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[Impaler[WrG]]

Move Bowyer to Mechanics group, Crossbows are complex machines and seeing as they can currently be made from both wood and bone their not exclusively under the domain of woodworking.  Think of a crossbow as a hand-held Ballista, and their made by mechanics.  Hopefully crossbows will require mechanisms and rope in the future making it more clear their mechanical aspect.

Now of course their should be a way to make a normal bow at some point, if that gets added at some point their should be a bowyer and a "crossbowyer" (I think I just made this word up) as two separate professions, the bowyer in woodworking group and the crossbowyer in mechanics group.  A crossbow could even be made by combining a bow made by the bowyer (made from wood and rope) and a mechanism, thus making a crossbow a three step process (after all they are uber deadly machine guns so it's probably a good idea to make them harder to get)

[Pilsu]

Are bone crossbows realistic though? Seems like a brittle material

Instead of rope, we should use either string or just the already existing threads. As for mechanisms, metallic ones should be far less prone to breaking than stone

[Starver]

I think first we need to work out if wooden/bone crossbow making is different from metal crossbow making.  Though ultimately we need to think about combination specialities: i.e. to make a crossbow you need crossbowmaking and bone-/wood-/metalcrafter as appropriate to material.  Skills in both appropriate branches go towards expertise in the full task.  Either as a job lot or 'work-sharing' (e.g. the existing Architecture then Mason/Carpenter/Metalworker combo for bridges, supports, etc).

Then we can think about whether crossbowmaking is a subset of (generalised) mechanics, maybe change things into a proper skills tree (instead of "those with two or more significantly similarly levelled subskills of a colour-grouping getting a generalist descriptor", a la Ranger for the greens, Farmer for the dark yellows, etc) regardless of how skilled they ultimately are.

If I were wanting to mirror the mechanism in an on-line game I play, then you'd have (say) only the ability to improve general "mechanics" up to what might be equivalent to Novice level, then your choice to work with siege equipment would up your "sieging equipment" all-round skill up to Proficient (but not advance your "pump operation" branch[1] at all, unless you also had that task enabled), and then you could end up with your guy advancing "siege operation" until Professional where (assuming they stuck to the aspect long enough) it'd be "ballista operation", and if I'd planned this example out better I'd have thought of something that a High Master ballista operator could have specialise in in order to gain Legendary status on some extreme sub-speciality there.  But such a character would still only be Professional for "catapult operation" (until exercised a bit with that new task) and only Proficient in "siege construction" (ditto) and only Novice on "gear making".  Or however you'd have it structured.

But that's just an example, and not a well-thought out one.  (Also, I'd be surprised if it weren't already mentioned in the archives.  I'm sure I'm repeating, but I'm not going to put my "forum foo" to the test, finding out what form it might have been in.)


I'm also not saying that's how it should develop in DF.


(BTW, while I've gone out and gotten lunch, someone else has almost certainly replied, and I'm betting they've pointed out that normal bows aren't currently Dwarf-friendly, anyway.  In a sub-tree version, though, you might have a split for "crossbow" and "longbow" beneath generic "bow", beneath "wood shaping" beneath whatever.  And with a multi-disciplinary aspect you'd need the "mini-mechanisms" (up to) High Master-level skill or "cog construction" (up to) Professional-level one or "gear making" (up to) Proficient-level, or rely on your Novice-level general mechanics.  And obviously a high "bow" skill (possibly Legendary on the longbow subskill) but merely being at noviciate level in mechanics affects the quality of the item being produced.  Possibly having good trading value to one whose ability in whatever subskill of "appraisal" is relevent to aesthetic value, but being below par when actually in use by anyone or when being assessed by an appraiser with a good personal representation in the appropriate mechanics and/or marksdwarf branches of the tree.  ("It'd sure look good hung up abvoe the fireplace, but I wouldn't want to have to rely on it when the goblins come raiding...")  Alternately, good mechanical sub-trees and low wood (or bone or metal) based skills would make a pug-ugly model that'd be sufficient and more or less practical, just maybe some chance of a structural failure after the first couple of uses.


[1] Arguably also misplaced, currently.  If you're looking to regroup [cross]bowyer into the mechanical section, then maybe pump operation is akin to the hauling tasks?

[Impaler[WrG]]

I think bone cross bows are their to represent the composite bow which is made from animal horn and sinew, perhaps the more detailed tissues being planned for the next version will allow these bows to more clearly made from these materials.

My understanding is that a composite bow is quite a bit more sophisticated and making it is a VERY skilled endeavor that could take months (due to the drying time of glue used to hold the layers together (perhaps glue should be included in the game too)), a normal wooden bow made from a single piece of wood can be made in a few hours by a novice crafts person (though naturally a finer bow takes longer to make).

On another point which Starver brings ups, I would make mechanism making a two step process, first 'Cogs' are made from wood, stone or metal by the WoodCrafter, StoneCrafter and MetalCrafter respectively, keeping the consistency of each material being worked by its respective craftsman.  Then the Mechanic turns the Cogs into a Mechanism, explaining how they can work with a variety of materials (because the material is already shaped into usable form for them and they assemble and tune the mechanism).

[Fossaman]

I would leave the construction of any mechanism sub-part to the mechanic. The teeth on cogs and gears and such have to be incredibly precise to function properly. Let the mechanic be the one to carve them, since he's the one putting them together and knows how they should work.

[Starver]

I suppose I better cross-reference this thread to the big post I just put in http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=38447.15 (Suggestions > "Building masonry structures gives experience").  It's relevent to this one as well.