[quote=“Natures Witness, post:39, topic:6635”]On further thought, I might have an idea for a slightly better system. The body of the weapon is in three sections; the central piece with the handles and arrow rest, and two end pieces that are hinged to the main body. The power assembly is connected to the hinges; pulling back the string causes the end pieces to hinge toward you, soaring the kinetic energy in the pivot points, and letting the string go releases it. In melee mode, the hinges lock in place so the ends don’t go flapping around.
Does this sound more reasonable then the entire cable retracting when you pull it.[/quote]
Yea, and furthermore, you can say that the center section has the cable retracting mechanism, the cables go through the arms to the tips, then bridge across to the other arm. When you pull it, it lets out cable, and allows the arms to flex, then when you release, it spools up the cable it released, snapping the arms straight again and launching an arrow. At rest, it would just have the cable fully retracted and the arms held straight, both by cable tension and possibly by internal locking pins. The motion of the arms is not particularly obvious, but I’d be very surprised if there was no way to make such a mechanism work. It’s just that in reality such a high tension cable spooler doesn’t exist 