My character has 10 strength, which I believe is the requirement for the longbow.
The main advantage for the longbow I can currently think of is the use of exploding and fire arrows, but, that’s about it.
I definitely know the crossbow is all around stronger, but since the game only tells me the default reload time, I can’t easily gauge whether the strength outweighs the reload time.
BOTH get some pretty good bolts/arrows, but the main pros and cons are this:
*BOWS
-Very reliable in most situations. If you’re very strong (I don’t think ten cuts it) the reflex recurve bow offers good range, rate of fire and accuracy.
-Pretty sure bows can be worn in the latest experimental, taking up much less room
-Not particular modable
-Generally out-performed in specific scenarios by specialized crossbows
*X-BOWS
-The repeating crossbow can be burst fired and reloads surprisingly fast
-The heaviest crossbow hits harder and farther than many firearms
-xbows are pretty modable, you can even stick a mini-crossbow ON a crossbow!
-Many xbows either lack range, damage or are extremely slow to reload
-Heavier than bows and their specialized nature means they’re generally lacking in one way or another
Actually, the bare minimum Strength to use the strongest bow in the game, the reflex recurve bow, is 6. The Strength to get the reflex recurve bow’s maximum range is 12. If your Strength is below the draw strength for any bow, the only penalty is that you lose two tiles of range for each point of Strength you fall short of the bow’s draw strength. A reflex recurve bow has a default range of 18 tiles, so with a Strength of 10, its range is 14 plus the range of the arrow.
Strength 10 is perfectly viable for an archer, even if your goal is to wield a reflex recurve bow. With metal arrows, a Strength 10 archer still gets 24 tiles of range out of a reflex recurve bow, and bows have enough Dispersion that you wouldn’t be very likely to hit targets at a range of 25+ even if you had enough Strength to get that kind of reach. You can still get a range of 30 with a longbow and metal arrows if you really need it, and you probably won’t unless you want to try something crazy like shooting a turret with arrows in broad daylight, or if you keep finding that your reflex recurve bow doesn’t have the range you need to hit deer or whatever (but even with Strength 12 or a longbow you probably wouldn’t be able to hit it very reliably at 25+ tiles, and the chance that you’d do enough damage to kill it with that shot is even lower).
Bows lacking mods is still kind of a thing, but it’s getting worked on. Bow sights and bow stabilizers got added, and the latter is a godsend, because it reduces Dispersion.
It’s also true that you can wear bows in a pinch, but try to avoid doing so if you can. They apply high encumbrance to your torso (2 or 3 points) even before taking layering penalties into account, unlike anything with a shoulder strap, which has a base encumbrance of 0 and will only up encumbrance if it triggers layering penalties.
I also forgot to mention that many crossbows have a strength based reload time deduction, for what it’s worth.
The OP knows that, but sadly how much your Strength affects the reload time isn’t displayed.
I’m all for the pneumatic bolt driver. It packs quiete a punch even with wooden crossbow bolts, has a range of 20, DOESN’T have a minimum strenght to load, but takes 500 (or was it 600?) time units to load EACH bolt, up to the 6 bolts it can hold (or was it 8?.. DAMN YOU BRAIN!).
[quote=“Darkfirephoenix, post:6, topic:8682”]-super snip-
up to the 6 bolts it can hold (or was it 8?.. DAMN YOU BRAIN!).[/quote]
It holds 8 bolts.
I think we need a ‘mutant’s bow’ that takes 16-20 strength to draw.
Crossbow: Never my main weapon, always backup/boredom/hunting weapon. Ammo is easy to make, pistol crossbow is fun to use.
Bow: strong canditate for main weapon. Metal arrows just wreck things. Many options between speed power and range.
Personally more of a fan of bows to crossbows, the reflex recurve is almost as good as the pneumatic assault rifle imo.
For archery level 9, recurve reflex bow takes only 45 action points to shoot 1 arrow. I think it is equal to a burst of 3 arrows in a turn. It can overwhelm most enemies, just except chicken walker, tank drone and turrets in daylight.
For those robots, night raid is the best option but my ferromagnetic rail rifle could also out-range them.
I always wondered, what exactly powered the Wrist DREAD or pnumatic assault rifle or the like? You’d think they’d use UPS power or batteries, but they don’t…
Pneumatic weapons use (as the name implies) pneumatic power, they work with pressure to shoot the wanted projectile at your target (internal air pressure, liquid pressure etc.). Imagine them like those water guns that you have to pump first, something like that (I imagine).
Exactly how good are the pneumatic weapons, I haven’t tested them but a pneumatic assault rifle that fires pebbles doesn’t seem particularly deadly, can’t figure out why though. Still unsure about other pneumatic weapons
Pneumatic weapons use (as the name implies) pneumatic power, they work with pressure to shoot the wanted projectile at your target (internal air pressure, liquid pressure etc.). Imagine them like those water guns that you have to pump first, something like that (I imagine).[/quote]Odd… wouldn’t that preclude rediculous reload times and damage levels below even BB guns?
Use bearings to get best results with the assault rifle, pebbles can be made a lot faster though…
Please note that the assault rifle has a large damage boost (+15, pebbles have a damage value of 3, bearings have 6), as such it’s more or less equivalent stat wise to .38 bullets (which have a damage value of 20)
It takes a while to reload the assault rifle, 280 moves per shot, while not quite ridiculous, is still impractical in combat unless you can just sit there and tank it.
And the pneumatic bolt driver gives a nice +20 to damage
Not really. A BB gun and pneumatic driven weapons are entirely different matters. You could compare it with a balloon (BB gun) and a tire in terms of stored power, a BB gun can’t store much power/pressure while a pneumatic weapon can store dangerous amounts, which depends on the pneumatic weapon. The power stored in a BB gun would give you a welt at max, while a pneumatic assault rifle stores enough power to ripp fingers clean off and a pneumatic bolt driver could ripp a hand clean off.
I agree with Flame, Mutant Bows would be amazing, partially because it would make sense for a Huge character not able to draw a regular self-bow, but a Longbow seems pretty realistic for a “Huge” character.
Pneumatic weapons use (as the name implies) pneumatic power, they work with pressure to shoot the wanted projectile at your target (internal air pressure, liquid pressure etc.). Imagine them like those water guns that you have to pump first, something like that (I imagine).[/quote]Odd… wouldn’t that preclude rediculous reload times and damage levels below even BB guns?[/quote]
Nope. Pneumatics guns and pneumatic artillery have even been deployed in real wars. Don’t think BB guns, think Tory from myth-buster’s air cannon.
Pneumatic weapons use (as the name implies) pneumatic power, they work with pressure to shoot the wanted projectile at your target (internal air pressure, liquid pressure etc.). Imagine them like those water guns that you have to pump first, something like that (I imagine).[/quote]Odd… wouldn’t that preclude rediculous reload times and damage levels below even BB guns?[/quote]
Nope. Pneumatics guns and pneumatic artillery have even been deployed in real wars. Don’t think BB guns, think Tory from myth-buster’s air cannon.[/quote]
Sudden urge to create a myth-busters based character, only uses homemade style weapons.