Ballista
With Ballista, players construct a siege engine from an engineer's hammer and fire it with loaded arrows, adding a ballista to the game world.
What it does
An engineer's hammer builds the siege engine on a placed site, and a shift-click with the same hammer takes it apart again. Once built, the ballista is operated by hand: a click with an empty hand draws it, and a click while holding a ballista arrow loads it. Another click fires the loaded shot, and a shift-click releases control of the engine when the player is done.
The mod is aimed at adventure play and at decorative setups in builds, since a finished engine is a fixed structure that players can use or simply display. A dedicated repair item restores a ballista that has been broken, so a damaged engine can be returned to service without being rebuilt from scratch. The mod currently lists only the ballista as a completed siege engine.
Ballista runs on Forge and NeoForge for 1.20.1, 1.21 and 1.21.1, and it needs both the server and every player to have it installed. It is published under All rights reserved, so it is not open source.
Key features
Engineer's hammer
One hammer places a siege engine on construction and removes it on a shift-click, without a separate crafting station.
Drawing and loading
A ballista is drawn by an empty-hand click and loaded by a click while holding a ballista arrow.
Firing and control
A loaded ballista fires on click, and a shift-click releases the player's control of the engine.
Ballista repair item
A repair item restores a broken ballista, so the engine can be used again after damage.
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Use cases
Adventure defenses
A built ballista can serve as a fixed defensive weapon in an adventure map or a survival base.
Decorative siege setups
Finished engines can stand in builds as display pieces that players can also operate.
Who it’s for: Players who want working siege machinery in an adventure or building world, and server owners who want the engine available to every player on the server.
Questions
Does Ballista need to be installed on the server?
Which loaders does Ballista support?
Can a broken ballista be repaired?
In the catalog
Ballista is one of 12,078 Decoration mods on ModsFinder, and one of 6,149 Decoration mods for Forge. 32,366 mods support Minecraft 1.21.1.
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What the author says
This mod adds siege engines to minecraft. Click with the engineers hammer to construct a siege engine. Shift click with the engineers hammer to deconstruct. The Ballista: - click with empty hand to draw - click with ballista arrow in hand to load - click to shoot - shit click to take control - shift click to release…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/ballista
- Owner
- MarvinEckhardt
- Published
- 2025-03-04
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-02-22
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15