Garek's Guide to Ballistae

The purpose of this document is to give a comprehensive explanation of how to build and use a ballista, as well as how to best plan the logistics of moving them into battle.

The information presented here was compiled with painstaking effort by the author, and should not be re-posted in whole or in part elsewhere without the author's permission.

DAoC Ballistae

In DAoC, there are three different types of ballistae that can be built by players. The purpose of a ballista is to provide an indirect fire, area effect damage capability to a static position. Since Ballista are immobile once constructed, and have a limited lifespan, they are best suited for the defense of a keep, and secondly to aid in the siege of a keep or other fortified position. The three types of ballistae are denoted as 'scorpion', 'ballista', and 'palintone'. The three differ from each other in only two regards, first that they have a different resource cost, and second, that they do different amounts of damage. All three are the exact same weight, and have the same graphic.

Front View of a Ballsita

Ballista in Resting Position

Ballista Armed for Firing (note the position of the cable)

Component Formulas

Craft	Component	Linen Heavy Thread	Ferrite Metal Bars	Tanned Leather Squares	Linen Cloth Squares
	Ferrite Gimbal	-	400	-	-
	Ferrite Spring Arms	-	300	100	-
	Ferrite Ballista Trigger	-	100	300	450
	Tanned Torsion Cable	400	-	100	-

All crafted components require 500+ skill in the tradeskill to attempt.

Production Costs

Class I: Scorpion
Part	Crafted Cost	Vendor Cost
400 Elm Wooden Boards (Vendor)	2 gp 40 sp (12 sp per 20)	2 gp 40 sp (12 sp per 20)
1 Ferrite Gimbal	5 gp 60 sp	8 gp 40 sp
1 Ferrite Spring Arms	4 gp 80 sp	7 gp 47 sp
1 Ferrite Ballista Trigger	5 gp	8 gp 4 sp
2 Tanned Torsion Cables	2 gp 4 sp each, 4 gp 8 sp total	3 gp 30 sp each, 6 gp 60 sp total
Total Cost:	21 gp 88 sp	32 gp 91 sp


Class II: Ballista
Part	Crafted Cost	Vendor Cost
400 Oaken Wooden Boards (Vendor)	9 gp 60 sp (48 sp per 20)	9 gp 60 sp (48 sp per 20)
1 Ferrite Gimbal	5 gp 60 sp	8 gp 40 sp
1 Ferrite Spring Arms	4 gp 80 sp	7 gp 47 sp
1 Ferrite Ballista Trigger	5 gp	8 gp 4 sp
2 Tanned Torsion Cables	2 gp 4 sp each, 4 gp 8 sp total	3 gp 30 sp each, 6 gp 60 sp total
Total Cost:	29 gp 8 sp	40 gp 11 sp


Class III: Palintone
Part	Crafted Cost	Vendor Cost
400 Ironwood Wooden Boards (Vendor)	28 gp 80 sp (1 gp 44 sp per 20)	28 gp 80 sp (1 gp 44 sp per 20)
1 Ferrite Gimbal	5 gp 60 sp	8 gp 40 sp
1 Ferrite Spring Arms	4 gp 80 sp	7 gp 47 sp
1 Ferrite Ballista Trigger	5 gp	8 gp 4 sp
2 Tanned Torsion Cables	2 gp 4 sp each, 4 gp 8 sp total	3 gp 30 sp each, 6 gp 60 sp total
Total Cost:	48 gp 28 sp	59 gp 31 sp


Ballista Bolt (Vendor)	5 sp	5 sp

                            Crafted costs are determined using materials bought in stacks of 20.
                            All costs rounded off to the nearest sp.
                            Note that each formula uses the same crafted parts, they only vary in the wood used.

Component Procurement Merchant Keeps are:
Albion - Caer Benowyc, in Hadrian's Wall
Hibernia - Dun Crauchon, in Emain Macha
Midgard - Bledmeer Faste, in Odin's Gate

-Wood can be purchased in Tir Na Nog, Innis Cathaig, and at any Merchant Keep.
-Ferrite Gimbals can be purchased at Innis Carthaig and at any Merchant Keep.
-Ferrite Spring Arms can be purchased at Innis Carthaig and at any Merchant Keep.
-Ferrite Ballista Triggers can be purchased at Innis Carthaig and at any Merchant Keep.
-Tanned Torsion Cables can only be purchased at Merchant Keeps (and are labeled "torsion cables").
-Ballista Bolts can only be purchased at Merchant Keeps, and are not stackable or craftable.

Note: Many merchants sell siege components that are not usable in any siege weapon. For example, in a frontier merchant keep you may find a "Ballista Trigger" for sale on one vendor. This item is not usable in a ballista. You must use a "Ferrite Ballista Trigger". Be particularly cautious of this disparity when purchasing Ferrite Gimbals, Ballista Triggers, and Spring Arms, since these must be made of ferrite, and "Gimbal", "Ballista Trigger", and "Spring Arms", while useless, are sold by NPC merchants.

Weight Considerations

Now that you've decided you want to build a ballista in an operation, you need to first address the logistics of getting the ballista to the siege site.

Ballista Component Weights

Component	Weight	Total
Tanned Torsion Cables (2)	20 lbs	40 lbs
Ferrite Gimbal	30 lbs	30 lbs
Ferrite Spring Arms	27 lbs	27 lbs
Ferrite Ballista Trigger	18 lbs	18 lbs
Wooden Boards (400)	5 lbs per 20	100 lbs
	Total Ballista Weight:	330 lbs
Ammunition
Ballista Bolt x30	2 lbs each	60 lbs
	Total Package Total:	x lbs

Based on these figures, 1 ballista weighs 330 lbs, regardless of the wood used, and an additional 60 lbs for the ammunition. Here are some guidelines to use so that your ballista arrives at the keep with all of its components.
1) Use as few a number of people as possible to transport components.
2) When allocating weight among individuals, never give them more weight they they can carry, unencumbered, while self-buffed.

Example: Garek is a L50 warden with 160 strength. Self-buffed (w/ L50 strength buff, +50 strength) his strength is 211. Check your encumberance, self-buffed, to know how much you can carry. Keep in mind your armor and weapons count against your encumberance too, so be sure to look at your encumberance and not only your strength. With 211 str the max encumberance is 210, and Garek carries approximately 50 pounds of equipment (tools, weapons, armor, arrows, etc.) so he can carry 160 lbs of equipment. Although Garek's strength is much higher with a druid's strength/constitution buff, he does not carry more than 160 lbs of siege equipment. The reason for this is, if someone is strength buffed and their buffer disconnects, they will be overloaded, and likely unable to move. If you come into contact with the enemy while moving to your objective, and the strength buffer is killed, overloaded party members will become rooted by their encumberance, and easy pray to enemy troops. Wardens, Bards, and Druids are ideal choices for carrying siege equipment for their self-buffed capacity, with Heroes, Blademasters, and Champions being a close second for their raw strength. Many members of these classes are also often Firbolgs, which gives them an even greater weight capacity.

Distributing Ballista Components When allocating components for a raid, set your people up into siege crews. The person that will construct the weapon is the engineer. This is ideally also going to be the weapon's operator, to save time in getting the weapon functioning. Those carrying parts must be ready to hand the pieces to the engineer at the emplacement site. Because one disconnected person can make a siege weapon useless, avoid allocating equipment to someone with connectivity issues. Also, hand each person parts for one weapon. If you are bringing 2 ballistae to a given raid, do not given one person both ferrite ballista triggers - if he should disconnect, die and release, etc. all of your ballistae become non-functional, instead of just 1. Whenever possible, have only 2 or 3 people carry a ballista. Make sure the person carrying the ammunition is the gunner, too.

Allocating parts for one ballista across three carriers should look something like:
Engineer/Gunner: 300 Boards + 30 Ballista Bolts = 135 lbs.
Carrier 1: 2 Tanned Torsion Cables + 1 Ferrite Gimbal = 140 lbs.
Carrier 2: 1 Ferrite Spring Arms + 1 Ferrite Ballista Trigger +100 Boards = 115 lbs.

Building a Ballista To build a ballista, you need only have chosen a field of specialization from a tradecraft master. Siege weapons never require a skill greater than 1 in Siegecraft (all the siege weaponry cons yellow on the construction table at a skill of 1). This fact is important because it means you can never lose materials in a failed attempt at building a siege weapon. If you fail, you need only try the build again until you succeed.

Make sure you have a sewing kit, smithing hammer, and planing tool on you when attempting to build any siege weapon!

To physically emplace a ballista, you need to keep in mind the areas you want to bombard. Keep in mind that the ballista is an area effect weapon, so in RvR you will want to avoid hitting NPC spawns. You need to be particularly mindful of the minimum range of the ballista. Because it uses indirect fire, it does not require line of sight, but it uses the physics of a parabolic arc when firing, so your target must be a set range away to be fired on. The minimum range of a ballista is approximately 1500 units, and the maximum range is approximately 3500 units. Using /loc, you can estimate these distances. In defending a keep, you will need to place the ballista in the lord's tower or along the back wall in order to deliver fire on the gates. In the offense ballista can be used to deliver firepower on a defended keep, but you will need an enemy targeted, or a stealther to spot for you. Do not build the ballista too close to the keep being attacked or it will be useless, and expect to have heavy counterbattery fire delivered on you if you deploy a weapon in a siege - it is very easy to target siege weapons outside the keep, but very hard to attack them inside.

The equipment carriers pass the engineer the full list of components once the engineer is standing in the spot the weapon needs to be built. The weight of all the components will overload the engineer to the point that he will be unable to move at all. Be mindful of this if the engineer is killed before construction is complete! If the engineer needs ressurecting before he has built the weapon, the resser needs to stand exactly where the engineer died, so that the engineer will be in the correct spot for construction. If you ressurect the engineer 50 feet away from where he died, he will not be able to walk to the correct spot, and all the equipment on him will need to be offloaded so he can move, creating a waste of critical time.

Readying the Ballista Once the ballista is built it will drop on the ground, and give the engineer a dialogue box saying the ballista has fallen to the ground, since it would not fit in your backpack. Click Ok. Now target the ballista you just built and type "/control release" to unlock the weapon.

Controlling the Ballista To take control of a ballista, you target the weapon while standing next to or in it, and type "/control". If the weapon has no controller, you will become the controller, and a pop-up window will appear on your screen with a timer-bar and a few commands on it. If at any point you wish to stop controlling the ballista, you should close the seige weapon pop-up box, then type "/control release" or simply move far away from the weapon. Now another operator can take over. Until you type "/control release", no one else may operate the equipment.

To bring the ballista into play, start by selecting a point target with your cursor, or by using F8 and push the button marked "Aim". The aiming sequence takes 5 seconds to complete. Note that you can target inanimate objects as well, such as a keep door. When you hit Aim, the ballista aims at the x, y, and z coordinates your target occupied at the moment aim was pushed like a snapshot. If you aimed at a mobile target, the ballista will not track the target, you will need to re-aim it. Because of how the aiming system works, one useful trick is to group with a Nightshade, have them move while stealthed to the spot you need to fire on, then Aim at them. They can leave move elsewhere, but your weapon is now ready to bombard. This approach is most effective when trying to bombard enemy siege weapons inside a keep, from outside it.

Now, hit the button marked "Arm" on the control window. The timer bar will begin to fill. It takes 20 seconds to arm a ballista. Note that the timer bar takes less than than 20 seconds to fill, so do not rely on the bar to gauge when the ballista is ready. When the Arm button is pushed, you will see the Ballista's cable draw back and the gears will turn.

Now that the weapon itself has been prepared using the arming sequence, you need to prepare the ammunition. Take 1 ballista bolt from your inventory and drop it directly onto the ballista. You will see the ballista bolt appear on the control panel window. Now hit the button labeled "Load". It takes 5 seconds to complete the loading sequence. Although you can load more than one bolt at the same time, I recommend not doing so, since bolts tend to get bugged and are lost from inventory but become unfireable.

After the 5 second loading period has elapsed, press the "Fire" button in the window, and the ballista will visually rock back from firing the bolt. You will also receive a melee damage report of the bolt's damage, with the highest damage occuring at the center of the impact area, and the least damage at the fringe of the blast's effect radius.

You can click any button in the sequence continuously until the ballista competes that step; although the timer bar resets, it does not restart the 5 or 20 second requirement. As soon as you have clicked "Fire", immediately click "Arm" again. The trick to efficient ballista operation is to focus on what you are doing. The display can be somewhat misleading, because after you have fired the ballista, the status bar begins filling again on its own, even before "Arm" is selected. However, you cannot fire the ballista again without arming and loading it first, even if the status bar completely refills! If you wait for the bar to refill on it's own after completing a fire, it will prompt you with a dialog of the sort "this weapon must be armed first", and hitting "Arm" will re-start the timer. Don't fall into this mistake - your troops are counting on you to deliver as much damage as possible as quickly as possible! Always re-arm the ballista as soon as you've fired it, since that is the longest sequence, and try and deliver bolts onto the enemy as quickly as possibly, since each round requires a minimum of 30 seconds to deliver.

Running a Ballista with Hotkeys An optional method of building and operating a ballista is by using a series of hotkeys, to avoid the trouble of using the control panel, which can be misleading and get in the way.

Macro 1 - Siegecraft menu Palintone icon
Macro 2 - /control release
Macro 3 - /control
Macro 4 - /aim
Macro 5 - /arm
Macro 6 - /load
Macro 7 - /fire
Macro 8 - /repair

Now for the construction:
Move to where you want the ballista emplaced, and get the parts.
Macro 1 (builds the ballista)
Target the ballista
Macro 2
Macro 3
now target the object to fire on
Macro 4
Macro 5
Drop a ballista bolt onto the weapon
Macro 6
Macro 7
Macro 5
Drop a ballista bolt onto the weapon
Macro 6
Macro 7

And if the ballista requires repairs,
Target the ballista
Macro 8

Repairing the Ballista

Ballista hit point bar

It is essential that you watch the ballista's health bar to avoid having it decay before you are done. Ballistas decay two different ways:
1) Slowly they decay naturally on a 15 minute timer.
2) Any enemy spell or melee damage also removes hit points from the ballista, particularly enemy bombardment fire from a catapult.

Presently siege weapon repairs only check the repairer's Woodworking skill using a pass/ fail skill check. If successful, you will repair the ballista's hit points to full. These repairs cost no resources, and do not require any wood or other material to attempt. If you fail your repair attempt, simply try again.

Practice makes Perfect Even after reading this siege weapon primer, you will not be able to smoothly carry into battle, deploy, and operate a ballista without practice. Ballistae are one of the more complex aspects of DAoC's RvR system, but can also have a huge impact when experienced troops use them correctly, especially in defense of a keep. Plan times to practice setting up, aiming, and firing ballistae and remember that the key is to train many people to proficiency in their construction and operation, so they are built as fast as possible and used correctly.

Other Information For more information on siege weaponry, be sure to check out Garek's Guides to Siege Rams and Catapults. For more information on Keep Doors and the Woodworking skill, review Garek's Guide to Keep Doors.