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[Jake]

Since portable seige engines are on the way, I thought it might be worth thinking up some interesting stuff for them to throw.
The most obvious item is something incendiary, be it as simple as a bundle of wood that's set alight before firing or more complicated stuff like Greek Fire. (Which needs another name; Armok's Piss sounds suitably badass.) Rotting corpses are also traditional seige ammunition, though there probably ought to be an [ETHIC] entry in entity_default controlling whether or not the AI uses its own KIAs for this. Barrels or cages don't yet break if dropped or thrown from a height, but that has all kinds of possibilities; lye, GCS venom, poisonous snakes...
And last but not least, I wonder if Toady One would be willing to bend his time-period restrictions enough to permit parachutes as an alternative to scaling ladders?

[Andeerz]

The image of a dwarf on a parachute is both adorable and terrifying. 

And I second this suggestion!

[Auto Slaughter]

Just poking my head in to say: cats!

[Virex]

It would probably easiest to make it so that a catapult can accept anything as ammunition. Kittenpult ho! Have some rock crafts!

[Urist McCheeseMaker]

The image of a dwarf on a parachute is both adorable and terrifying. 

And I second this suggestion!

"Dwarven artillery" is taking on a new meaning, I see. Damn, I'd love to do that with one of my clownite axedorf legendaries.. If the sudden acceleration wouldn't break his legs and his brain at the same time

[Jake]

I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of felis domesticus as a projectile, actually.

And something else occurred to me not long after I posted. Since lye barrels, cages full of snakes etc would need a 'designate as catapault ammo' option in the k-menu anyway, why not apply it to other items of furniture you don't need anymore?

[rephikul]

they first need to be more accurate with the physics thing. A falling silver nugget weighting over 500kg is bound to crush neck and splat brain, not deflected by amour.

On the diversity thingie, if i can construct a net and put multiple rocks in it and use the whole thing in a single fling that'd be great. Or the ability to link cage to trigger, lauch it and remotely open when it has landed. And of couse, explosive stuff.

[FallingWhale]

I'd say that you could set an item type as ammo then choose the catapult's load off that list.
Although the idea isn't new.

[nbonaparte]

shoot clowns at elves. This would be amazing and hilarious.

[Namfuak]

As far as I know, those being besieged usually didn't launch dead livestock, as the idea of doing that was to spread disease, and those outside could move around at will and weren't enclosed, so it wasn't much of a threat. 

Dwarves with parachutes would be awesome though.  Maybe they could do that troll physics thing where they ride a chair and at the last second push off of it with their legs to counteract the force of being thrown.

[Liber celi]

Steel barrels. With red, warm, glowing, LOVE OF THE MOUNTAIN inside.
Also, Cats.

[Knigel]

Steel barrels. With red, warm, glowing, LOVE OF THE MOUNTAIN inside.
Also, Cats.

Is steel magma proof?

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

I say we fire children at goblin babysnatchers for hilarity.
Goblin:"Hey, is that a bird?"
Other Goblin:"No, it's a flying child!"
Urist McChild:"Wheee!"
SPLAT!

[Jake]

As far as I know, those being besieged usually didn't launch dead livestock, as the idea of doing that was to spread disease, and those outside could move around at will and weren't enclosed, so it wasn't much of a threat.

I was intending this to be a list of ammunition for beseigers as well as beseiged. Besides, how else would you get rid of half a ton of bloated, stinking dead cow if there's a hostile army between you and the compost heap?

[irmo]

On how to do this interface-wise:

My favorite option would be a q-menu command on the catapult for "take ammo from stockpile". This way you can put a pile of (stones/apprentice-work -copper serrated discs-/dead goblins/barrels of forgotten beast ichor) next to the catapult and you're guaranteed that your siege operator won't waste time running down ten flights of stairs to get the one perfect rock to shoot at the goblins. He'll go to the pile, grab something, and load it up, and other dwarves will keep the stockpile full with normal hauling jobs. And you have the (now very well-developed) stockpile controls to decide what objects are eligible for throwing.

Another way would be a flag similar to the dump, forbid, and melt flags, but that seems more cumbersome.