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[Sarudak]

Does anyone know the current status of the effectiveness of siege engines in the latest version? Are catapult effective against armor? (Do they behave like blunt weapons?) And can ballista pierce enemies armor effectively with a good head? (Also the wiki says 'Wooden ballista arrows are made using one log, and (presumably)Verify more powerful ones can be made using one log plus a metal ballista arrowhead from the forge.' does that mean it's not confirmed that the head affects penetration or what?) I was thinking of setting up a nice set of siege weapons but I want to know if the effort is going to be worth it.

[ShinWalks]

I've only tried catapults in 31.18, and they seemed to do absolutely nothing through armor but were devastating to unarmored limbs on medium-to-small creatures. I was besieged by several dozen goblins, most of which were mounted on cave crocodiles, giant rats, or jabberers. A hit from a catapulted stone would break arms and legs every time against the goblins, giant rats, and cave crocodiles, though they mostly only managed to badly bruise the jabberers. Any hits to armored parts, however, were "deflected" by the gobbos' iron helms and breastplates. After a month or two of bombardment, all of the goblins and most of the mounts were moaning on the ground with all four limbs shattered, making an easy mop-up for my soldiers.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

I've never really tried siege weapons that much...I think this calls for some !!SCIENCE!!

[Sarudak]

Hm... Sounds like catapults need some adjustment... Realistically armor shouldn't just 'deflect' a flying stone. It should cause serious internal injuries.

[CapnUrist]

The biggest issue I've found with siege engines is aiming them, or rather, their complete lack of aim. Even legendary siege operators have to ability to get any ammunition to where the enemy is standing (just the ability to load and fire [and empty the ammo stockpile] much faster). The farther off the enemy is, the worse this problem shows; ballistae have a angle of fire that looks to be about 30 degrees now, and maybe one in five shots fired will actually hit an enemy, IF they're within 50 tiles.

I've only ever used catapults for training and stone moving, but those were also fairly random in their firing.

[Sarudak]

I think it would be better if they had really bad aim like that but the hits were absolutely devastating when they landed. Should be 1 hit kills on goblins.

[mrbaggins]

Siege weapons aren't supposed to be able to pick off targets one at a time. You lay waste to armies to thin out the numbers, which the current implementation does pretty well I think.

[Shootandrun]

Siege weapons are bad. A ballista has a terrible aim and don't shoot really far; a catapult has a terrible aim too and don't do any damage to armored troops. They are not cost-effective, not at all. You'd better danger room train some dwarfs and give them steel or adamantine.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

Still they are kinda cool even though they might not work the best.

[FrisianDude]

They look awesome to have on your walls. Though one of those massive boulders (or gold nuggets ) a catapult launches should make very short work of the Goblin it's hit.

[rephikul]

siege engines are best used en mass in conjuction with a brave men's walk. They are designed to have low accuracy and power because they are consider civilian equipments. Never under estimate the power of 120+ dabbling siege operators.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

They look awesome to have on your walls. Though one of those massive boulders (or gold nuggets ) a catapult launches should make very short work of the Goblin it's hit.

They work on walls? I thought they wouldn't fire down Z levels...

[FrisianDude]

Catapults definitely do. What comes up will make a spirited effort in coming down, after all.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

Oooo good to keep in mind when I make a castle

[qoonpooka]

Catapults definitely do. What comes up will make a spirited effort in coming down, after all.

This must be new in .31

Everything I've read suggests that catapults do NOT apply vertical velocity at all.  Shots that end their flight (because of range) will drop Z levels but do no harm.

The quoted post seems informed by real world physics, which is a terrible, terrible mistake to make when it comes to !!Physics!!.