Resistance Crossbow

[Korin]

Hey, hi there. New here.

Anyway, Resistance Crossbows.

I know of at least three Half-Life references in the game already. We have crossbows, UPSs, and rebars…

It could work like a coilgun. Why not?

[iceball3]

How does a crosbow propel rebar any further than a few meters at most?

[Slax]

Who says searing hot rebar has to go farther than a few meters? Homemade weapons aren’t exactly meant for precision shooting.

[The_Darkling_Wolf]

[quote=“iceball3, post:2, topic:1591”]How does a crosbow propel rebar any further than a few meters at most?[/quote]Our arrows are currently sharp sticks, and they go pretty damned far.

[iceball3]

[quote=“Slax, post:3, topic:1591”]Who says searing hot rebar has to go farther than a few meters? Homemade weapons aren’t exactly meant for precision shooting.[/quote]Well i mean that even burning hot rebar would be slightly less effective than just throwing normal rebar, due to the limitted velocity and that a rebar will be extremely inaccurate and generally a bit more difficult to harm coming out of a crossbow.

[quote=“The Darkling Wolf, post:4, topic:1591”][quote=“iceball3, post:2, topic:1591”]How does a crosbow propel rebar any further than a few meters at most?[/quote]Our arrows are currently sharp sticks, and they go pretty damned far.[/quote]Good point. That may need some work too.
Though if you ever held a stick of rebar before I am sure you’d likely think it is very drastically different to steel crossbow bolts.

[Mate]

I like it, but why are crossbows HL references? Also, wouldn’t this require a source of heat?

[Fniff]

The source of heat might be the little battery pack on the HL crossbow there…

Maybe the crafting recipe is a regular crossbow but with x1 batteries?

[Weyrling]

I like it, but why are crossbows HL references? Also, wouldn’t this require a source of heat?

The ‘crossbow firing hot(/molten?) rebar’ is a HL2 weapon that is effective at murdering infantry. I assume a UPS would be required like with the coilgun and charge rifle.

Well i mean that even burning hot rebar would be slightly less effective than just throwing normal rebar, due to the limitted velocity and that a rebar will be extremely inaccurate and generally a bit more difficult to harm coming out of a crossbow.

How is normal anything less effective than burning hot anything as a projectile weapon, in general? I understand that firing rebar out of a crossbow isn't terribly effective, but still, hot things are more dangerous than things at room temperature, and a crossbow still imparts a good deal of force, especially if you add a magnetic accelerator as was implied.

[ClaytonRISING]

So…it would function exactly like a normal crossbow, but more damage?

[Bladerock]

So…it would function exactly like a normal crossbow, but more damage?

No, it’d function exactly like one of the game’s railguns (using UPS charges+separate ammo), but it’d use much rarer ammunition and be called a crossbow for kicks.

Also, a crossbow can’t fire a footlong piece of rebar (The one in the picture seems even longer), even with an amazingly strong draw. Rebar is heavy and you are probably overestimating the power of any crossbow you can pull by hand (Much more so the one in the game, which can barely clear a shot across a two lane road).

[halberdsturgeon]

Yeah, not really seeing the point. You’d never carry an armful of rebar around as ammunition because its weight and volume are too high.

[ClaytonRISING]

I have to be honest, in no way am I trying to discourage creative thinking, but it really just seems like an over glorified crossbow with heavy ammo. You could pretty much change the range and damage of the crossbow in the .json file IIRC.

[Smoker]

Well, we do need more crossbow-type weapons, mostly because of the STR requirements to use Longbows and such prevent lower STR characters from using archery to its full effectiveness. Also because regular crossbows are fairly disappointing when it comes to killing stuff like hulks efficiently. Just… lets not use molten rebar as ammo. Maybe make a new type of crossbow bolt, “Heavy metal bolt” or something and use that instead. It’d be too heavy for a regular crossbow to load it, but perfectly fine for this one to use. It’d use an electric motor to load the bolts and create a draw heavier than you could get by hand, so you’d need a power source to reload the thing, and it’d be much bulkier than a regular crossbow as a result.

In short? Its a heavy, expensive crossbow that takes up more space and draws power, in exchange for shooting ammo that does more damage. It could also load regular bolts in a pinch with a slight damage bonus, but it should be generally more wasteful than using a regular crossbow.

[Flare]

I have to be honest, in no way am I trying to discourage creative thinking, but it really just seems like an over glorified crossbow with heavy ammo. You could pretty much change the range and damage of the crossbow in the .json file IIRC.

Moreover, I’m not sure how it’s not melting the cradle holding it on the crossbow and why it then be depicted easily sliding into the armors of the enemies you shoot it at.

Even if that issue could be made consistent, I don’t see why you would need to heat up the entire bolt. Why not just the front end? On top of this, if you’re just heating up the front end, why would you even keep the rest of the rebar there and not replace it with something that isn’t required in making the tip of armor penetrating bolts?

[halberdsturgeon]

Well, we do need more crossbow-type weapons, mostly because of the STR requirements to use Longbows and such prevent lower STR characters from using archery to its full effectiveness. Also because regular crossbows are fairly disappointing when it comes to killing stuff like hulks efficiently.

The regular crossbow is actually a very good weapon, and in my opinion there’s no need for a second type of crossbow to supplant it at all. If you feel the crossbow is too weak, the problem isn’t the weapon itself, it’s the ammunition you’re using; a moderately skilled marksman can kill a hulk with two headshots from a crossbow, as long as it’s firing proper steel bolts. Most robotic enemies go down to one or two steel bolts, as well.

Steel bolts should be craftable, however.

[ClaytonRISING]

“Alright, let me just take this torch to this rebar and…OH MY GOD IT MELTED THE CROSSBOW!”

[system]

Hmmm?

I’d say let’s make our own item based off something like this that is Completely Original![sup][size=5pt]TM[/size][/sup]

It will be called: The Gauss Crossbow!
Basically, it will only accept magnetic items/ammo. It uses up fuckloads of UPS charge per shot. Only found in labs. And it would fire projectiles so hard it would damage the player to use it.

How’s that for balance?

[Korin]

I did actually put some thought into this. I’d hoped it would be a bit of a javelin-cross-fusion blaster, made out of recycled materials by an innovative survivor. Javelin in that you would only carry around two or three rebars, and that they would always persist after you fired them. Fusion blaster, in that it deals a lot of damage at a rather short range. They could be kept handy for the bigger and/or armored opponents.

I didn’t intend for a whole new weapon to be created; maybe a mod at the most. I actually agree that there could just be a new ammo type – rebars – that were heavy, maybe took a while to reload, flew shorter than a normal bolt, and dealt very high damage. By ‘like a coilgun’ I meant that it would draw power from a UPS after firing or loading because of the power needed to heat the bolt, not because of an actual electromagnetic coil. Since the bar is red hot, that probably wouldn’t work anyway. If the weight/volume is still an issue, maybe we could add an ammo recipe that uses a rebar and a hacksaw, or something.

The only thing I hadn’t taken into consideration was that infuriating ‘Choose ammo type’ menu, and I apologise for that.

[Sheb]

Actually, an electric crossbow (Maybe a crossbow mod?) that add weigh and consume batteries, but let us reload faster/give us more power would be really cool. It’d waive the strength requirement too.

[Fniff]

Here’s something that could be good. Special arrows/bolts.

Battery bolts? Terrible range but they electrify zombies and fry shockers?