Expanded Archery Mod

[darktoes]

This only adds or changes items so a new game isn’t necessary. The only issue is that if you want to find a smart arrow you’ll have to find new military locations that you’ve never been near before.

Glad you like it! Any input is welcome.

[mentos046]

I’ve been using this mod for a while now and it works great. Thanks for making it. I do have some questions about arrows, though:

Does this mod affect the spawn rate of wild arrows in places like the Sporting Goods Stores or just around anywhere? I ask because I’ve never, even before using this mod, seen any arrows spawn anywhere in the world aside from a stack of 10-or-so Carbon Fiber arrows that used to show up in the Sporting Goods Stores.

Also, which arrows, in terms of damage and armor penetration, are above Fire-Hardened Wooden ones, and what skills do I need to make them? I once got high enough skills to make broadhead arrows that were mowing down the undead hordes, but that was some time ago so I’m not sure what it takes to make them. Lately I’ve been stuck using Fire-Hardened Wooden arrows because nothing else ever becomes available until a copy of The Fletcher’s Friend shows up.

Do you think it would be possible to make arrows, bows (rarely), and copies of The Fletcher’s Friend and The Bowyer’s Buddy (also rarely) show up in the Sporting Goods stores or, if they already do, crank up their spawn rates a bit. It’d be nice to have a reason to loot one again; these days the Sporting Goods Stores generally only spawn 4-or-5 useless items, so burning them down to attract hordes without ever going inside is a better use for them.

[darktoes]

Well i sure am happy to know people appreciate my work!

Spawn rate of arrows wasn’t touched. I don’t think I’ve found a single arrow in game, other than a couple of carbon fibre ones like you mentioned.

You’ll need metalworking tools to make the really good arrows, till then fire hardened might be your best bet. You can just do a search for arrow in the crafting menu and check the stats of any that come up.

Upping spawn rates should be perfectly doable. I’ll have a look at that sometime in the next few days.

[mentos046]

I found a Fletcher’s Friend and got the recipe for Metal Broadhead Arrows. You mentioned that the best ones require metalworking tools and these don’t seem to, so are there better ones than the metal broadhead and bodkin arrows or do I just have an old version of the mod?

Also, the recipes indicate that they require archery 5, but when I got the book I was able to make them with archery 2. Is that an error or is archery 5 just for auto-learn?

[redxlaser15]

When you have books you can make things from inside the book even when you have too low of skill level. Just remember that you are far more likely to fail in making it.

[darktoes]

Seems I got the steel arrows confused with the steel bolts, you do indeed only need general tools to make the steel arrows (which I may change). Archery 5 is to learn the recipe automatically, like you said, otherwise you need fabrication 4 and Fletcher’s Friend.

The steel set of arrows are the best available, there’s different types for different situations and some special ones once you get electronic skills.

[mentos046]

When you have books you can make things from inside the book even when you have too low of skill level. Just remember that you are far more likely to fail in making it.

I did not know that. Thanks, that sounds like it will be useful.

Seems I got the steel arrows confused with the steel bolts, you do indeed only need general tools to make the steel arrows (which I may change). Archery 5 is to learn the recipe automatically, like you said, otherwise you need fabrication 4 and Fletcher’s Friend.

The steel set of arrows are the best available, there’s different types for different situations and some special ones once you get electronic skills.

I look forward to finding out what they are, then. And thanks again for making this.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

@darktoes have you updated dispersion after the rebalance?

[darktoes]

Not yet. Right now I’m waiting for Pk’s and Ascension mod to update so I can update my game for testing, but I could probably fix the the dispersion values without worrying too much if people want it.

I also want to fiddle with the spawn rates a bit so compound crossbows can spawn as guns and more bow stuff spawns in sporting good stores, but since sporting good stores aren’t JSONised that might be impossible.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

I also want to fiddle with the spawn rates a bit so compound crossbows can spawn as guns and more bow stuff spawns in sporting good stores, but since sporting good stores aren’t JSONised that might be impossible.

@darktoes It might not be as hard as it seems; the code used seems to be similar to json spawn rules sometimes. Send me an outline and I will try to add new itemgroup spawns.

[darktoes]

Off the top of my head there’s an archery spawngroup that pretty much only shows in sporting goods stores. If that had a better chance to spawn something, or had more spawn points, then there’d be more archery loot, which is what i want.

[Mantar]

Yeah, the archery spawns should maybe be added to campgrounds or something.

[darktoes]

I think I’ll just add a bunch of archery items to the sports itemgroup, that way it will spawn in a bunch of places.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

@darktoes I’ve successfully tested a change to sporting goods item spawns. Do you want the preexisting archery, archery_ammo, and archery_mods item groups or do you want something granular?

I’ve also found a way to increase sporting goods spawns in general.

[darktoes]

Not really sure what you mean by granular. I’m thinking it would be easiest to just remove the archery groups and add all the archery items to the normal sport groups, since that would let it spawn in a whole bunch of fun (and realistic) places.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

@Mantar the camping group already has bows and arrows, they’re not common though.

@darktoes Granular like guns and ammo: homemade bows, factory bows, future bows; homemade arrows, factory arrows, special forces arrows like your smart arrow and the explosive arrow.

Looked through the mapgen: the sports group spawns in sporting goods stores, malls, mansions, bandit towers and necropolis; the college_sports spawns in college_sports specials; the allsporting group spawns in sporting goods stores and bandit towers; sports_bulk and crate_sports spawns in mansions.

[darktoes]

Separating it that much seems excessive. I only have one military grade item as of yet, and i just stuck that in rare spawns. Until there’s a good reason to have specific archery spawns i think I’ll just put everything under sports and the compound crossbow as a common rifle (but with a low chance to spawn).

That said, some granularity might be worth it if i come up with some more hightech bow stuff or if a spec ops corpse team becomes a thing. But then you’d just want a spec ops team spawngroup…

[darktoes]

(Sorry for the double post but)

NEW UPDATE!
Everyone (who cares): “Fucking finally!”
Me: “I had a final semester project! it was hard!”
Everyone (who cares): assorted comments probably

So, sights got moved in line with the new ranged weapons update (like everyone (about one person mentioned it) wanted) and the 5 pin sight has become an actual scope (since I found out those existed) and the three pin sight is now the 5 pin sight. Hooray for optics!

Compound bows are now… drumroll ADJUSTABLE! The basic compound bow is now set to a medium draw weight and can be tightened to a higher weight (for super strong characters) or loosened off (for average strength characters) with appropriate damage and range bonuses (and penalties). I could probably also make a junior variant for really low strength characters if people want that? I don’t see it as being useful but if someone wants it…
If anyone’s not already aware, having higher strength than required for a bow increases the range, even though THAT’S NOT HOW THAT WORKS except maybe that got changed. I dunno. It did last I checked.

Arrows are unchanged, but bolts got shifted a bit to have higher range and lower damage since they are shorter and have lower mass. Arrows remain slightly more accurate, since the fletching has a better chance of having an effect over a longer period, and the greater weight helps retain initial launch trajectory. I’m no scientist (yet) but I’m pretty sure that makes sense, so if you don’t like it or have evidence to the contrary say so. Crossbows (and the pneumatic bolt driver) were all nudged up a bit in damage and down a bit in range to compensate, so overall you probably won’t notice the difference, but it makes me happy so don’t question it.

Existing pneumatic guns have had a couple of new mod locations added, so you can stick on all your favourite attachments. Also bumped up their dispersion a bit since it was weirdly low. Pneumatic bolt driver also lost a bit of damage and range, to hopefully differentiate it from…

NEW PNEUMATIC WEAPONS!

1. First, a homemade pneumatic sniper to complement the existing assault rifle and bolt driver, with a massive reload time and MASSIVE DAMAGE! (disclaimer: Really not that massive) Also range. Basically a sniper rifle, but shoots arrows. As the description states, surprisingly noisy.
2. Second, the Airbower! A commercially made (you can’t craft it) pneumatic arrow launcher. Reasonably similar to the real-life weapon of a similar name, this holds three arrows and can fire them off with power and accuracy. A nice find for the experienced hunter, and a strong middle-ground between the weaker bolt driver and the single-shot sniper. Additionally, it has an activated mode to turn on an automated air compressor which reduces your reload time substantially, at the cost of some UPS power and noise. Unfortunately the only way I know of to make this happen was to make it cost power when you fire, so you could totally turn it on, reload a bunch at full speed, then turn it off to actually shoot without using any power, but that’s on you if you do.
3. Finally, the A22 bolter! Basically an SMG that shoots crossbow bolts. Uses UPS to get a reasonable reload time and has minor full auto. Pretty sweet, if you can find one. Unrelated to angry space marines, but it seems to work better if you pray to it for some reason.

New stuff and some existing stuff can now spawn (rarely) in certain common places, and some rarer places. Pretty much all the base archery stuff has been added to sport item groups, so you should find bows, arrows, sights and such in all the usual sport stuff places. More traditional bows, crossbows, bolts, and arrows now have a pretty good chance to spawn in museums too, so that’s cool, and you should have a much better chance of putting together a strong early-game archer character.

As always, please try the new stuff and tell me if something is bugged or seems unbalanced. No existing items changed ID, so you’re fine to update and continue a save, but you obviously won’t find any of the new stuff until you get to a newly generated area. Suggestions are welcome as always.

EDIT: MORE NEW STUFF!
All bows and crossbows now have a small amount of fire/reload noise. More complicated or powerful bows are noisier. This can be reduced (pretty much) entirely with a dampening kit made from some plastic chunks (or fur), a pair of scissors (anything with cutting quality), and a bit of super/boneglue. Or found in sporty places. This reduces the noise of your bow/crossbow and very slightly improves dispersion.

Modified the tuned mechanism mod so it can be attached to crossbows. All of them I guess, if you want to waste one on a basic crossbow instead of an awesome compound crossbow.

Gave the bows and crossbows some extra mod slots for the new performance mods.

All four are findable only and quite rare, so grab them if you see them. They all give slight bonuses to various stats, but only a very small amount. No drawbacks, but they’re irremovable once installed, so make sure you put them on your best bow.

• Aftermarket Limbs (bow and crossbow): A set of competition-grade composite replacement limbs, for some extra range and damage.
• High-Quality String (bow and crossbow): A fine polymer string, for power and speed. Slight damage and accuracy increase.
• Adjustable Riser (bows only): A precision machined superalloy riser, with enough dials to tune it to your exact liking. Small bonus to accuracy and range.
• Performance Cams (compound bows/crossbows only): Precision machined superalloy shaped cams for your compound bow/crossbow. Improves accuracy and is a bit quieter.

Yes, this does mean you can replace every part of your homemade bow with competition grade parts.

HOTFIX!
So… turns out I oopsed and made most of the new mods impossible to install because APPARENTLY crossbows aren’t actually crossbows at all, they’re rifles as far as gunmods are concerned. Since obviously that would mean you could install things like aftermarket limbs on an assault rifle, I had to move pretty much all the mods into their own special mod slots. I.E bows/crossbows now have a string slot, limbs slot, etc.
While it was a moderate pain in the ass to fix something that should have worked perfectly in the first place, it does mean that I can now add various special string/limb/riser/whatever mods to bows and crossbows, if I think of any. It also gives me an idea for a modular pneumatic weapon system, but we’ll see about that.

To any devs that read this, is there any chance that we could get a reload time modifier for gunmods? And possibly an internal magazine size modifier? It would let me realise some AWESOME ideas.

[mentos046]

If it’s not too intrusive, how did your project go?

Also, about the EMP Arrows; how exactly should I use them?

I made a batch, fully expecting them to function like EMP grenades that explode when they hit something, be it the ground or their intended target. I was going to use them to disable a turret. I opened (at an angle, of course) the door between the character and the turret and shot an arrow in there as best I could and waited, but no explosion occurred. Thinking it was just a fluke, I tried again to the same result. So now I’m operating under the assumption that you need to actually hit something with the arrows to use the EMP function.

The problem with that is that bows and firearms require a line of sight to be used and even someone who’s never heard of C:DDA can tell you it’s a bad idea to have a line of sight with a hostile turret of any sort. If you do need to actually hit something with these arrows, that means you need to stand where they can see and shoot you for long enough to accurately aim them in order to actually hit it, which is a recipe for human Swiss Cheese.

Maybe they’re intended to be used against things that can’t shoot at you, such as Riot Control Bots, Police Bots, Tri-Bots, or Eyebots, but I have half a dozen other ways to deal with them that incur the same or less risk and don’t require nearly as many resources.

Unless I’m totally wrong about how they’re used, and I admit that is a possibility since I wasn’t clever enough to try activating them before I shot them, there is no real reason to use them since anything they can be used against without worrying about getting a few new orifices can also be taken care of in less expensive ways, resource-wise.

If it’s possible, I think they should explode like EMP Grenades even if they just hit the ground, and if you need to offset that benefit for balance purposes maybe add a stack or five of batteries to the components required. That sounds like a lot of complication though, since you’d have to make them heavier because you’re mounting batteries to them, and it would also make actual EMP Grenades cheaper to make. You wouldn’t benefit from Archery skill for using EMP Grenades though, so if you have 7 archery, 0 throwing and 30,000 batteries laying around, the EMP Arrows would still be a superior choice.

[TheZoneWizard]

30k batteries = sarcasm?

I mean…neat? But it would weight a ton and you would have to make it a rocket and not an arrow >_>