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[YojimboUsaka]

Was playing around with the idea of improving the catapult.  Currently it is only really useful when training siege engineers.  Came up with 2 ideas.

1. Stone travel in an arc.  The formula for calculating the trajectory of an object through 3d space is not that hard given force and angle (would be fun to pu this in manually and let'er rip.)  I am sure this is planned eventually so no big deal.

2.  Area of Effect - It seams the mechanics for this are already in the game.  After a few cave ins I thought that you could use the same effect for a catapult stone landing.  Just have a cave in happen in the square just above where the stone would land.  The bigger the catapult the bigger the cave in. (reason to make bigger and better catapults, trebuchet anyone?)  You have people thrown about, debris everywhere and minor damage all around.  AND if it happens to land on a floor with nothing underneath it you get a nice cascade floor failure for bonus damage.

Random thoughts way late at night.

[Tamren]

Having the cave in rubble effect where a catapult stone lands would be FANTASTIC. Even if the "deadly" radius is only 3X3 it would turn the current useless catapults into a devastating siege weapon!

Now all we need is catapults that can fire over obstacles and target things on other Z levels. Same with balistas come to think of it.

[Align]

Oh shit that sounds so awesome, when can we see it?

[Fishersalwaysdie]

This has my support.

[Keldor]

Just think - then you'd get a "section of the cavern has collapsed" message, and would be zoomed to where each rock landed every time the catapult was fired.....

[SHAD0Wdump]

A little coding could fix that...

[Align]

All the more satisfying.
SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

[Techhead]

The arc might not be necessary, I always imagined that the DF catapults seem to be designed for a low, near horizontal arc so that they are entirely usable in caves.
The boom-smash, now THAT is nice.
All it needs now is for the ability to designate a target area for continuous bombardment.

[YojimboUsaka]

You could leave the setting of [load, fire, ignore] set up and add [angle, power, elevation].  The skill of the siege operator would put a +/- variable in there.  The better skill the less variation.  AND they would just launch away until you tell them to stop.  AND still a useful way of getting rid of stone.

We could then do our own version of Scorched Dwarf!

Yoj

[FunkyBomb]

Maybe catapulted stones could tumble for a distance when they hit the ground, instead of just stopping there, unless they do this already and I was simply unaware.

Or we could have dwarves break up stones into smaller stones, suitable for grapeshot.

[Mechanoid]

seconding more kick-ass effects for catapult stones hitting the ground

edit - also, totems as catapult ammunition to make invaders unhappy/scared

[ June 14, 2008: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[Asehujiko]

Wouldn't it be a better idea to designate a "target area" and have the accuracy of the shots depend on the skill of the shooter?

a dabbler might send the object 25 tiles off but a legendary+5 should be able to always hit within 5 tiles.

[Techhead]

I think the deviation should depend on distance, the farther the shot, the larger the misses.
Perhaps you could even skew it based on general wind direction (8-way) and speed (0-20-40) if they are fired outdoors.

[Jamuk]

Plus, this would set the stage for more exciting sieges later on, as it will have already been implemented.

[Untelligent]

I support this, especially the cave-in dust/rubble effect. Would give the catapult a reason to use over the ballista, aside from the lack of potention dwarf-kabobs.