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[levraininjaneer]

Hi!

So after intending to it in so many forts, I've finally done it. A ballista battery. I've even trained up legendary operators and I've built them using only masterwork ballista parts.

However:
Even when the graphics show the ballista arrow passing right through the targets, it seems to miss. Nothing in combat reports even being said about it.

So: what is the deal? Are ballistas good for anything? Has anyone used them with some success? Admittedly I've not tried it on goblins as the little cowards merely linger on the map's edge until I dispose of them. But against Forgotten Beasts, they seem to be useless. And of course, their intended use is for HFS, so I'm wondering if I should even bother with them.

[Fleeting Frames]

I've used them for tree cutting. Even hitting the smallest branch of tree will completely remove it, without dropping logs; This way a single shot can destroy dozens of trees; possibly in water-filled cavern.

[StagnantSoul]

They work great on the HFS, shredding through any salt or vomit or such ones without problem.

[Loci]

In my experience ballistae are hardly effective even when they somehow manage to actually hit a target. Aside from the possibility of bad aim, ballista bolts have an annoying tendency to not hit creatures in tiles that they pass through. Those that they do hit will often suffer less-than-devastating bruising because ballista arrows don't produce nearly enough damage when you consider the mass/momentum involved (creatures should go flying, but they don't).

Minecart launchers are pretty much everything a ballista should be, without the ballista. They fire quickly and predictably across multiple z-levels, they almost always hit creatures in their path, they cause massive damage and send enemies flying, and their ammunition is infinitely reusable. About the only thing ballistae are better at is tree removal.

[PatrikLundell]

As a regular weapon, ballistae are nearly useless. As others have said, they often miss, and they always miss prone targets. However, apart from tree removals, they also work for camper removal. As long as you build it out of sight and nothing else disturbs the camper you can keep firing until the camper is eliminated, but (flying) titans have a tendency to heal faster than you hurt them...
It works great against camping fire based clowns, though.

[levraininjaneer]

Just had an interesting case:
The invading goblins finally went the way I had prepared for them, which brought them to the pointy end of my ballista battery.
The first two over which the arrows passed were instantly killed.
Then, my operators were freaked out for awhile (the battery was too close to the targets - didn't know how far was necessary).
Then, no further ballista arrows did any damage at all.
I'm starting to suspect that, if an enemy has seen a ballista, he can no longer be hit by it. I'll redesign the setup and try to confirm this.

[levraininjaneer]

I've had a couple more pot-shots that seems to support my hypothesis.

A webbing forgotten beast, a humanoid made of mudstone came. I hit him a few times and then he fell over. And he didn't seem to get up again. Which means the ballista kept missing him. So I siezed fire and figured that, well, if the FB is immobilized, my elite melee warriors can probably take him down, despite him being able to web. And so it was.

[Azated]

I used to build my entire fortresses around the idea of ballista batteries. Even masterwork steel bolts are practically useless, which is unfortunate because you'd think that a giant metal tree hitting someone would essentially vaporise them.

Alas, it doesn't. The best siege weapon we have access to is a minecart full of spears. Sufficiently dwarfy? Yes. Historically accurate? Probably not.

[levraininjaneer]

So, I finally tangled with HFS, and the ballistas did great!

Admittedly all enemies were made of snow, fire, dirt, ash and the like, though.

Marksdwarves and Ballistae killed every last one of them. Only guy who died was the one who digged the last bit.

[Fleeting Frames]

Makes you kind of feel bad for the guy, for not managing to kill the HFS by himself.

(Though in fairness, the flame ones fail existence deadly.)

[Melting Sky]

So, I finally tangled with HFS, and the ballistas did great!

Admittedly all enemies were made of snow, fire, dirt, ash and the like, though.

Marksdwarves and Ballistae killed every last one of them. Only guy who died was the one who digged the last bit.

The HFS is crazy like that. Sometimes you a get a menagerie of monstrosities made of stuff like mist and snow that can die to a cat scratch and other times you run into some flying steel abomination with brain melting necrotic deadly dust that single-handedly lays waste to your entire army of omni-legendary candy clad axe lords.

I also agree that ballista aren't half bad when used properly against the HFS. Any time you can hurt them form a distance and they can't hurt you back, it's a solid strategy even if the damage output is mediocre.

[Derpy Dev]

I used a ballista once. I decided to test it and shot a fisherdwarf by accident and he was knocked into the water. Coincidentally,  the dwarf manning the ballista had a grudge with the fisherdwarf,  so I suspect fowl play. Regardless, I haven't touched ballistas again.