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[UberNube]

I have just had an awesome idea for a new weapon - the fire catapult. Essentially it is a normal catapult, but loaded with burning coal/lignite and set to fire from an altitude so that it will rain burning death upon the enemy.

The setup for this would be fairly simple. A catapult would be set up in the fortress inside a room with a single door allowing access. There would be a stockpile full of coal/lignite stones with a system to dump magma over them  to ignite them activated by a lever by the catapult. A dwarf would be sent to ready the catapult to fire, then he would be locked in the room, told to pull the lever to ignite the ammo, then ordered to open fire. He would grab the only accessible stone, completely oblivious to the flames, load it, and send it flying into the enemy, hopefully setting most of the map on fire.

Ideally the dwarf would be naked so he wouldn't get set on fire by the loading operation.

Now, tell me if this would work?

[Naz]

aren't even naked dwarves flammable?

[Rumrusher]

no they just get hurt by the burning rocks but they won't catch on fire.
so your safe until the power worker dies from the hauling/or magma hitting him so have a healing station near by or recruit red shirts with no family or friends to do the task.

[Gergination]

You know something...I think I might start a fort to just try this out real quick.

[XSI]

Yes, naked dwarves are flammable(It's the beards!), but they are a lot less so then a dressed dwarf, and it requires the dwarf to stay in contact with the fire or high temperature source for a longer time. It is possible for creatures themself to burn, but very hard to cause.

This might work, provided the catapult itself won't burn, I would be more concerned about the wood burning then the dwarf, but since you're probably making loads of catapult parts to train up your siege engineer anyway you probably have enough parts.

The real question is, how many burning rocks can a catapult fling before burning down? If it is even just one then I would say it's a success, though you will need to make new catapults regularly.

This is a weapon with potential.

[bmaczero]

I like it!  Waiting to see test results .

[UberNube]

Yes, of course it wouldn't be a terribly long-lasting weapon considering it is made of wood, but with any luck it will at least be able to fire one shot, which is enough to set the grass on fire at least.

[Gergination]

Could someone tell me where the world gen parameters are located?  I haven't fudged with them in a while and can't seem to find them...

I'm running 40d18.

I need to make the world a lot more volcanic.

[Flaede]

you can make metal catapults.
in vanilla the only metal you can use for this is adamantine.
Can this be used in your plans?

[Gergination]

Fortress name:  Glazefurnace (it was the default name)
Group name:     The Ashen Torches (randomized)

I'm just doing a small 2x2 fort with a volcano and bringing the required materials.  I'm just going to make a quick test and upload a video.  I'll post here when I finish.

[Quietust]

you can make metal catapults.
in vanilla the only metal you can use for this is adamantine.
Can this be used in your plans?

You can only make the parts using a custom smelter reaction - if you try to actually forge adamantine siege engine parts, the task will cancel with "Needs metal logs".

[Jimmy]

Question on this topic: do launched objects become immune to temperature? What would happen launching lignite through a burning bin? Also, what about ballista bolts?

[Gergination]

Well...I tried for dwarven science, results follow:

Rocks on fire aren't considered rocks.  The dwarves won't even touch them.  I tried getting them to move the rocks to a stockpile and had the catapult set to fire at will and they wouldn't touch the burning lignite stones or the burning coal.

It doesn't look like this idea will work.  If things could get caught on fire in mid air then it would be an amazing system to have the rocks fly through a magma fall, but I'm almost 100% sure that rocks in flight essentially don't exist.

[Retro]

Yeah, the in-flight thing won't work. I've never actually built catapults or siege engines before - I feel like the answer to this is no, but there's no chance of dumping flaming rocks onto the engines from above and simply having the dwarves launch them?

(also, I can't help but think what an awesome dwarven band name The Flaming Catapults would be)

[Gergination]

The rocks have to be loaded by the dwarves, in which case they have to recognize them as rocks.  If the rocks are on fire and the only available ones you get the message that they require a non economic rock.

The answer is NO.