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[omega_dwarf]

I was planning to use a ballista to kill a zombie that was made out of my miner by an evil cloud.

My siege operator is at legendary. My ballista is of mid-quality parts. My ballista arrows are copper-tipped. The miner-zombie is trapped in a hallway about 25 tiles directly ahead of the ballista, separated by fortifications.

The ballista arrow behaves perfectly, shooting straight down the center of the 1-tile-wide hallway until its end well over 100 tiles away. The zombie should be obliterated. At the very least, it should be hit, even if it bounces off his rotted-away sleeve.

Three or four ballista arrows later, the miner is completely untouched. Nothing in the reports at all.

What gives? There's nothing on the wiki about once-friendly zombies being immune to freaking ballistas.

[PatrikLundell]

I know ballista arrows can miss targets in a one tile wide corridor (or the target dodge the arrow). Also, if the target is prone the arrow will pass above the target, so attempting to finish off unconscious enemies by using ballista arrows is futile.

[omega_dwarf]

Well, I'll keep trying a couple times. The thing is, wood is very scarce, so I only have 15 more. But a legendary siege operator missing four times in a row?

And it would have to be missing, because a dodge would show up in the combat logs, wouldn't it? And there's nothing there.

He isn't prone. Would there be the same problem if he's crouching or missing his legs or something? (He's been zombified a while, so lemme go check his wounds.)

Edit: Nope. He's only missing one leg.

Edit: Two more shots, still nothing. Don't want to waste arrows. Going to see if it's an aiming issue - will attempt to aggro him via crossbow, then shoot him.

Edit: My crossbowdwarf isn't shooting the miner either.

[PatrikLundell]

One way to conserve ballista arrows is to have them hit a wall (or raised drawbridge) and then fall down one level (e.g. into a single channeled tile). When the siege is over you can then get the dorfs to collect the arrows.

[Bouchart]

Ballista arrows can't hit targets that are laying on the ground.  Maybe that's your problem.

[escondida]

At this point, you might just want to engineer a cave-in (or, if it's on the surface, a cave-in that will bring the husk down to where you've engineered another cave-in trap to crush it.

[omega_dwarf]

I'd rather not tear up the surface that much. There's an aquifer on this map, so building room that's underground but above the many-level aquifer is scarce. The eventual plan is to move the fortress topside, but if that fails, then I want to make it at least very near to the surface. (There are few holes in the aquifer, so I basically have to keep the fortress either entirely above the aquifer or entirely below it for pathing reasons.)

How would I be able to tell if the guy was lying down?

I guess, in a worst-case scenario, I make some copper (or use my precious steel, of which there is little) spikes, throw them in an Upright Spikes trap, trap the zambeh in there and pull the lever on repeat. That's helped me before in a necromancer-prone area.

But I'd really like to get this ballista working, for the cool factor and because it's already set up.

[omega_dwarf]

One way to conserve ballista arrows is to have them hit a wall (or raised drawbridge) and then fall down one level (e.g. into a single channeled tile). When the siege is over you can then get the dorfs to collect the arrows.

And good to know. I knew catapults could do this (that's how I farmed two siege operators to legendary), but thought the ballista ammo always broke.

[PatrikLundell]

It works with crossbow bolts as well, but since you can't rebundle them that's kind of useless.

It's probably easier to build a cage trap and catch the bugger.
I'd then build the cage, hook a lever to it, as well as an atom smashing 10 tile long drawbridge with a door outside of it. Make the door pet-and-dwarf locked, pull the lever, unlock the door, order the pulling of the atom smashing drawbridge lever, lock the door when the dorf is halfway across the bridge, wait until the bridge has risen and then order the lowering of it (a double pull order will be too fast for the down order to register, usually), unlock the door and recover the cage and mechanism. Note that dorfs, including hostile necros and undead, can not be pitted (they don't show up in the list), and their bodies go into corpses stockpiles NOT refuse/corpses (there is a dwarf entry there, but it does nothing).

[Bouchart]

How would I be able to tell if the guy was lying down?

The background of the character should be a static brownish color.  Look under prone here to see what I mean.

It's a possibility for an undead creature, since their legs might not work properly.

[omega_dwarf]

How would I be able to tell if the guy was lying down?

The background of the character should be a static brownish color.  Look under prone here to see what I mean.

It's a possibility for an undead creature, since their legs might not work properly.

That would be really helpful! Except I'm using a tileset with creature sprites, and most of the guys' backgrounds are brown. Is there any other way to tell? I tried to make a copy of my folder and in that copy run DF without the tileset, but I couldn't, with the setup that I have :/

@PatrikLundell

I avoid atom-smashing. Cage traps...eh, a little too cheap for me to like using them, but occasionally I will. I consider this ballista thing a glitch (unless there's some reason we find), so I'd be open to cage traps. The wiki was unclear about whether traps constructed after your citizen became zombified by mist would affect said zombie, so I was avoiding it.

I could always do a DIY cage trap with a retracting bridge & pressure plate setup - or failing that, a backup lever and doors - and keep him in containment. (Until I need him to decimate a siege for me, of course.) Would I set that pressure plate to include citizens, or not?

Nonetheless, the ballista thing is bugging me enough that I just want to solve it.

[omega_dwarf]

I'll start compiling evidence that he could be lying down:

1) His left leg is gone below the knee (although his right leg and foot are completely fine.)
2) He approached my fort very slowly (although I saw him running around at some speed before, and he's annihilated every group of caravan guards thus far)
3) His pickaxe is strapped to his back (which might have happened before zombification)
4) Both upper and lower body are the yellow "inhibited" color

If he is lying down, how could I make him stand up?

[omega_dwarf]

Aha! He is prone. I was able to load up the save in a vanilla install of DF. He has the prone background when he flashes to the @ symbol.

So...I guess that's that, unless anyone knows how to make him stand up. Maybe dropping him or something? Giving him a pet or wild animal to attack? Stick him on a retracting bridge that only serves to cover a solid floor and trip him?

[TruePikachu]

If he's prone and no other units are on the tile, chances are he can't stand. The lack of a left lower leg tells me he probably can't stand (I've seen Sx pretty much 100% of the time from loss-of-leg injuries). Only way to get them to stand is to give them a crutch.

I highly doubt that is going to work with enemies, though. I'd just shoot them with crossbows or hit with a catapult. Though you can do pretty Fun stuff if you use not a retracting, but a raising, drawbridge. Things on top get flung when the bridge rises, while they are destroyed when the bridge lowers (this is in contrast to NetHack, where both raising and lowering the bridge destroys things).

EDIT: Okay, I might be wrong about something. Wiki says Sx needs loss of all [STANCE] parts, while S~ only needs one lost. I'm not sure if S~ can stand without a crutch, but I doubt it.

[omega_dwarf]

Oh, I'm fully aware of drawbridge capabilities. But catapults can hit this guy? Good. I'm going to try that out.