" I mean I want to be able to mount a ballista on a wall, have an operator fire it, and, let's say based on the operator's Crossbow or Siege Weapon skill, hit a target that is flying above him or walking on the ground below him, in a reasonable arc of fire, not just in ordinal directions.  Then a crew of maybe three dwarves take a minute or so to reload the weapon so it could be fired again.  Let's assume that a ballista without something like a pintel mount would be fairly useless.

My red hot sex fantasy is that a dragon wheels over my fortress, twenty ballistae fire at him, one of them misfires, breaks and maims a crewman.  Most of the shots miss, one bounces off the dragon's scales, and one sticks in the dragon's calf (or whatever dragons have).  The dragon thinks, "hey, a defenseless village sounds like a lot more fun than this place," and he effs off.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Hm, that's agood idea. Or maybe a few Or maybe unintentional. Let's break it down:

1. Dwarves firing siege engines at targets on other z-levels.
2. Multiple dwarves to a siege engine.
3. Siege engines firing accurately enough to hit one, specific (if large) creature.
4. Siege engines being able to turn a bit on their own, to hit such creatures (probably requiring more dwarves, possibly requiring specially-built engines).
5. Siege engines (and maybe other mechanical devices) sometimes malfunctioning.
6. Dragons' scales being tough enough to reflect most attacks.
7. Megabeasts leaving once they realise that your fort is a lot tougher than most settlements.

[Waparius]

IIRC, siege engines do fire in an arc - it's just triangle-shaped. On the other hand, does the command to "Fire at Will" result in siege operators actually firing at enemies, or do they just pound away? I think it's the latter, and if so changing that would make a lot of difference.

[Uristocrat]

It seems that people are having some success filling minecarts with ballista bolts, then sending them down three ramps or so, into a fortification.  Apparently this is far more effective than actually firing them out of your ballistae right now.

So this suggestion is probably more of a bugfix:  the two just need to start using the new projectile code

[GreatWyrmGold]

Plus something (accuracy?) to make it better than slinging a minecart at something.