[WIP] Autoballista a.k.a. Polybolos

[KeremBabaG]

Summary

Content "Add polybolos and a few new types of ballista ammo"

Purpose of change

Fun
Also minor changes (audit?) to caroballista and steel tipped ballista bolt

Describe the solution

VERY WIP

• Adds the polybolos, the ancient Greek hopper fed, automatic, torsion powered artillery that could be fired in rapid succession by winding the windlass back and forth. Torsion strength is lower than the caroballista for the sake of easy continous fire.
• Adds explosive ballista bolts. Honestly I'm not sure about this one. Still looking for a way to make it work. I may not implement it.
• Adds lead balls that can be used in place of a bolt, as romans might've used them as ammunition too. Current size is too big and the damage is not exactly as I want it. Still working on it. (Edit: Appearently lead balls and such were used in large siege ballistas. Tis one might not be implemented as well.)

Audit stuff:

• Lowered the reload time of caroballista from 8000 to 5000. 50 seconds is much more sensible than one and a half minute
• Made steel tipped ballista bolts more durable
• Minor changes to description and stuff

Describe alternatives you've considered

None for now, still playing around with the numbers, though suggestions are welcome

Testing

In progress

Additional context

Just something I wanted to do before starting the museum rework.

Also someone knowledgable in explosives lend me a hand with the explosive bolt

[RenechCDDA]

This should have worse than bow accuracy, given that it is a crow-served weapon that you are firing at an angle. See also the other things mentioned in #72487

[github-actions]

Spell checker encountered unrecognized words in the in-game text added in this pull request. See below for details.

Click to expand

• The metal tip of this otherwise normal ballista bolt has been replaced with a small cannister containing explosives, ready to combust upon impact. While this may sound cool, in practice it's much less impressive, as the force of the initial impact is dampened due to its shape, and its is anti-personnel capabilities are subpar at best. Handle with care.

This alert is automatically generated. You can simply disregard if this is inaccurate, or (optionally) you can also add the new words to tools/spell_checker/dictionary.txt so they will not trigger an alert next time.

Hints for adding a new word to the dictionary

• If the word is normally in all lowercase, such as the noun word or the verb does, add it in its lower-case form; if the word is a proper noun, such as the surname George, add it in its initial-caps form; if the word is an acronym or has special letter case, such as the acronym CDDA or the unit mW, add it by preserving the case of all the letters. A word in the dictionary will also match its initial-caps form (if the word is in all lowercase) and all-uppercase form, so a word should be added to the dictionary in its normal letter case even if used in a different letter case in a sentence.
• For a word to be added to the dictionary, it should either be a real, properly-spelled modern American English word, a foreign loan word (including romanized foreign names), or a foreign or made-up word that is used consistently and commonly enough in the game. Intentional misspelling (including eye dialect) of a word should not be added unless it has become a common terminology in the game, because while someone may have a legitimate use for it, another person may spell it that way accidentally.

[kevingranade]

Lowered the reload time of caroballista from 8000 to 3000. 30 seconds is much more sensible than one and a half minute

Source? That sounds more like the reload time if you have a crew helping you to me.

I recommend just focusing on the autoballista.

[KeremBabaG]

This should have worse than bow accuracy, given that it is a crow-served weapon that you are firing at an angle. See also the other things mentioned in #72487

Fired at an angle? You are probably thinking of the siege ballistas. Thing I imagined while making it looks like this one here. Being crow-served isn't detrimental to our other ranged weapons as well (I think? let me know if I'm wrong). Maybe higher than crossbows yeah but bows and this one have wholly different mechanisms for firing, I don't think it would be higher than 1000 dispersion or whatever. I'll look into what the other guy in that pr wrote.

[KeremBabaG]

Lowered the reload time of caroballista from 8000 to 3000. 30 seconds is much more sensible than one and a half minute

Source? That sounds more like the reload time if you have a crew helping you to me.

I recommend just focusing on the autoballista.

Tbh, I didn't have a source for 80 secs either. I'll look into that one. You are right about the crew operation thing but 80 seconds is wild, I don't think it would take that much no matter what.

[KKDavion]

If we allow for videos of individuals reloading and firing "personnel-sized ballistae", Tod's Workshop has an almost 10 year old video demonstrating exactly this. Starting at 12:05, it takes him ~55 seconds to go from a fired shot, to reloading to firing again, even when taking this at a relaxed pace for the video demonstration.

Linked in the description is a video of a larger, more to scale machine being fired with a crew, which takes ~100 seconds from the start of the loading action to the bolt being placed.

[github-actions]

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