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Author Topic: Custom Siege Engine Ammo Issue  (Read 861 times)

kamikazi1231

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Custom Siege Engine Ammo Issue
« on: November 06, 2013, 11:25:23 pm »

I've been experimenting with the siege engine plug in from dfhack and am enjoying tossing landmines and captured invaders at incoming sieges.  I've also been using cheap stone cages and throwing invaders into my volcano.  I have noticed that with a catapult the custom ammo like blocks, cages, etc won't fire through fortifications.  I tested to make sure it wasn't just the blocks not showing the flying animation and launched a few landmines and they opened inside of the fortification.  When the fortifications were removed and I used a lowering bridge instead everything flew fine.  Standard stones would still fire through the fortifications.

Just thought I'd mention it.  Maybe someone has found a work around.  But if not it'd be quite a bit of !Fun! if you tried throwing some giant captured goblin mount at another type of invader only to have the cage burst open one tile away from your legendary siege operator.

Of course my set up had the catapult right up against the fortification, if that matters.  I'm not sure but maybe the custom ammo is spawning in the center of the catapult so it's not counting as being able to pass through the fortification.
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Urist McTeellox

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Re: Custom Siege Engine Ammo Issue
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2013, 11:43:24 pm »

Oh my! I can throw captured things at my enemies? I now know what to do with the Giant Cave Spider that's been making me feel uneasy the whole time. :D

I'm guessing that if fortifications are blocking it, then catapults won't go *over* walls, will they?
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kamikazi1231

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Re: Custom Siege Engine Ammo Issue
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2013, 12:08:46 am »

Oh my! I can throw captured things at my enemies? I now know what to do with the Giant Cave Spider that's been making me feel uneasy the whole time. :D

I'm guessing that if fortifications are blocking it, then catapults won't go *over* walls, will they?

I'm guessing not.  Siege engines don't work like we would picture them in our heads.  They actually fire like crossbow bolts only on the z level the siege engine is built, but they can fall down z levels after hitting something.  To throw that giant cave spider make a stockpile that accepts animals and only select giant cave spider(or goblin or something).  Then have that stockpile set to take from your main animal stockpile.  Use Q to highlight the catapult and hit Alt + a.  It'll bring up a fairly obvious menu on the top right allowing you to choose to only take ammo from that new cave spider only stockpile, and to cycle it's ammo type to cages.  Then you can define a box that the siege engine will fire at.  Now when you set the catapult to fire the dwarf will load up the caged spider, fling it through the air, the cage will break, and the spider will wreak havoc on the enemy.  You can use landmines and such to make bombs of a sort.  They will explode instantly if they land within a few tiles of the enemy siege.

I'd suggest have the catapult on the same z level as the siege and use lots of high quality parts.  Have a bridge that raises to block the catapult if you are fighting archers.  Maybe leave a nice dry moat to fire over so they can't just run in.  That's what I'm doing at the moment because fortifications seem to block it.   Been busy chucking steelclad war raptors and elephants into sieges.
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