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[Wrex]

All Darves are nude, and are given a candlenut crossbow, grand master marksmanship, and 50 rounds of the requesite ammunition. All Dwarves start fifteen squares apart, and are organized into two sides. The battl is left to run five minutes fater victory to account for death by suffocation.

First test: Feather wood vs Bloodthorn bolts. Side A is given feather wood, and side B given bloodthorn

Test 1: Side B victory, no casualties.
Test 2: Side B victory, 2 unconscious.
Test 3:Side B Victory, No Casualties

Notes: While neither bolt is particularly sharp, bloodthorn is over ten times as heavy. The battle was over within three vollies, frankly. Side A was utterly incapacitiated, the rest was just mopping up. Featherwood bolts were incapable of delivering more than a flesh wound, even when fired by excellent marksman. Bloodthorn bolts inflicted massive numbers of chipped bones, and were capable of slicing in unprotected areas, such as the throat. The Force was more than enough to skewer internal organs from hit targets. Most common death was due to headshot, with a significant number of bleeding out.

Second test: Adamantine Versus Steel.

Side A gets Addy, Side B gets steel

Test 1: Adamantine victory, no casualties, if some pretty severe injuries.
Test 2: Adamantine victory, three deaths.
Test 3: Adamantine Victory, 1 death.

The results speak for themselves. The superior sharpness of adamantine makes up for being roughly as weighty as cork. These tests only confirm that more weight is typically stronger than less weight.

[Loud Whispers]

Add iron/bronze armour, repeat the adamantine vs steel test. Or perhaps use a better experiment to yield more refined results, like seeing how many bolts it takes of one material to kill something vs the other variable materials, and repeat.

[Wrex]

Repeat of Adamantine and steel test, but both sides are given iron platemail, plus an iron mail shirt. Side A has addy, side B has steel

Test 1: Side a Victory, six casualties. Primary cause of death was suffocation
Test 2: Side A victory, 5 casualties. SUffocation.
Test 3: Side A victory, 3 casualties, suffocation

The Armor diffused shots from the steel rounds enough to tear the spine rather than shatter the skull. Granted, with the increased penetration, armor does little to diffuse marksdwarf bolts.

[Joben]

That's interesting. Occasionally when I have nothing better to trade for I buy bows and wooden arrows from the elves to stuff into weapon traps because they're so cheap. I've generally gone for the heaviest arrows, nice to see my hunch confirmed.

I wonder if silver bolts do more damage to flesh. I imagine they have trouble with armor though. Maybe I'll start giving them to my hunters when i have them to spare.

[Urist Da Vinci]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=89997.0

1 year (to the day!) ago, SCIENCE was done:

TLDR; Weight does not effect bolt damage, firing rate, or reload time.

Things might change with versions, but it's good to build upon past research or revalidate old experiments.

[Wrex]

Then the only logical conlusion is that bloodthorn (somehow) holds a better edge, or that featherwood holds a terrible edge.

[Joben]

Welll if you accept the above resutls about bloodthorn bolts doing more damage then since a comparison of the raws revealed only one functional difference, density, I think we must question the previous !!Science!!.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[PLANT:BLOOD_THORN]
   [NAME:blood thorn][NAME_PLURAL:blood thorn][ADJ:blood thorn]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
   [BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:WOOD:WOOD_TEMPLATE]
      [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:blood thorn]
      [STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:blood thorn]
      [PREFIX:NONE]
      [STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CRIMSON]
      [DISPLAY_COLOR:4:0:0]
   [TREE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:WOOD]
   [PREFSTRING:sickening appearance]
   [WET][DRY]
   [BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_WATER]
   [BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM]
   [UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:3:3]
   [SOLID_DENSITY:1250]
   [TREE_TILE:166][DEAD_TREE_TILE:166]
   [SAPLING_TILE:182][DEAD_SAPLING_TILE:182]
   [TREE_COLOR:4:0:0][DEAD_TREE_COLOR:5:0:0]
   [SAPLING_COLOR:4:0:0][DEAD_SAPLING_COLOR:5:0:0]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[PLANT:FEATHER]
   [NAME:feather tree][NAME_PLURAL:feather trees][ADJ:feather tree]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
   [BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:WOOD:WOOD_TEMPLATE]
      [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:feather wood]
      [STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:feather wood]
      [STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:CREAM]
      [PREFIX:NONE]
      [DISPLAY_COLOR:7:0:1]
   [TREE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:WOOD]
   [PREFSTRING:feathery leaves]
   [DRY][GOOD]
   [BIOME:NOT_FREEZING]
   [SAPLING]
   [SOLID_DENSITY:100]
   [TREE_TILE:23][DEAD_TREE_TILE:255]
   [TREE_COLOR:7:0:1][DEAD_TREE_COLOR:6:0:0]
   [SAPLING_COLOR:7:0:1][DEAD_SAPLING_COLOR:6:0:0]

[Seraphim342]

Just did a test with 5 vs 5 legendary +5 marksdwarves in full candy, one side using addy bolts and the other silver.  Silver won 5 times in a row with no injuries worse than a torn ear.  Steel did better vs. silver but still lost, managed to take out 1 or 2 of the silver dwarves each time.  Platinum destroyed everything else. 

[Maxmurder]

Very interesting... This is very useful as i am in the process of arming my citizens with crossbows. Although i am using strictly bone bolts for the non professionals. This is mostly due to the unending supply of bones and legendary bonecarvers/bowyers in the fort....
 
I wonder how bone bolts would fare vs wood. Do different animals' bones have different weights? If so what is heaviest?

... also does assigning a dwarf a crossbow automatically assign them a quiver? cant seem to spot it in the uniforms

[Wrex]

From personal experience, lead, gold, and platinum are incredibly devastating. Bone bolts are decently sharp , and I have had hunters kill elephants with them, easily.

[Funk]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=89997.0

TLDR; Weight does not effect bolt damage, firing rate, or reload time.

the weight of the ammo does add up and will slow down firing rate, reload time and movement.

[krenshala]

... also does assigning a dwarf a crossbow automatically assign them a quiver? cant seem to spot it in the uniforms

I believe it is equipping them with bolts that triggers the need for a quiver.  A good way to check would be to assign bolts to a non-marksdwarf (squad) via the military ammunition page and see if quivers and bolts are picked up.

[Seraphim342]

AFAIK bone bolts are still bugged, only stacking up to 5.  They're noticeably more effective than wood, even had them pierce gobbo armor easily, but the dwarf carrying them will only get 5 shots off.  Could be problematic with hunters as well, I've had hunters using bone shoot an animal 5 times and have it limp away while they go to reload or worse engage in melee.  Hunting animals help with this, though.  Bone bolts will most likely cripple the animal, while a hunting dog/tiger/GIANT TIGER runs in to finish it off. 

Side note:  Hunting Dragons = very bad idea. 

[Rince Wind]

They only stack to 5, but dwarfes often carry a couple 5-bolt-stacks in their quiver.

[Maxmurder]

Awesome, now i just need to make ninety-odd quivers and i will be set. 

The 5 bolt stacks are going to work to my favor. I've noticed that off-duty marksdwarves, when faced with an enemy, will fire while fleeing. I figure arming each dwarf and leaving them off-duty will cut down ambush and animal attack casualties significantly. Having only five bolts a piece will keep them from sticking around too long.