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[Matias]

Actually, some of the rock Romans used in their catapults during the sieges are present even today, even with hit marks. They used a lot of marble (!?), because it was easy to carve into a precise ball and used different sized balls for different ranges. Biggest of them being a little over size of a human head.

-Matias

[Savok]

quote:Originally posted by Delton:
<STRONG>I also remember a bunch of heads being fired into the city. ;-)
I want corpse-ammo, so bad....</STRONG>

And there we have our miasma bombs.

[mickel]

A spiked ball would be less reusable than a smooth one, the reason being that the first thing that happens on impact is that the spikes bend and break off, same as what would happen if it hit something hard, like a rock wall.

I imagine it wouldn't roll very well either, because if it hit soft ground, the spikes bury itself in it and it gets stuck. If it hits hard ground, the spikes bend or break and the thing goes irregular and can't roll.

As for the psychological impact of it, I can't really see why spikes would make much of a difference. It looks a bit more odd when it comes flying, but in the end I'd be more afraid of the people who use brutally effective weapons than of the people who use overworked gimmick weapons.

Of course, that's from a CO's perspective.

In either case, even if it did scare gobbos a bit more than a plain rock, I'd never use them. The disadvantages outweigh the advantages, and with well over three times the production cost and time, it's much less bang for the bucks.

[Yucca]

I do like the idea of having something other than building components that trains the siege engineering skill.  Maybe using random chunks of rock could still be used for training purposes, but they could have a massive accuracy penalty that effectively makes them useless for actual combat.

I wouldn't get too complicated with the options however.  1 stone could turn into 2 balls or 2 loads of something like grapeshot.  The stone could work like normal rocks do now, and the grapeshot could work like throwing a large amount of small stones (and we all know how effective small spinning stones can be!), but it would have a short range.

Of course this should not prevent throwing anything else as catapult ammo.  Some sort of tag on the stocks screen that allows you to label something as "catapult ammo", item haulers then take it to a catapult ammo stockpile.  If I want to throw my artifact elephant leather thong that is encircled with bands of pumice, let-r-rip!

And, just because I'm a nerd like this, Tolkien clearly states that the men of Minas Tirith did not have catapults large enough to reach the orcish army.  Jackson got that part wrong.  The whole thing about the heads though, brilliant!  You do not want to fight a war against the Witch-King of Angmar!

[ September 14, 2007: Message edited by: Yucca ]

[ September 14, 2007: Message edited by: Yucca ]

[mickel]

Firing heads and other body parts, as well as rotting carcasses and other stuff is a tried-and-true tactic. As long as you have a catapult and a rotting carcass, why not combine them, for some additional fun?

[Savok]

quote:Originally posted by DrJonez:
<STRONG>Make it so the ammo crafting increases the siege engineering skill, so it doesn't take the ridiculous task of felling 600 trees to make a good siege engineer.</STRONG>

As they are right now, good siege engines are expensive. Incredibly expensive on treeless maps.
Since good siege engines are not any kind of cheat, like traps can be, and since they are powerful, they are very valuble.

Highly valuble things should be difficult to obtain.

[mickel]

I don't see why traps are any more cheating than doors...

Are siege engines any good? I don't think I've ever actually used one. It just hasn't struck me as sensible to use slow-firing artillery against small, highly mobile targets.

Granted, they move in clusters, but still...

[Yucca]

I fully understand that one should need to work to get powerful defenses, and that traps are way past ridiculous as they stand now, but it just seems like bad RP to cut down 600 trees, build catapults out of them then throw the catapults into the chasm.  Then once you've done that, you start building catapults for use.  I'm not saying we need some other way to train engineers just because I want it easier to get good siege weapons.  I'll gladly work for them, but I'd prefer it to be good RP.

Maybe make the catapult ammo train masonry, but designing and construction ballista bolts should logically train engineering.  Or the actual construction of the engine.  Have building the component worth 30 exp points, putting it together worth 10, one ballista bolt worth 3 or 5.  It seems odd that there are jobs that require the engineering skill but don't train it.

[Tamren]

quote:Originally posted by Yucca:
<STRONG>And, just because I'm a nerd like this, Tolkien clearly states that the men of Minas Tirith did not have catapults large enough to reach the orcish army.  Jackson got that part wrong.  The whole thing about the heads though, brilliant!  You do not want to fight a war against the Witch-King of Angmar!</STRONG>

Did it say anything about trebuchets or the orcish catapults? If you look at the video, the angle that the orc pults fire at means the heads would have hit the ground about 60 feet away.

Anyhow, i remember researching for an essay about ancient siege warfare. When cannons first came out people were loading them with arrows because that was what they were used to. Later on arrows involved into cannon balls, hollow cannonballs with fuses to airburst and that sort of thing.

But before that when cannons were new, i read that they used to heat the cannonballs red hot before firing them.  Now how the hell does that work??!?!?!?!?!

Still it would be awesome if we could fire by catapult pots of something like molten lead.

[Mylar]

Kitchen:
O) Render fat into barrel

Catapult:
Fire...
s) stone
m) metal shot
c) rotting corpse
o) flaming oil

[ September 17, 2007: Message edited by: Mylar ]

[JPolito]

quote:Originally posted by Delton:
<STRONG>I want corpse-ammo, so bad....</STRONG>

Burning corpse ammo. Elves especially.

[Name Lips]

Most people who are familiar with the fantasy genre are amazed when they hear that most historical catipult/trebuchet ammunition was head-sized or smaller. In all the video games and books they hurl boulders that, in reality, would weigh hundreds of pounds, or even tons.

In general (there are always lots of exceptions) siege engines were used to knock down buildings. They weren't designed to do this in one shot - it took a repetitive sequence of shots in the same location to get the job done. Head-sized boulders were up to the task - it might take 40 or 50 of them, but they'd get the wall down.

Your main problems were hitting the target every time. If your ammunition had different weights, you'd have to re-adjust your weapon for every shot. There would be a high rate of error. You need ammunition that weighs the same, according to an abstract standard. You need siege weapons that behave identically - each catapult has to hurl the same sized rock exactly the same distance as the other catapults when set to the same range. This is why the Romans used marble. You can't just toss whatever scrap rock you have lying around into the weapon. It needs to be carved as precicely as possible to the correct standardized weight and shape. And marble is a great kind of rock for precision carving.

Siege warfare was all about the math. What DF does right is show you how long and hard an operator has to train to be any good at it. It was a Big Deal if your experienced operators got killed. You can't just tell some other troops to man the siege weaponry - they'd be useless at it.

[RP]

quote:Originally posted by Mylar:
Catapult:
Fire

. . .

o) flaming oil

'Rockrain' Blorpeldorp cancels task: On fire.

[ September 17, 2007: Message edited by: RP ]