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Illyanna
Apprentice
Posts: 75
(11/4/02 3:08 pm)
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Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Notes from a Siegecraft 49 crafter on Pendragon. The primary siege tester for Midgard on Pendragon (and by proxy the other two realms).
BUILDING THE SIEGE
Firstly, the siege can be made of elm, oak, or ironwood. The more expensive the wood, the better the siege. All the other parts are standard for the weapon category. The full parts list can be found by right-clicking on the recipe.
Wood and parts weight after 1.54
Ram - 199
Ballista - 280
Catapult - 313
(With wood and minus ammo.)
Ammo is 5s a pop, and may be purchased from one of the supply keeps (Bledmeer Faste, Dun Crauchon, Caer Benowyc) or any portal ticket vendor (they are on page 2). The ticket vendors for Midgard are in Svasud Faste, MPK in Emain and the MPK in Hadrian's.
Ballista bolts weigh 3, catapult stones weigh 5.
Give all the parts to the person making the item once they are in position. They might not be able to move when they have it all. A high level tank will probably still be able to move slowly even with a trebuchet if buffed. As a skald on Pend with Lifter II I frequently ran around in RvR normally with a full ram.
Controller/Builder with Siegecraft 1+ uses the hotbar to craft siege like any other craft. You need to have the Planing Tool, Smith Hammer, and the Sewing Kit in your inventory. Alchemists and Spellcrafters do not have the ability to build or run siege
Takes less than 10 seconds per attempt to build. A craft check is made like the other crafts. Failure rate is the same as yellow crafting attempts (later blue, green and eventually grey). Skill ups are about the same as other crafts. Almost automatic at first and then decreasing in frequency. Once your secondary material skills are all over 50 the craft time is halved.
IT'S BUILT, NOW WHAT
Once the siege is on the ground, it's time to command the weapon. You can type the commands as you go, /arm, /load, /aim, /fire or you can use the pop-up control box. With 1.54 the box will automatically pop-up when you build and disappear when you leave control range. To get the control box up later 1) target the siege, 2) hotkey macro or type '/control release' then 3) hotkey macro or type '/control'. There is no timer or delay; you can do it very fast. Once the siege is up anyone with a craftskill can target a released siege and use /control release and /control to get the control box to pop up. If you die you automatically release control.
(I have never used the /unlock command. Not sure why you would need it.)
The control box has 4 clickable boxes, a timer bar, and an inventory box (where all ammo clicked is shown).
The 4 boxes, in order, are:
ARM
LOAD (not used for rams)
AIM
FIRE
Using the button or a macro (/fire, /aim, /load, /arm) work the same.
(Loading and aiming can be done in either order. Once aimed you can skip the aim step when attacking the same target.)
Click on ARM first - You will see the siege crank back into firing position. Rams take 5 seconds, ballistas 20 seconds, and catapults 30 seconds. Trying to fire early doesn't reset anything on ARMing. It's just a wasted keystroke and will reset the timer bar.
The firer/controller should drag one ammo per firing time onto the siege after the ARM button/command is used for the ballista and catapult. Since arming takes 20 seconds for ballista and 30 seconds for a catapult there is plenty of time to drop a single ammo on. At this point it is a one man operation. Dropping an ammo on the siege will restart the visual timer. Regardless a text message will tell you when the weapon is armed.
Another reason for one-person operation is repairs are fast, not long enough to justify giving commands for someone else to repair. You can self load with more reliability than having possibly multiple people dropping ammo in and 'invalidating the ammo slot'. This bug was still present at 1.54F Pendragon.
click LOAD next - if you have ammo in the siege. Wait for timer. 5 seconds.
"Invalid Ammo Slot": this is the main reason why running ballistas and catapults is a one man operation. Loading too much ammo into the machine will give you this error. This may get fixed at some point but currently only load one ammo onto the siege at a time. Once you get the error whatever ammo currently on the siege is wasted, drop another on and it should work still. Just ignore the jammed ammo.
Targetting:
For ballista choose target normally. Click on a target.
For catapults, now is the tricky part. Look at your feet and hit and *hold* the F5 button. You will see a yellow crosshairs at your feet. You can move this crosshairs to anywhere you want by using your normal front, back, left, right, and strafe buttons.. but you must be holding F5 down to move it.
Once you have the crosshairs and triangle at your desired position, stop pressing F5. The crosshairs will slowly disappear. If it any time you want to see where they are aimed, press F5 again, and they will show back up. Where the crosshairs are, is where the ammo will hit.
For F5 targetting you may also leave the siege go acquire a target and return to the siege. A quick /control release and /control from the Hotbar with the siege targetted will give you control back and ready to aim (you can assemble, arm, and load the siege before going out and getting a target.)
Now press AIM . This rotates the siege towards the target. Rams do this almost instaneously while catapults seem to take a few seconds. Rams have a high probability of jack-knifing in the gate area. No effect other than looking strange. Skip this step once target has been aimed for once.
FIRE! - this launches the ammo at your specified target. If it isn't ready to be fired it will give you a message. Try again in a few seconds. Hit arm again immediately after firing.
RECAP OF SIEGE FIRING
RAMS
The sequence after the first goes.
ARM
wait 5 seconds
FIRE
then immediately ARM again
BALLISTA and CATAPULTS
The sequence after the first aiming goes.
ARM
while waiting the 20 or 30 seconds drop one ammo onto the siege itself
LOAD after 20 or 30 seconds for arming
FIRE
then immediately ARM again
REPAIRING SIEGE
Repair requires no wood.
Most siege lasts 12 minutes without repair, Siege lasts 44 minutes with the maximum amount of repairs. Siege damaged by enemies last a bit less.
Repair is based on Woodworking skill. You may repair siege with Woodworking as low as 200 with failures.
RANGE FINDING
For rams, within a step or two from door out to about half a ram length. The new range area is pretty generous up to about halfway between the gates for the inner door. About 150 units from ram center.
For ballistas and catapults if you are within spell range (1500) you are probably too close. The hill crest is usually too close for the first gate but far enough away for second gate. Inside a keep the front of the tower (Hib/Mid) to the inner gate is about 1500.
Far range: from the wall at one of our keeps I was able to hit attackers at the very hill bottom (a Jamtland keep). Most of the spots where attackers pull guards to are within range of the big siege. When attacking, these need to be set-up partway up the hill except for the Albion keeps where the hills are much lower. Long range is about 3500. This is beyond what you can ground target from the siege.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT: (This is post 1.54 patch)
Small ram: Cheaper, does 450 to level 1 gate.
Ram: 570 every 6 seconds against grade 1 doors, still 300-500 a shot vs. grade 6 doors. Reasonably priced.
Siege ram: 750 to level 1 gate. Moderate damage to level 10 gates.
Scorpian, Ballista, and Palintone: slow and do little damage. Damage to siege weapons is largely untested due to the fact that LoS issues prevent their use except in contrived situations. Damage vs. players was around 150-200 to a level 50. Upcoming patches are expected to adjust this upward. Damage to gates is 15-25. Very weak.
Onager, catapult: Good for practicing range-finding and controls. Do minimal damage to gates and opposing rams (20ish).
Trebuchet: For the serious keep assault with defenders or relic keeps these are the way to go. Some damage vs. guards/PCs but slow. Need 2-3 firing together to kill weaker PCs. Expensive and heavy but the only siege capable of doing more than scaring defending PCs. Best used for defense where attackers can be expected at a very specific location. Damage increases for the catapult class weapons are expected in an upcoming patch.
Salvage, or what to do when the job is done.
Rams salvage for 500 of the appropriate wood. Timer is 500 seconds (8:20). Repair right before salvage and you'll make it (decay timer is 12:00).
Ballistas salvage for 700 of the appropriate wood. Timer is 700 seconds (11:40). Repair right before salvaging and you should make it. For safety a helper might want to toss a repair on it while you're salvaging it.
Catapults salvage for 1000 of the appropriate wood (it will say salvage for 1100). Timer is 1100 seconds (18:20). You'll need a helper repairing every 5-10 minutes. The ironwood versions of these actually salvage for more or equal in wood than their crafted cost.
Celer's site has a lot of good information. Some is outdated with 1.54. And this will likely be outdated again in 1.55 (slight chance) or 1.56 (2003).
Celer's site: daoc.djswifty.com/
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Illyanna
Neophyte
Posts: 77
(11/4/02 7:51 pm)
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Invalid Ammo Fixed
Well they fixed the invalid ammo slot bug.
Ammo can be selected by clicking on the name and not the ammo symbol.
Loaded 5 and shot them all in various orders.
If you have no ammo selected it will give you the 'invalid ammo slot'. A selected ammo name turns yellow. Arming must come before loading and only one can be loaded at a time.
This was the last of the technical bugs and looks to be fixed.
Tweaking was slated for a different patch.
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Toast In The Machine
Journeyman
Posts: 397
(11/7/02 8:57 am)
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Re: Invalid Ammo Fixed
1.53 rams weigh 239. I take it that the components have been made lighter?
I regularly use rams (oak), and can do 670 damage to level 3-4 doors. I don't know if siegecrafting has an effect on ram damage, but mine should be pushing 20.
<hr>
Ygrane, Cleric of Tristan, 1130+ Armocrafter<BR>
Yellow Cab, Minstrel of Tristan<BR>
Ygrane, Healer of Guinevere
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Illyanna
Neophyte
Posts: 79
(11/7/02 2:35 pm)
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Weight Change
Material weights were halved in 1.54 so most of the weight decrease is there. The weights of individual pieces were adjusted - some higher and some lower.
Damage has nothing to do with your Siege skill.
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Toast In The Machine
Senior
Posts: 404
(11/7/02 11:33 pm)
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Re: Weight Change
Ah, thanks!
Anyways, just felt like your damage results for rams (oak) are lower than what I've seen in the field. They're less than half the cost of a siege ram, but I'm seeing damage almost as high.
<hr>
Ygrane, Cleric of Tristan, 1130+ Armocrafter<BR>
Yellow Cab, Minstrel of Tristan<BR>
Ygrane, Healer of Guinevere
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Illyanna
Neophyte
Posts: 80
(11/8/02 12:43 pm)
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Oak Ram damage
Can you post some logs here Toast. I've seen oak rams cap at 570 since they tweak ram damage last winter. And never had a siege ram do over 750.
Curious if it's a difference between live and test or realm dependent.
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Munry
Junior Apprentice
Posts: 29
(11/8/02 8:42 pm)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Hmmm, I just checked weights to update my sheets.
Wood for a ram went from 75 to 9 lbs.
Total Ram Weight 170
Wood for a Cat went from 150 to 19 lbs.
Total Cat Weight 256
Wood for a Ballista went from 100 to 12 lbs.
Total Ballista Weight 242.
This is in Hibernia - no idea if other realms are different - or why they should be if they are.
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Drelach
Neophyte
Posts: 78
(11/8/02 9:39 pm)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
You may want to check that again. Wood now weighs half as much, so 300 wood for a ram now weighs 37, 400 for a ballista weighs 50, and 600 for a catapult weighs 75.
I think you may have used the previous weights as quantities (75 wood weighs 9, 100 wood weighs 12, and 150 wood weighs 18)
---
Fret - 1045+ Weaponsmith - Gawaine
Drelach - Future Spellcrafter - Gawaine
Erisien - 50 Champion - Gawaine Edited by: Drelach at: 11/8/02 9:40:27 pm
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Munry
Junior Apprentice
Posts: 30
(11/9/02 12:34 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Oh bother - looks like you are right.
Oh well, one can dream - thanks.
Thought that was too good to be true.
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Toast In The Machine
Senior
Posts: 406
(11/9/02 10:00 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Sorry, was going by memory... was sure I've seen 670 damage posted before by my oak. It could be that buggy effect that seems to lets you do more damage the longer you've been on a door.
I'll be sure to log it the next time I make a ram.
<hr>
Ygrane, Cleric of Tristan, 1130+ Armocrafter<BR>
Yellow Cab, Minstrel of Tristan<BR>
Ygrane, Healer of Guinevere
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Yuzhan Vong 
Registered User
Posts: 8
(11/10/02 4:18 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
NEVER use anything less than ironwood for siege. Its not worth it. You throw up a oak ram on a say lvl5 door you only gonna do 200-300dmg and the ram will prolly decay, even if you repair it, before the door falls. I would hate to see what kinda dmg it does on a Relic door. Ironwood isnt that much more than oak and besides if cost is the issuse you shouldnt be buildin siege imho.
BTW anyone know when siege greys out? or if it every does? 29siegecraft here and everythins is still blue(i think).
-SithLord
Marka Ragnos - Mercenary Master - Merlin |
Toast In The Machine
Senior
Posts: 410
(11/10/02 8:03 pm)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Sorry Yuzhan, I've tested the rams I use on level 5 doors. I regularly do 450-500 damage on them, not 250-300. When I'm doing 80% of the damage of an ironwood for 50% of the cost, it's most definitely worth it.
<hr>
Ygrane, Cleric of Tristan, 1130+ Armocrafter<BR>
Yellow Cab, Minstrel of Tristan<BR>
Ygrane, Healer of Guinevere
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BatlKat 
Registered User
Posts: 6
(11/13/02 9:23 am)
Reply
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
whoa hold on - "siege engines require no wood to repair?"
True?
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Toast In The Machine
Senior
Posts: 414
(11/13/02 9:56 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
They didn't need wood to repair in 1.53 either.
<hr>
Ygrane, Cleric of Tristan, 1130+ Armocrafter<BR>
Yellow Cab, Minstrel of Tristan<BR>
Ygrane, Healer of Guinevere
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 LordBug 
Registered User
Posts: 6
(11/13/02 10:56 am)
Reply
ezSupporter
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Quote:
BTW anyone know when siege greys out? or if it every does? 29siegecraft here and everythins is still blue(i think).
I would think it follows normal skill con levels. +30(?) for green and +50 for grey
Eandg Ahriman
50 Troll Warrior of Valhalla (MLF)
11xx Legendary Grandmaster Armorer
Ebdain Ahriman
Retired EQ Wizard
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Dedridd
Registered User
Posts: 1
(11/16/02 12:50 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Yeah, I watched some guy PL siegecraft at Caer Benowyc the other day. They went grey at 51.
And it only cost him 1.5+ pp. <boggle>
Dedridd
46th season Cleric
Master Armorer / Siegecrafter
The Legion |
Illyanna
Assistant
Posts: 117
(1/30/03 9:44 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Duels with siege didn't cause XP deaths with ballistas. Still need to run the catapult tests.
Ballista damage caps at 732 for all 3 types (AF 0). Typical damage for the AE is 100.
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Tejj
Registered User
Posts: 9
(1/30/03 12:43 pm)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
During our training classes, which used a 6-12 students simultaneously dueling with all three varities of equipment for an extended period of time, we only encounterd one XP death with seige. It was one ungrouped 11th level hunter that was rezzed after a catapult duel death instead of waiting of the normal duel release.
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Toast In The Machine
Master
Posts: 544
(1/30/03 3:20 pm)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
I had a couple more opportunities to use rams recently, and I apologize profusely for not logging the data, but noticed something regarding ram damage and a possible source of noise in test data.
As a Midgard Guinevere-an, I have had many opportunities to go on HL raids in Darkness Falls, with several alts. High Lords, which I believe go past level 70, were being hit by my level 40ish alt! In fact, I was doing close to 60 damage at times. When maybe 20 people are swinging at a mob, and these 20 people are grouped with 20 other people, something very odd happens to the con adjustment to damage and to-hit. Things a level 40 shouldn't be able to scratch are suddenly being hit on every swing, and on top of that, taking damage as if they were close to even con. If my alt was the first person attackng the mob, I would never hit. If only a handful of people were attacking the mob, I might hit, and do a single point of damage. However, if a couple dozen more people joined the attack, my next swing would do an order of magnitude more damage. My only explanation for some of the numbers I'm seeing, is that the same phenomenon is affecting keep doors.
I haven't really figured out a way to run a controlled test of this on ram doors, but I think that may be the discrepancy between the damage I'm seeing, and the damage others are seeing. The last door I rammed was level 4-5, and I had an ironwood ram. My damage fluctuated wildly, from under 350 to 680 or so. The only factor I can guess was affecting my damage were the number of tanks beating on the doors with their own weapons. In the past, keep takes for me have generally involved half the retake force beating on the doors out of sheer boredom, but several groups of invaders were gtaeing and pbaeing us off of the doors periodically.
Ygrane, Cleric of Tristan, 1130+ Armocrafter
Yellow Cab, Minstrel of Tristan
Ygrane, Healer of Guinevere
Palla, Spellcrafter of Guinevere
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Dlaru
Moderator
Posts: 807
(1/31/03 4:58 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
Good theory....
I've noticed with the rams I've controlled recently that my damage seems to start off low (mid 300s) and then scale up to about 650-700. Since generally the rule is that the ram builders start working while everyone else finishes off the guards, it would make sense that when I first start hitting the door there aren't a lot of people on it, and that as I see my damage start to increase, it's probably just people finishing off guards and moving to the door.
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Illyanna
Assistant
Posts: 122
(1/31/03 9:54 am)
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Re: Siege HowTo Updated for 1.54
More likely it's do to the fact that doors have Condition as well as hits and they degrade like armor. Having 20 tanks beating on you to a certain armor piece would have similar results. Damage would start low and slowly increase as your armor Condition dropped from taking blows.
Damage usually escalates even when solo it just escalates slower because 1 ram doesn't cause as much Condition damage as 20+1 ram.
Not sure where in the process condition would reset to 100% again. Possibly when you get the 'fully repaired the gate' message.
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