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[MindSnap]

I was thinking about making giant statues outside my fortress once the z-axis is in, and pretty quickly I got to mecha...

I was thinking of putting a dwarf in the head with a bunch of levers that fire pre-loaded catapults and ballistas at my enemies.
In order to do this we would need to be able to fire ballistas and catapults using levers. However they could only shoot straight, and catapults would probably need to fire at a pretty low trajectory. The upsides would be that you could fire them all simultaneously, and there wouldn't be any risk involved for the dwarves. Comments?

[Albert the Absentminded]

I want catapults that fire rubble as area-effect weapons

[Tubal_Cain]

You read my mind, I just thought that this would be a great idea and was going to post it this morning.  It would be a good use of mechanics,  just have it only fire straight in the direction it's pointed, or possibly have a chance of going awry, becuase it shouldn't be as accurate as a seige engine fired by a trained operator.

[Mechanoid]

SUDDENLY, FROM NO-WHERE, 300 BALLISTA ARROWS...   :eek:

But seriously, launching all of your seige engines at the flip of a lever would be a very awsome feature. Granted, the downside is that you have to reload and reset each (huge down-time between volleys) and also that by pulling the lever, that dwarf doesn't gain any seige operator skill (only the dwarves that reload do)
So not only is the idea pure win, it's also ballanced.

[ June 28, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[4bh0r53n]

Leading on from this idea, what about having ballistae linked to pressure pads....

goblin runs along, treads on pad then *kablam* instant goblin skewer XD

[Anticheese]

Considering we already have automatically reloading/rewinding weapon traps (*hums Indiana Jones theme song), automatically reloading ballistas (ballistae?) shoud not be too far fetched.

But yeah, awsome feature. One thing you might like to add to the suggestion to improve the overall accuracy of the weapon is to designate a line of fire for the balista bolt to go through. I.E instead of it just going straight ahead with some deviation, you can choose within a cone where you want the bolt aimed.

Example:

Meet Sankis. Sankis is a hermit and has been woken up rather rudely lately by those damn goblins. He knows how to build seige engines fairly well (dwarf's gotta have a hobby!) but he just can't man them for the next seige.

So he tunnels a 3X5 corridor to his home, hollows out the sides, fortifies them and then builds ballistae that are aimed in a zig zaggy pattern that covers all 15 tiles.

He pulls the lever.

---

code:

............
.._________.
./...RIP..\.
.|.SANKIS.|.
.|........|.
.|..~~~...|. - RIP Sankis, Killed by 700kg 
.|.~~~~~..|. of high-velocity irony.
.|........|. 
............ "I'll put the lever outside." 

[Fieari]

Naaah, if you want to aim them like that, you should have to man them.  I like the idea of "automating" them with levers/pressureplates, but they shouldn't be aimable in that case.  Fixed aim only.

[Faces of Mu]

Hmmm, can't wait for the rolling boulder trap (ala Indiana J)! It would just be loosed and let to crush it's way to the nearest slope, rolling down ramps and sealing stairways.

[Captain Mayday]

Hmm, actually, once rewalling in... remotely fired ballista towers anyone?