How to make a (nearly) indestructable ballista

I ripped off a whole bunch of other guides to create this monster of a ballista, if you see something that looks like it came from your guide, thanks I guess. Wanted to post this as it took a while and it gets the job done pretty well, but I'm about as artistic as a stick so it's a bit of an eye sore.

Introduction

Hey there, my creation, as refered to above, is a very stable ballista that won't fall over quite as easily as other ballistas that I've seen. I would lie and say I'm not English to make up for my appauling speeling and grammar, but I fear you'd see through my lie, so I'll simply appologise in advance. Hope you can follow and that you destroy many a windmill with it =D

My other guides:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=407185250&searchtext=trebuchet%27
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408345757&searchtext=catapult

Building the base

The base of the ballista is what makes it so stable, it is both wide and light as it requires almost no bracing. You may want to use this as the base for other machines, please do send me pics if you do xD



Start by building 2 blocks behind from the origin, and six blocks in front, then build 2 block either side of the very back block.



Build a single block every other block from the back left and right (you can do this by building a full line with single blocks then earasing every other one).



Place suspension blocks on the middle collumn filling in each of the gaps on the right and left.



Place 3 wheels on top of each other on all 4 of the corner blocks.



Edit the innermost wheel on both of the back blocks to the keys and spin speed shown (right for fowards, left for backwards on the left wheel. left for fowards, right for backwards on the right wheel. 1.40 spin speed on both).



Place suspension blocks upwards every other block as shown, except for the back middle block, where you must build 1 block and place a grabber on top.



Fill in every space between the suspension blocks with single blocks, then brace the back collumn as shown.



Thus the base is complete, you can now try driving it around, I've always thought it handles something like it's on an ice rink :P

Building the ballista

If you didn't just come here to nick the base vehicle, and you'd actually like to put a ballista on top of it, then this is the section for you!



Start by placing a single block on the front middle block, then place a hinge on top of that, and another single block on top of that.



Build 2 blocks either side of the top block, then build 2 blocks on top of each of them. As well as that, you want to build 8 blocks back from the block on top of the hinge.



Brace all that up as shown.



Place grabbers across from each of the top blocks, then place a single block on each of them (to do this you will have to place two blocks, then delete the first one, leaving a floating block, and place a grabber in the gap).



Assign a key to cause the grabbers to release, it must be the same for each one but not the same as the one previousley placed in the bottom middle (I use 'E').



Build a single block up from the very front, and the third from the back, then place a half pipe on top of both of them.



Build 4 blocks up from the fifth block from the back, then build 2 blocks going back from the third block up.



Delete the 4 blocks going up, and build 1 block back and 6 blocks foward from the 2 blocks placed in the half pipe.



Attach a decoupler to the back block, then place another single block on the back of that. Connect each side of the block to the blocks connected to the grabbers with contractable springs.



Build a grabber at the front of the bolt and attach a bomb to that (to do this you will again have to build a block foward, attach the bomb to that block then delete it and place a grabber in the gap).



Complete! To fire you will have to hold 'L' then hit 'J', then to get rind of all the fiddly bits so that you can have a drive around press the button you assigned to the 2 grabbers (in my case 'E').



Just to prove that it does work...

[Xetrex]

thanks i couldnt figure out how to make turning wheels so this helped

[The Great Glumbini]

the ballista works and fires much better if you use decouplers instead of half pipes, the low friction on the half pipes only applies to balls and you can keep your projectile much straighter with decouplers, simply bind them to same key as launch key and theyll let go of the spear and send it flying straight forward. i find it fires better overall if you use decouplers instead

[Fyrlekko]

dis is cool

[Bozo Dispozo]

Thanks a bunch. If you add a grabber on the front, it can do every single mission. Thanks again!

[Bingus]

I was fakin lost when I was told to make stuff to blow up stuff. Then I made the base from this guide. Thank you

[♠ ieuanam]

did it

[♠ ieuanam]

Help on the Grabber part accross the U shape part

["woke romanov loyalist"]

The pics could be better, but the result is mind-blowing

[taze]

great base, nice guide overall! here's a cool ballista i've made before reading your guide though

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=405326533
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=405326575

[Gram]

GLORIOUS! Just glorious.