Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hinaichigo]

I think dwarves should be able to make crossbow bolts out of stone.  Makes sense physically to me.

[SixOfSpades]

Only after bolt shafts & bolt heads are made separately, because it doesn't make sense to make the shafts out of something as brittle as stone.

[NW_Kohaku]

Bolts shatter in one shot, anyway. For that matter, they can make ammo (purely) out of wood and (purely) out of metal, and are capable of hollowing out stone vases from boulders. 

Obsidian arrowheads, at least, make some decent amount of sense, in the fashion of obsidian shortswords.

[Moonshadow101]

I'd prefer if slings were implemented as an alternative ranged weapon. You could make them out of leather or cloth, and they'd use ammo made from either stone or metal.

This makes far more sense to me than stone bolts.

[SanctusTerrae]

I'd prefer if slings were implemented as an alternative ranged weapon. You could make them out of leather or cloth, and they'd use ammo made from either stone or metal.

This makes far more sense to me than stone bolts.

I'm on board for slings. Whereas bolts and arrows pierce, sling ammo would function more like a blunt weapon (Mace/Hammer/Whip), or thrown. It'd be a stronger way of throwing *Sharp rocks*, with denser ammo dealing more damage. I can imagine Rath "David" Chosenone taking down one goliath of a sasquatch...heh.

At the very least, it's more variety for ranged weapons, and that's good. The job task to make slings would probably take place at a leatherworker's, since you need to sew the sling together.

[NW_Kohaku]

The D&D style of blunt-versus-piercing weaponry is more than slightly misleading.

Think of it this way - a hollow-point bullet may be more "blunted" than a full metal jacket bullet, but that doesn't change the most significant aspects of how a tiny object moving at extreme speeds will punch its way into flesh, at least until the bullet is lodged in the body. 

There isn't even a concretely defined difference in DF between "piercing" and "slashing" weapons, it's just the size of the edged surface, which makes it a spectrum, rather than a strictly defined category, which is much more sensible.  What is the difference between an axe and a stiletto that have the same momentum behind them? Simply the diameter of the area the force is being applied across. What makes a weapon "piercing" rather than "blunt"? Simply the diameter of the area the force is being applied across. 

If a sling bullet has a contact area only slightly greater than that of a crossbow bolt, you shouldn't be giving it some sort of massively different damage characteristics.

[SanctusTerrae]

I'm not saying the damage characteristics should be massively different, but a sling bullet, as I imagine it, would be a ball or some other spherical shape, and a crossbow bolt has a pointed end. It's O vs. >, and upon contact, those shapes are going to behave differently. The pointed edge would sink into, or "pierce", flesh because it's thinner, and cause a thin but deep wound, where the rounded edge would be less likely to pierce, and instead radiate that force out from the center of impact, causing a wider and shallower wound more likely to break bones and pulp organs than to neatly sever them. If both hit in the chest, the bolt would chip or break a single rib, while the slingball would more likely cause hairline fractures across multiple ribs and perhaps fibrilate the heart from the radial shockwave. Honestly, I'd rather be hit with the bolt.

Think of it this way - a hollow-point bullet may be more "blunted" than a full metal jacket bullet, but that doesn't change the most significant aspects of how a tiny object moving at extreme speeds will punch its way into flesh, at least until the bullet is lodged in the body. 

You're right. At high enough speeds, none of this matters-that bullet is going to go through you no matter what shape it has- but at the speeds achievable by a crossbow or a sling, shape does matter. DF doesn't have guns-the closest is maybe a ballista-and guns have Foot-per-second speeds upwards of 1000. Crossbows, bows, and slings, simply don't travel faster than a few hundred FPS. There's a sliding scale between the velocity of an object and how much its shape matters with regards to striking another object of a given resistance. with speeds this (relatively) slow, shape plays more of a part.

Maybe it will help that the sling bullets I'm thinking of are around an inch in diameter, and that is substantially bigger, diameter-wise, than a crossbow bolt. Yes, that makes the bullets...balls, heavier, and would fly slower than a lighter, faster crossbow bolt, leading to a different kind of damage.

I'm reminded of the physics experiment of a weight with two strings attached to it, and you pulled one to demonstrate the effect of force with regards to speed and time. Pulling quickly snapped the bottom string, the one you were pulling, while pulling slowly let the force travel through the weight to the upper string and snap that one instead. Isn't that basically a different damage characteristic?

You're right in that it all comes down to how the force is applied, which is simple enough, but the results of how that force is applied are quite varied. Different diameters of force cause different kinds of injuries, and that matters.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

a few hundred FPS

Spoiler: irrelevant (click to show/hide)

How the hell do you get that much FPS? A super-gamer rig or awesome FPS-managing techniques?

[NW_Kohaku]

Sorry, it's just one of those pet peeves of mine that can send me off into long-winded explanations.  DF already handles these concepts well.  In fact, the morningstar is actually a really good example of a "piercing" weapon that is actually mostly "blunt" in terms of damage, since it only pierces a small portion of the way (basically enough to cause bleeding) before changing to functionally being blunt damage.

In any event, it's not a case against slings, just against thinking that "blunt damage" would be significantly different from throwing weapons or bolts. (Other than, presumably, the capacity to tell dwarves in fortress mode to sling things rather than melee or using extremely slow-loading crossbows.)

Throwing is still highly lethal in DF, even after the latest nerfs, and slings would presumably only make it more powerful, especially against less-armored targets. It's likely the current game would make them pretty devastating weapons. That said, I'm not sure Toady sees dwarves as "slinger" type characters.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

That said, I'm not sure Toady sees dwarves as "slinger" type characters.

But other species could be.

Furthermore, slings would have to be leather. The Almighty Toad has decided that only metal can make weapons. So it'd be hard to get him to do it, unless you like yourself some copper "slings".

[NW_Kohaku]

But other species could be.

Furthermore, slings would have to be leather. The Almighty Toad has decided that only metal can make weapons. So it'd be hard to get him to do it, unless you like yourself some copper "slings".

Tell that to wooden crossbows, bows, blowpipes, swords, axes, and such.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

But other species could be.

Furthermore, slings would have to be leather. The Almighty Toad has decided that only metal can make weapons. So it'd be hard to get him to do it, unless you like yourself some copper "slings".

Tell that to wooden crossbows, bows, blowpipes, swords, axes, and such.

Okay, fine.

Ranged weapons can be made of wood. So have yourself a wooden sling. Happy? No.

Wooden "swords and axes" aren't actually weapons, but training weapons, and will never be brought by siegers or mercenaries or whatnot.

So you can mod, and have siegers use any metal or wooden item as a weapon, but not leather.

My point still stands.

[NW_Kohaku]

Tell that to wooden crossbows, bows, blowpipes, swords, axes, and such.

Okay, fine.

Ranged weapons can be made of wood. So have yourself a wooden sling. Happy? No.

Wooden "swords and axes" aren't actually weapons, but training weapons, and will never be brought by siegers or mercenaries or whatnot.

So you can mod, and have siegers use any metal or wooden item as a weapon, but not leather.

My point still stands.

Actually, yes, elves will bring wooden weapons to siege, it's the only thing they bring to siege.

But anyway, now it's not an absolute "metal only" sign, which was sort of my point. Toady has never come out and said that all weapons absolutely must be metal and only metal, that's just how materials properties have made metal weapons far more useful than wooden ones.

And again, DF had obsidian swords until changes to the material code made making a weapon from one stone and one wood too difficult for the moment, and Toady presumably intends to bring it back at some point.  To that end, obsidian-tipped (wood-shafted) arrows makes as much sense as anything.

Wooden crossbows make sense because it's just the launcher of the (often metal) bolts, and a leather sling wouldn't hurt the damage capability of the sling bullets. Leather just hasn't been an option until now because it wouldn't make sense to make a weapon from a material that wouldn't do any damage.  (Even if leather whips actually exist, they'd probably be worthless even with the insane velocity bonus whips get.)

[SixOfSpades]

I'm not saying the damage characteristics should be massively different, but a sling bullet, as I imagine it, would be a ball or some other spherical shape, and a crossbow bolt has a pointed end. It's O vs. >, and upon contact, those shapes are going to behave differently.

For what it's worth, these weapons behave very differently against armor.

vs. plate armor (direct hit): The sling bullet transfers its full momentum to the impact, the force of which is evenly distributed over the full piece of armor struck. Damage: Guaranteed, but minimal. Crossbow bolt--if the head of the bolt is harder than the armor material, it will penetrate, doing nearly its full damage to the target. If the bolt head is softer than the armor, the bolt will likely shatter on impact, doing no damage.
Advantage: Crossbow, unless the target is very well armored.

vs. plate armor (glancing hit): The sling bullet transfers a portion of its momentum into impact, the force of which is then spread out by the plate. Damage is guaranteed, but extremely slight. The crossbow bolt bounces off no matter what, doing no damage.
Advantage: Sling, although just barely.

vs. chain mail: The sling bullet hits normally, but with a contact area made larger by the size of the metal rings. Breaking multiple ribs is indeed very possible. Glancing hits still transfer only a portion of the impact, but due to the rough texture of the mail, that portion is considerably larger than a similar hit against plate armor. On a direct hit, a crossbow bolt will penetrate into a ring and force it to expand, and slip between the adjacent rings, continuing on into the victim's flesh, losing only some of its momentum in punching a hole in the armor. Glancing hits snagged by the texture of the mail will transfer their momentum only to the mail itself, leaving the wearer unharmed.
Advantage: Crossbow.

[SanctusTerrae]

a few hundred FPS

Spoiler: irrelevant (click to show/hide)

How the hell do you get that much FPS? A super-gamer rig or awesome FPS-managing techniques?

As much as I'd like to have a Sun Microsystems supercomputer to play DF on, I was talking about feet-per-second, as in how fast an object is going, instead of frames-per-second, as in how fast DF gets !!FUN!!.

Sorry, it's just one of those pet peeves of mine that can send me off into long-winded explanations.

That's fine, you're a good debater with some great ideas, especially your Improved Farming that I wholeheartedly agree with.

Throwing is still highly lethal in DF, even after the latest nerfs, and slings would presumably only make it more powerful, especially against less-armored targets. It's likely the current game would make them pretty devastating weapons. That said, I'm not sure Toady sees dwarves as "slinger" type characters.

Yeah, a sling would be more of a human or elf weapon considering its simplicity. Dwarves would see it as too mundane, seeing as they have quantum-entangled mechanisms and fluid-logic-operated computer fortresses. It's beneath them to stick a rock in a pouch, swing it around, then let'em fly.

...Although, a minecart set to travel on a circular track to gain tons of speed before letting that fly, filled with a dozen assorted weapons, could technically be thought of as a dwarven sling. It's elaborate, impractical, and disasterous if it goes wrong...yeah, that's dwarven.

With regards to the materials, slings have to be flexible, so suitable materials like leather or cloth...Or adamantine!...are the only reasonable options. Wood is flexible when enough force is applied, making it decent for crossbows, but is too rigid for a hand-held centrifugal force weapon like a sling. Metal slings, unless they're that sweet kind of metal that has a memory of its original shape and returns to that when cooled/heated, would be bent out of order after one shot.