These devs are just too stubborn to admit they're wrong on their concept of how an auto-defense turret should work, unfortunately.

Just to be clear please.
Is this speculation or post some testing on the PTB?

When I read the patch notes I was hoping we could add any amount of Tropheys to specify whats a legit set of targets for a Ballista.
So is it really just one? Also does it get returned if you break and move the Ballista or..?

if its really just one I have to wonder why they bothered?

i mean the cannons are meant to fokus on actual THREADS. do you really want your bolts go to waste on GREYDWARFS? i just told my cannons to fokus seekers which can actually reach my base no matter what. most enemies cannot even reach it so why gun em down? waste of ammo.

choose them to fire at things you view as a danger to your base. brainlessly fireing at everything is useless.

and by doing the above you also dont get shot by your own cannons anymore.

and it gives trophys some usefulness i guess. better than nothing. and still requires player to think of what to do instead of beeing braindead.

Originally posted by Zathabar:

So is it really just one? Also does it get returned if you break and move the Ballista or..?

if its really just one I have to wonder why they bothered?

it is one trophy; to target one thing.

Originally posted by Zathabar:

Just to be clear please.
Is this speculation or post some testing on the PTB?

When I read the patch notes I was hoping we could add any amount of Tropheys to specify whats a legit set of targets for a Ballista.
So is it really just one? Also does it get returned if you break and move the Ballista or..?

if its really just one I have to wonder why they bothered?

the trophys is returned if you change it or move the ballista. its not lost. that would have been stupid. some trophys also target a bunch of foes.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

the trophys is returned if you change it or move the ballista. its not lost. that would have been stupid. some trophys also target a bunch of foes.

Maybe I made a mistake, but it doesn't seem like the trophy is consumed at all. You simply use it to "attune" the device, it should stay in your inventory the whole time, unless I made the mistake of grabbing two trophies instead of one...

They also have doubled ammo capacity now. 40 black metal missiles to defend against nightly seeker stragglers is a fine deal by me.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

i mean the cannons are meant to fokus on actual THREADS. do you really want your bolts go to waste on GREYDWARFS? i just told my cannons to fokus seekers which can actually reach my base no matter what. most enemies cannot even reach it so why gun em down? waste of ammo.

choose them to fire at things you view as a danger to your base. brainlessly fireing at everything is useless.

and by doing the above you also dont get shot by your own cannons anymore.

and it gives trophys some usefulness i guess. better than nothing. and still requires player to think of what to do instead of beeing braindead.

yes. I am probably going to have 1 for boar and 1 for rock throwing dwarves. The dwarves are able to chuck rocks at my stuff while swimming, and are slowly damaging stuff with it from farther out that I can block easily. I have rigged up a ballista just to cover the waterfront where they keep swimming. The boar because sausage is still useful around the house during raids or chopping trees etc.
But I will probably leave them on all targets. They both can hit fuling nightspawns and that resupplies their ammo. I don't go out in front of them; I put them in places I don't need to go.

at the end of the day, the ballista's usefulness is 95% deterrent and 5% free loot.
their arc (current live implementation) is avoided by all mobs. I can make that work for me.

should not totally replace other defense concerns but should be at least 2 targets...

Originally posted by INC3NSUS:

should not totally replace other defense concerns but should be at least 2 targets...

Easier to just build two ballista. You get more ammo capacity and can adjust ammunition type for each designated target separately.

Doesn't seem useless to me. This one change might make the difference between not wanting to build anything more than outposts hidden inside existing structures in mistlands to maybe trying a base that won't get smashed by gjall while I'm doing other things.

expecting logic was the mistake :P

Originally posted by Nerevar:

Originally posted by Zathabar:

Just to be clear please.
Is this speculation or post some testing on the PTB?

When I read the patch notes I was hoping we could add any amount of Tropheys to specify whats a legit set of targets for a Ballista.
So is it really just one? Also does it get returned if you break and move the Ballista or..?

if its really just one I have to wonder why they bothered?

the trophys is returned if you change it or move the ballista. its not lost. that would have been stupid. some trophy's also target a bunch of foes.

Ok like all kinds of gray dwarf or all fulings etc? OK that I can deal with but still not a good solution even if the damn things come back when you break it up.

Hmm will reserve judgement till I try it personally but so far not impressed. Sounds like a waste of time.

or more accurately sounds like the Ballista is STILL a waste of time...

The current ballista is much better than it was. I think there is only two dangerous enemies (Fulings and Seekers) and one exceptionally annoying enemy (Drake). If ballista could be used against just "enemies" it could be used against bosses too and that is not how it is meant to be used. The second problem is the number of missiles it needs if it tries to shoot everything.

Now you have to decide what enemies it tries to kill or rather alarm the player when those things get close to the base. Ballista's aim is so terrible that it cannot hit even slowly walking greydwarf.

Originally posted by Jofraniac:

These devs are just too stubborn to admit they're wrong on their concept of how an auto-defense turret should work, unfortunately.

IMO its not stubbornness. They just have to be "uNiQuE" at all costs. In real world that means no QoL or fun, because Minecraft/Terraria already did that.

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by INC3NSUS:

should not totally replace other defense concerns but should be at least 2 targets...

Easier to just build two ballista. You get more ammo capacity and can adjust ammunition type for each designated target separately.

Of course there's a rubberbanded justification for this poorly implemented change. Some people really don't want to have fun.

Originally posted by Jarska:

The current ballista is much better than it was. I think there is only two dangerous enemies (Fulings and Seekers) and one exceptionally annoying enemy (Drake). If ballista could be used against just "enemies" it could be used against bosses too and that is not how it is meant to be used. The second problem is the number of missiles it needs if it tries to shoot everything.

Now you have to decide what enemies it tries to kill or rather alarm the player when those things get close to the base. Ballista's aim is so terrible that it cannot hit even slowly walking greydwarf.

Is that so hard to admit that this ballista "fix" is not a good solution at all? G-d, a small compartment with 2-4 slots for swappable trophies would've solved the problem

they clearly want it to pose a danger to you, same as your own bear traps and sharp sticks do if you run into them.
That is about all we know. The trophy 'fix' smacks of a 2am brainstorm "we have to do something here" session. All the thing needed was an OFF switch so you can go loot in front of it now and then. Even if they did that via 'take the ammo back out of it'.