Bows: The Antichrist?

[Darkhymn]

So, I 'lost' a game this morning to a tribal raid, and the Great Bow is the single culprit. I don't know the exact stats, but I know that in the early game, my riflemen cannot reliably out-range them. Worse, as far as I can tell (and this is probably confirmation bias), the Great Bow has the single highest chance in the game - above and beyond bladed melee weapons - to suddenly and forcibly remove a man's limbs. No other enemy in the game is scarier to me than one that can - with his very first shot (and dressed like Fred Flintstone, no less) - reduce my armored, 14 shooting bionic super-soldier to a weeping, legless cripple.
Am I the only one who finds this absurd? My technologically advanced, better armed, armored soldiers should not be at any great risk of losing limbs to men in loin cloths shooting pointy sticks.

[Boboid]

Ever been shot by a longbow?

Well neither have I but I'm guessing it's not very fun!


As for the weapon balance - You can open up the ranged weapon table yourself ( Dev mode, logging button (top right), ranged weapon table ) and see how it compares.

It's much better than the short bow, still a pretty average weapon overall though.

[Mikhail Reign]

Ever been shot by a longbow?

Well neither have I but I'm guessing it's not very fun!

I imagine it would be - but I dont think it would be blowing limbs off - even the .50's legendary power is simply that a myth - unless you are shooting people with either many, many, manybullets, explosive rounds, or 20mm type rounds, you aren't blowing a limb off.

[Boboid]

For all we know those arrows have grenades attached!

[Mikhail Reign]

Maybe the raiders use these arrows?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wXxPZUDqAQ

[Boboid]

Fairly safe assumption I would say.

[WintericeUK]

Working on a few assumptions:

"Great Bow" is referring to something akin to an English Longbow.
The bow is made from wood and not exotic carbon materials and utilising cam systems.

You can expect a draw weight of between 60 and 120 pounds for an average bow with exceptionally rare pieces maybe being half as much again. In laboratory tests that were done a few years back the actual power of such bows was not sufficient to penetrate plate armour of average quality except at near point blank range. The legend of a longbow being able to fell a mounted and armoured knight is at best wildly apocryphal and at worst outright smoke. Now, it IS possible that an arrow could strike one of the few weak spots in a "tin suit", but even if it did, it would still need to penetrate the padded linen gambesson underneath it (which has actually proved to be MORE resistant to arrow fire than "chainmail" style armours in the same lab tests). THEN it would need to strike a vital organ such as the lungs or heart as the actual damage from impact is very minor unless you start looking at more modern and exotic arrow heads.

In short.... big bows are OP for limb removal, they're organ killers, not limb cutters.

[Daemoneyes]

Working on a few assumptions:

"Great Bow" is referring to something akin to an English Longbow.
The bow is made from wood and not exotic carbon materials and utilising cam systems.

You can expect a draw weight of between 60 and 120 pounds for an average bow with exceptionally rare pieces maybe being half as much again. In laboratory tests that were done a few years back the actual power of such bows was not sufficient to penetrate plate armour of average quality except at near point blank range. The legend of a longbow being able to fell a mounted and armoured knight is at best wildly apocryphal and at worst outright smoke. Now, it IS possible that an arrow could strike one of the few weak spots in a "tin suit", but even if it did, it would still need to penetrate the padded linen gambesson underneath it (which has actually proved to be MORE resistant to arrow fire than "chainmail" style armours in the same lab tests). THEN it would need to strike a vital organ such as the lungs or heart as the actual damage from impact is very minor unless you start looking at more modern and exotic arrow heads.

In short.... big bows are OP for limb removal, they're organ killers, not limb cutters.

source?

[Mikhail Reign]

Yeah I remember reading something along the lines of that - while not the best source I do believe they even done some testing along those lines for the Deadliest Warrior show.

Also: wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Modern_testing

[Darkhymn]

The classic longbow shoots a low velocity, inaccurate projectile. They were great as a medieval weapon in massed volleys, as medieval levies were generally very lightly and sparingly armored, and a 30 inch arrow jutting from your thigh will effectively hamper your ability (and certainly willingness) to continue the fight. In small scale combat against men with rifles of any kind wearing kevlar (discounting more modern broadhead arrows), the disadvantages would be insurmountable, forcing the archers to rely on a large numerical advantage and debilitating numbers of superficial wounds to incapacitate the enemy. Meanwhile, the "survival rifle," formerly known as Lee-Enfield is (in real life) capable of - comfortably (6 a minute vs 20-30 a minute) - triple the accurate fire rate and better than five times the effective range... The tribals should be toast.

[Panzer]

Well the survival rifle has more range and much higher firerate than a great bow, set your defenses up according to range and make sure to hide your sniper behind a wall, you should be fine if randy doesnt throw in consecutive raids.
I do love great bows in my early game though if I have a high lvl crafter with me, he can sometimes produce some excellent ones, those have acceptable accuracy even at longest range.

[Cazakatari]

I find the limb removal mechanic in general to be a bit excessive, the only weapons we have actually capable of that would be grenades, rocket launchers and longswords.  Sure arrows and bullets could mangle an arm or a leg if enough of them strike it, but not blow it off.

I do like that people can get fingers and toes shot off, that is plausible enough.  The whole limb is kinda silly however, I think if the "hp" of a limb reaches zero it should be heavily scarred, unusable until healed, and also have a very high chance of infection without a very competent doctor treating it.  That way we would also have more instances of amputation being an option

[Endoric]

I find the limb removal mechanic in general to be a bit excessive, the only weapons we have actually capable of that would be grenades, rocket launchers and longswords.  Sure arrows and bullets could mangle an arm or a leg if enough of them strike it, but not blow it off.

I do like that people can get fingers and toes shot off, that is plausible enough.  The whole limb is kinda silly however, I think if the "hp" of a limb reaches zero it should be heavily scarred, unusable until healed, and also have a very high chance of infection without a very competent doctor treating it.  That way we would also have more instances of amputation being an option

I fully agree.  Limb loss should be a result of an injury instead of being severed in battle.  Bullet to the shoulder, infection sets in, amputation to stop the infection.  Much better model

[NoImageAvailable]

I find the limb removal mechanic in general to be a bit excessive, the only weapons we have actually capable of that would be grenades, rocket launchers and longswords.  Sure arrows and bullets could mangle an arm or a leg if enough of them strike it, but not blow it off.

I do like that people can get fingers and toes shot off, that is plausible enough.  The whole limb is kinda silly however, I think if the "hp" of a limb reaches zero it should be heavily scarred, unusable until healed, and also have a very high chance of infection without a very competent doctor treating it.  That way we would also have more instances of amputation being an option

Lets not even mention that limbs have literally the same health value as internal organs like heart and liver. Take a high-power round to the liver? Sure, that thing is for all intents destroyed. But a 7.62x51mm completely severing a leg in one hit? Not unless you're the Gingerbread man.

[ZestyLemons]

Bows are pretty silly at the moment. If firearms actually had magazines/ammo and pawns could perform follow-up shots and stuff, then at least they'd have an advantage over great bows.