Ballista!!

[spedius01]

Ave,

We have a ballista in squads.txt, localisation.txt, battlegfx.txt and 4 anim.xam files in units, but it doesn't work as a ballista. Apparently it appears on the battle screen as four legionaries who charge about throwing javelins, according to one eye witness. We could do with a properly, working ballista being added to our growing list of troop types.

What follows are some thoughts about the rules governing the mechanics of introducing ballistas into Legion Arena.
These are not in any particular order, more in the way of random thoughts.

01. Deployment. We know that a legion had it's own ballista but the numbers are uncertain, let us link the deployment of ballista to the deployment of heavy infantry. For each heavy infantry squad that you deploy you can also deploy one ballista squad.

02. Cost. A ballista should cost enough to make it an attractive alternative to an archer squad. Say 250 denari?

03. Footprint. If we assume each century had a ballista then a ballista squad would have six machines. If we compare our ballista squad with say, an elephant squad, perhaps they would occupy the same space. So the base size could be similar. Each ballista could have a crew of four, so 6 x 4 = 24 men to a squad.

04. Formations. Perhaps line and defensive only.

05. Range. Maybe half again the range the archers can fire.

06. Rate of Fire. Maybe at half the rate of the archers.

07. Ammunition. Maybe the same as the archers.

08. Promotions and Equipment. Perhaps the same as the archers

09. Movement. Perhaps very limited.

10. Damage effect. Heavy

11. Anti-Elephant. One shot = one dead elephant. The ultimate elephant killer.

I can't think of anything else at the moment, but there's plenty to contemplate with the list above.

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo

[kyle]

This reply is directly pointed at Slitherine. This is a suggestion, If you have a artillery piece such as a ballista, shouldn't you create a variable that deals with multiple impacts.

For example when using a cannon the cannoner would aim right in front of advancing men so it would skip and bounce about chest high thus it would take out multiple men.

Lets say the ballista wasn't shooting at a elephant, and it was shooting into a mass of infantry, a bolt hits someone in the front line the poor soul gets thrown back into the other 2 or 3 men behind him wouldn't that force be enough to impale those behind him?

I don't know how to implement this but it would be a good one.

[pipfromslitherine]

We didn't have time to implement siege weapons (which we wanted to do!). They would require a significant amount of special case work to make them operate correctly.

Cheers

Pip

[kyle]

Is there a way to add them?