40d Talk:Siege engine

The fact that siege engines only hit things in their same z-level is probably going to change in a new version (or it may have already, I haven't checked the newest version that came out the 16th). Someone may want to make a note of it.

catapults don't always destroy ammo when shooting (0.27.169.33b)

I have a couple of catapults to train my siege operators. After a while I noticed dwarves going far away from fortress to pick up stone. It turned out that the stones after being fired from catapult just fall on the ground. The ground is mostly sand - may be this is the reason.--BlackboX 22:56, 24 November 2007 (EST)

I've investigated this a bit further in my newest fortress, and apparently any shot that hits the edge of the map, from a ballista or catapult, falls to the ground undamaged and can be recovered. While this is particularly useful for ballistae as it means the three metal bars going into each arrowhead aren't consumed when the bolt is fired, it also means haulers will run out of the fortress all the way to the map edge to recover the used ammo. Catapult shots that hit a wall destroy their ammo as before, I am about to test wether the same is true for ballistae. --TangoThree 13:15, 28 November 2007 (EST)

Just tested it, ballista arrows impacting a wall are destroyed like catapult shot. Also, ballista arrows stay within the Z-level on which they were fired as far as I can tell, but catapult shot will drop as it reaches the end of its arc and I have seen it hit targets on lower z-levels. I am not sure if these shots were aimed at the slugmen who got splattered because I was simply firing stone out of my fortress to train siege operators, but they were a couple of z-levels down by the map edge the catapults were firing towards. --TangoThree 13:21, 28 November 2007 (EST)

I've seen catapult shots disappear at the edge of the map. I'm not sure what the maximum range is on a catapult. --Strangething 18:22, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

Minimum Shooting Range

I had several shots (> 30) fired upon a group of goblins by a legendary siege operator, but all stones flew over them and hit an area behind them. The distance was 30 tiles (+- 4).

I am on 27.176.38b Drahflow 09:33, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Quality of parts that the catapult was made of? If it wasn't exceptional or masterful, it should have been expected. --Tomato 13:29, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Fear Threshold

Does anyone know the distance needed to keep civilian dwarves from running away? It would make building fortifications much easier. --Strangething 18:22, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

I've been experimenting a bit with different distances. According to the wiki the distance should be more than 5 spaces, and in some cases even 10 (for trolls). To begin with I dug a 7 spaces wide channel between the operators and the enemy, it was a failure. The operators ran away. I then proceeded to widen the channel to 13 spaces, which brought up the distance to 15 when you include the front of the ballista and the fortification. It also seemed to be slightly too close, they got off one shot but then ran away. While the enemy was at the minimum range on this distance the operators would at least come back to attempt a reload, but then promptly run again.

I think a distance of about 20 should be good, will continue my experiments and report the results! --Liqum 09:03, 26 January 2009 (EST)

I'm trying something similar, a ballista and fortification peering into an underground 1-tile-wide U-bend entry tunnel. The 9 squares between the fortification and the nearest staircase are channeled out; the staircase leads to the surface (ie greater minimum distance from ballista operator). I can verify a few lousy ballista shots can be recovered because they fell undamaged into the channel (glancing blow to side wall?). Also reduced the "cancelled due to goblin" messages. But I got at least one "cancelled" message from the ballista operator feeling too close to goblins, so not perfect yet (and no ballista kills - cheap ballista parts!) --Jellyfishgreen 10:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

ballista's not so deadly.

it seems that ballesta's arent an instant kill anymore. they do however stil blow away most of their targets body...

I can confirm this. I blew off a couple of wooden ballista arrows (no metal tip) into a horde of goblins. Each arrow may have pierced about 2-4 goblins each and then vanished. The goblins died almost instantly however. --Liqum 09:06, 26 January 2009 (EST)

"Omo Elanaidala, Engineer cancels Construct Adamantine Ballista Parts: Needs metal logs."

Whaaat.

Okay, presumably I've broken something with my irresponsible modifications and I shouldn't be able to queue jobs making ballista parts out of adamantine from the job manager, particularly since the only options are wood and adamantine as opposed to, say, steel. Just to check, though, has anyone else managed to make siege engine components out of non-wooden materials? _{Should probably post things like this on the forum, come to think about it...}--Quil 13:48, 17 December 2008 (EST)

Already mentioned, in fact. By yours truly, or rather I took a screenshot of the phenomenon. It seems you can make adamantine siege engine parts only if you have adamantine logs. This is a bug in the siege engine making system, and may already be in the buglist. Someone should check. Not there. --GreyMaria 13:54, 17 December 2008 (EST)

Presumably this is something to do with the fact that in the matgloss_metal file adamantine appears to have tags that make it a valid material for producing almost anything and everything; the job manager thinks it's a valid option and doesn't check if it's physically possible to have logs made of adamantine (which is probably possible with a bit of smelter-haxxing). Adamantine trees, anyone?--Quil 16:00, 17 December 2008 (EST)

Can catapults be used effectively from a tower?

I haven't had a chance to test this yet, but, could I build a tower safely overlooking my fotress entrance and then effectively hit invaders on a lower Z-level when they approach the entrance? If so, this seems a like a good way to resolve the problem of civilian siege operators fleeing from enemy soldiers... --Jpwrunyan 18:39, 27 January 2009 (EST)

No. Siege weapons fire in a straight horizontal line to the end of their range, and then fall to the ground (unless interrupted by a solid object). Thus raising their elevation means they'll fire over the enemy unless you happen to get really lucky and drop a stone on them at the end of the range, ie, not likely, and certainly not for sustained fire. --Squirrelloid 20:32, 27 January 2009 (EST)

Ok, thanks for clarifying that. The docuentation here indicates strongly what you said it but it's a bit counter-intuitive (especially since there is a *sort* of falling mechanic). I may go ahead and put them on towers anyway though just for practice and stone disposal. :-)--Jpwrunyan 18:23, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Actually I did that. I put them on towers.. recently during a siege they didn't do anything at all. The siege operators were just picking their noses.

It is a great way to train them though and hauling back the rocks from across the map keeps the peasants busy. Just that I noticed one of my catapults, for some strange reason (built on a 3x3 tile platform) has a very short range when shooting over the staircase leading up to it. I can't imagine why this is, just that catapults MAY malfunction and any dwarves below the practice towers might get it. It's not a huge risk but it's worth considering. --Aspgren 06:07, 7 Feb 2009 (CET)

Consolidation/Duplication - Siege Engine & Fortress Defense page

Much of the same info is on both pages, this one and Fortress defense. The FD page had ~much~ better graphics, so I copied that under "siege battery" sub-section on this page. What is policy re what goes where? Does "strategy & tactics" belong here, or there?

Does anyone know the max and effective ranges for ballistae and catapults? Anyone know ~exactly~ what the "frightened" range is for civilians? Numbers like that should be included, but they seem to be in some debate, and possibly have changed over versions (or with diff enemies, trolls vs wamblers, etc?)--Albedo 22:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Stone collection and z-levels

I'm using a catapult to destroy excess stone, for the sake of tidier floors. I have one set on repeat in my queen's bedroom. ("She slept uneasily due to noise recently.") But here's the interesting bit: the nearby stone is gathered and fired, as you would expect, but also the stone on nearby z-levels is considered nearby. For instance, stones 2 z-levels up are considered closer, and fired first, than stones lying 4 tiles away, even when it's a long walk out to the staircase and up to that z-level. And no, stone wasn't restricted or forbidden. --Jellyfishgreen 10:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)