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[superradish]

besides the GROUND? i can't hit freaking anything with a catapult. Normally whatever i fire just sails to the edge of a map. Aren't they supposed to be able to fire over walls? Haven't seen that one either. Has anyone gotten these things to work or am i just wasting my time?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Catapults are powerful but inaccurate. They do not go over walls, however.

[Robocorn]

besides the GROUND? i can't hit freaking anything with a catapult. Normally whatever i fire just sails to the edge of a map. Aren't they supposed to be able to fire over walls? Haven't seen that one either. Has anyone gotten these things to work or am i just wasting my time?

I've never had them fly over walls, I've had them hit things straight on, but never anything important. They fly somewhere between 30 and 100 squares so it will almost always fly offscreen.

I bet Steve'd like to be catapulted. This forum is for people like him

[Urist Imiknorris]

I wish I could fire unruly dwarves from catapults.

[SanDiego]

I wish I could fire unruly dwarves from catapults.

You can. It just needs a bit of creative brige engineering. See Sparkgear space program.

[Rowanas]

As it stands, catapults are utterly useless. You have a 1 in 70 chance of hitting something, assuming it's staying still and your ammunition flies perfectly on the trajectory that you fired it on. The only possible use for catapults would be if you had a fortress of 100 siege engineers, all lined up in a neat little battery, 10 catapults wide by 10 catapults deep. Then you would at least be able to thin the ranks of an enemy siege, although ambushes would probably go unscathed.

Of course, that's only thinning the ranks. you would still need a military or trap based defence afterwards. You could achieve better results by lining up no more than 5 ballistae in the pattern beneath. When basic gunpowder makes it into the game (or moddable siege engines) catapults will cease to exist.

x^x   x^x   x^x
    x^x   x^x

[Nexii Malthus]

Catapults are pretty good for moving stone from a quarry to another location.

[Greiger]

Catapults and ballista were put into the game in the 2D version, and don't quite realize the third dimension exists yet.  And ballista (at least used to be) far more combat effective than a catapult.  A catapult only hits 1 or 2 tiles where the operator aimed, a ballista hits everything the bolt passes through.  And since chances are slim of an enemy standing still long enough for a projectile to hit them at range you want to maximize your chance of hitting things around your target tile not just hit your target tile.

in .31 I hear rumors of ballista having borked physics values though.  Something about no matter how the bolt hits a target, and what the head is made of, it always glances away.  I haven't managed to hit anything with a ballista yet these versions to confirm though.

[Shiv]

Yah ballistae don't work.  I've had a dog get skewered by a bolt three times now, only to have it just glance away.  That dog wouldn't even have had a throat to get bruised in the other version, but in this one they just turn brown for a second and then they're right back to wagging tails and licking faces.

As it stands, catapults are utterly useless. You have a 1 in 70 chance of hitting something, assuming it's staying still and your ammunition flies perfectly on the trajectory that you fired it on. The only possible use for catapults would be if you had a fortress of 100 siege engineers, all lined up in a neat little battery, 10 catapults wide by 10 catapults deep. Then you would at least be able to thin the ranks of an enemy siege, although ambushes would probably go unscathed.

That would actually be really awesome...maybe I'll try that when I get bored of my current fortress.

But am I to understand that catapults don't operate like ballista?  I've never tried one, so I have no idea.  With a ballista you just shot and anything that happened to be in the way got skewered.  It sounds like catapults shoot but if the stone passes through someone, it means naught unless it happens that they're standing on a tile that was a pre-picked target?

[Hyperturtle]

I had an impressively ineffective wall of catapults once.  The goblin siege came, the catapults fired (over multiple z levels I am sure, perhaps it was 3 down from where the catapults were), the goblins chased the engineers away.  So much for legendary catapult operators.  I haven't found a decent use for them other than to keep dwarfs from being idle, in df2010 at least.  In previous versions they'd get physical traits built up, but I do not believe anyone but the military gets faster/stronger now, even if you train them to legendary.

[o_O[WTFace]]

I set up a catapult defense in my current fort.  Enemies walk over a bridge, get spotted by chained dogs and then I pull the lever, raising the bridges on both sides of the enemy.  Then they are trapped and a catapult at the end fires at them.  After nearly a season of firing an ogre ended up with several yellow wounds and a goblin got a brown wound.  As far as I can tell catapult rocks are magnetically attracted to walls and made of foam.

[Robocorn]

Maybe the catapults will be useful when seigers show up with them and use them to blast through your [C]onstructed walls. I think I heard something about seige engines being in the militay arc (whether or not [C]onstructed walls are in danger is up for explanation from someone who pays attention)

[mrb4b00]

Back in .03 due to a bug, I had a goblin siege stopped dead in their tracks across a lake.  I built like a couple of catapults and had siege ops fire at them constantly.  For about a year(they stood there for a long time).  The only injury I managed to inflict was a bruised toe on one of the goblins. 

[Noble Digger]

DF needs Minas Tirith style siege catapults that cause a cavern collapse message each time they are fired and flatten a 2x3 killzone.

[Shrike]

Catapults aren't that bad, provided you take advantage of their range. The stones pass through fortifications, so it's easy to set up a nice winding shooting gallery for an incoming siege, with the operators well out of range of harm. Use bridges to close off the ends, and make it into a carnival game!