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[Jackrabbit]

So. In a pathetic attempt to link the title to the material think about this. when a stone hits the ground, flung from a catapult or just dropped off a ledge it may shatter. it could cause a small amount of cave dust and fling shards everywhere which do gore damage. there could be a random chance that a stone will shatter, larger if the dropping distance is higher (if you drop from 80 z levels up its gonna shatter but if you fling it a foot nothing is gonna happen) and ice rocks will always shatter after being flung 8 tiles or more and do slightly more gore damage with there shards.

Good idea? feasible? please let me know.
also sorry if this has been mentioned before.

[EDIT] no-one? ok. i will ask toady as it seems like an ok idea. but i assume its not

[MMad]

I've seen a suggestion here previously that catapult impacts should create dust around it, like a cave-in does, and do a bit a splash damage to nearby creatures. Since they're pretty weak as it is, I'd say it sounds like a good idea.

[Idiom]

Shrapnel needs to be implemented for a number of things. Perhaps this should go in with the explosives arc?

[Skizelo]

That's an arc? What a game!
Would a boulder explode though? Bounce around a bit, sure and raise dust, but explode? Especially when you factor in that it's torn through x floors already, so it won't have that much kinetic energy.
If this is put in to path the way for fully fledged artillery shells though, it would have my full support.

[i2amroy]

That's an arc? What a game!
Would a boulder explode though? Bounce around a bit, sure and raise dust, but explode? Especially when you factor in that it's torn through x floors already, so it won't have that much kinetic energy.
If this is put in to path the way for fully fledged artillery shells though, it would have my full support.

Yeah, I boulder wouldn't shatter, I mean, look at any movie with siege warfare in it and you will see that while the boulder sometimes does roll for a little while after hitting, it does not explode. There could be some exceptions to this though, as ice would probably shatter in the least, and obsidian might do the same.

[Skizelo]

I mean, look at any movie with siege warfare in it and you will see that while the boulder sometimes does roll for a little while after hitting, it does not explode.

I've seen a film about the English Civil-War which had cannons firing shells (they exploded on impact, throwing up clods of earth). What a lazy, lazy film.
I like the idea of a new tag ([FRAGMENT]?) for rocks. Would a geologist stand up and tell me if there are some rocks that would just turn into powder? Maybe chalk.

[i2amroy]

I mean, look at any movie with siege warfare in it and you will see that while the boulder sometimes does roll for a little while after hitting, it does not explode.

I've seen a film about the English Civil-War which had cannons firing shells (they exploded on impact, throwing up clods of earth). What a lazy, lazy film.
I like the idea of a new tag ([FRAGMENT]?) for rocks. Would a geologist stand up and tell me if there are some rocks that would just turn into powder? Maybe chalk.

Yeah, but those are cannons, not catapults, and shells, not boulders.

Anyway, the [FRAGMENT] tag would be a cool idea, but instead why not have a percentage chance of the stone shattering, so the tag would be [FRAGMENT:??] with the ?? being the percentage chance that a stone would shatter when it hit.

[Skizelo]

Actually, they should have been vanilla canon balls, the producer put in some explosions (box-office gold); it was just that your citing of movies as paragons of historical accuracy, made me smile.

[The Dark Bunny]

Depending on the stone type, boulders actually fragment pretty badly as they impact.  Not generally in ways that sling shrapnel, but a large amount of sedimentary rock moving at high speeds tends to break into several pieces as it hits.

[Heavy Flak]

If there's an explosions arc, this could lead to MORE things being catapulted than just stone.  Like wooden barrels full of pitch or oil, along with fire arrows to set off the spills. 

Stone blocks could be carved hollow and filled with explosives and nails, and lobbed at enemies to hopefully shatter and explode and impale on impact. 

Clay pots filled full off iron caltrops that cause damage to the feet of any enemy not wearing metal footwear. 

Oil soaked boulders set alight, so they'd be sent rolling through ranks of goblins, setting ablaze monsters and siege weapons a like. 

Man, now I'm all excited for stuff that won't come for a LONG time  

[i2amroy]

If there's an explosions arc, this could lead to MORE things being catapulted than just stone.  Like wooden barrels full of pitch or oil, along with fire arrows to set off the spills. 

Stone blocks could be carved hollow and filled with explosives and nails, and lobbed at enemies to hopefully shatter and explode and impale on impact. 

Clay pots filled full off iron caltrops that cause damage to the feet of any enemy not wearing metal footwear. 

Oil soaked boulders set alight, so they'd be sent rolling through ranks of goblins, setting ablaze monsters and siege weapons a like. 

Man, now I'm all excited for stuff that won't come for a LONG time  

Yeah, that would all be great with the fire as long as by the time it comes out dwarves understand what it is and how to deal with it. If not, one flaming arrow would eventually doom your fortress because some dwarf would shoot it at a target, causing the dwarf that is cleaning to catch on fire, and so on.

[blakyoshi7]

If there's an explosions arc, this could lead to MORE things being catapulted than just stone.

Historically, people have catapulted poisonous animals. And rotting corpses, to spread disease.

The most effective ammo, however, would probably be the obvious choice: The spiked ball.

[FunkyBomb]

I personally would have my dwarves smash up boulders for grapeshot instead.

[Jackrabbit]

I would fire cats and kittens. sadistic YES! affective no.

seriously it took ages for people to reply and given the rapidity that it usually happens i thought i created a thread that died before it started. thanks for you incite and my other idea was freezing water in mid air so the shards flew down and shattered, causing shards to go everywhere causing gore damage but not piercing because of the high body count that would rack up.

[Neonivek]

The most effective ammo, however, would probably be the obvious choice

I kinda hope all the large weapons will make it into Seige weapon, or just Weapon platform, form eventually... Imagine a Serrated disk Launcher