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[Tamren]

Thats what we do now. But crossbows are complex machines and vulnerable to damage. So it makes sense to mount something on the crossbow that:
1. Is reinforced and meant for hitting stuff.
2. Sharp and armour piercing.
3. Provides extra reach.

[Alenth Eneil]

Some sort of spike/blade would make the most sense to me.

Perhaps it should use a separate skill though, so that having tem train at a range won't make them good at melee with crossbows.

[Tamren]

spear skill perhaps? Any rifle with a bayonet on it but specially the long types without pistol grips turn into spears when you attach something sharp on the end.

If I remember correctly, in some parts of history muskets had to be 5 feet long once the bayonet was attached. This reach was needed to attack people on horseback.

[Jamuk]

I've got an idea! How about an arrow?!!!!!!!!

[Draco18s]

I've got an idea! How about an arrow?!!!!!!!!

Arrows are deadly.  Have you ever gone into melee with a stack of them?

[Shakes]

For some reason I picture the fact that they use them as hammers as a situation where they thought "Hey, the crossbow being intact won't matter very much if I die. Imma whack that sucker upside the head, and hope I come out alive."

Less a legitimate battle tactic, and more a situation where they really have nothing else to lose, and abandon all reasonable treatment of their equipment. Once items can be destroyed in battle, I see it as reflecting this way in combat situations clearly and effectively.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Although i haven't seen a crossbow used in an ingame melee situation, they sound about as powerful as they should be, minus the breaking potential. A crossbow armed dwarf fighting a weapon armed goblin of equal skill/toughness should stand no chance except maybe an occasional lucky blow, and for each lucky blow landed, it should have a pretty high chance of ruining the crossbow.

No matter what menacing shaped piece of metal you attach to a crossbow it will still be about a tenth as effective as a proper melee weapon. It will also make the crossbow more unwieldy to carry and use. Think about it - dwarves are already fairly short, and attaching another foot of steel to the end of it would mean they wouldnt even be able to run with it pointing towards the ground in fear of it sticking in accidentally. And when they finally get to a spear wielding goblin, their l33t War crossbow will still be far shorter and much harder to use effectively due to its awkward spread of weight and lack of good handle.

On a physics note, Derakon was correct about a force being able to be spread out over a time. Its called impulse (Im no legendary physicist but I have done some university physics which well and truly covers basic Newtonian mechanics like this).

An explosion in a gun chamber will accelerate the bullet in lets say, one 10th of the time it takes a bow to accelerate an arrow. Assuming a bullet and an arrow had equal momentum after firing (mass times velocity), which is the key thing here,  (in truth an average bullet has a fair bit more momentum than an average arrow fired) the gun user would feel 10 times more impulse or instantaneous force, resulting in the greater kickback. A crossbow would be closer to a bow than a gun with kickback.

[Draco18s]

An explosion in a gun chamber will accelerate the bullet in lets say, one 10th of the time it takes a bow to accelerate an arrow. Assuming a bullet and an arrow had equal momentum after firing (mass times velocity), which is the key thing here,  (in truth an average bullet has a fair bit more momentum than an average arrow fired) the gun user would feel 10 times more impulse or instantaneous force, resulting in the greater kickback. A crossbow would be closer to a bow than a gun with kickback.

Yay, someone with physics knowledge to back up what I've been trying to get across.  I only had high school physics (I'm almost out of college now) and I spent half the class disproving the teacher.  It was fun going "Nu uh!  They made light go faster than light (in a vacuum)!" and being able to prove it.  Mind, I was reading Discover Magazine before the professor got his hands on it and had time to read it, but it was lots of fun and giggles.

[Shakes]

Yeah i only did first year physics - more than enough to help me write my own games (and stop a pointless forum argument here and there). I can't say relativity was all that enthralling and certainly not applicable to any day to day situations. Im pretty sure they're in the process of currently disproving half of it anyway...just goes to show how fickle science can be sometimes.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

 Battle Fishing Rod! War Cheese Grater! Combat Bee Suit!

1: dwarves fish with their biscuit-stained beards
2: that would be an awesome trap component
3: ay ay ay! no me gusta!

[Draco18s]

I'm pretty sure they're in the process of currently disproving half of it anyway...just goes to show how fickle science can be sometimes.

Some of it's still good (gravity, c, e=Mc^2...), it's just those wonky details like black holes, strings, strange matter, and anything smaller than the quantum foam.

Oh, and the Double Slit experiment with light.  That one's wonky too and know one can figure out why.  Well, they think they know, but do they?

[Derakon]

A lot of times, physics doesn't get disproved, just made more precise. For example, saying that the force of gravity is 9.8m/s^2 is a very useful approximation for practically all the ballistics you're ever likely to do, but once you leave Earth's gravity well, it pays to start using the GmM/r^2 formula instead. Similarly, special relativity is demonstrably accurate, but that doesn't mean we won't find something that's either a) more accurate, or b) more general (like, say, general relativity).

Now, string theory's a different matter, since to my knowledge, nobody's used it to make any verifiable predictions about the universe.

[Draco18s]

"Huzzah, we located a string!  String theory is proved!"
"And how does this effect me?"
"It doesn't."

[Tamren]

Nice argument, but lets pick it apart for a minute.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Although i haven't seen a crossbow used in an ingame melee situation, they sound about as powerful as they should be, minus the breaking potential. A crossbow armed dwarf fighting a weapon armed goblin of equal skill/toughness should stand no chance except maybe an occasional lucky blow, and for each lucky blow landed, it should have a pretty high chance of ruining the crossbow.

Crossbows used in melee are simply less damaging maces. If you look up the raws they have BASH 70 for damage. (swords have SLASH 120).

And thats a pretty broad statement to make. There are tons of other factors not mentioned such as what armour both combatants are wearing. If the dwarf was wearing leather and the goblin was wearing plate armour (as they commonly do) Equal skill and toughness would dictate that the goblin moves slower than the dwarf. The dwarf could evade then trip the goblin to the ground, this wouldn't even require a weapon, just some wrestling skill. Once the goblin is downed the dwarf could stab him with the bayonet conveniently stuck on the end of his crossbow.

No matter what menacing shaped piece of metal you attach to a crossbow it will still be about a tenth as effective as a proper melee weapon. It will also make the crossbow more unwieldy to carry and use. Think about it - dwarves are already fairly short, and attaching another foot of steel to the end of it would mean they wouldnt even be able to run with it pointing towards the ground in fear of it sticking in accidentally. And when they finally get to a spear wielding goblin, their l33t War crossbow will still be far shorter and much harder to use effectively due to its awkward spread of weight and lack of good handle.

Wrong. Just wrong.

1. A crossbow with a bayonet attached is infinitely better than just a crossbow and no bayonet. Since these are dwarves we are talking about, a "bayonet" would be a shortsword to them. A shortsword is a stabbing weapon and mounting it on the end of a crossbow simply improves your reach with it.

2. A crossbow with a bayonet welded to it is a spear that happens to fire bolts and not a crossbow. Proper bayonets are detachable and only fixed to the gun when needed. Most bayonets also double as fighting knifes, the rest are usually spikes of some sort.

3. So the shorty dwarves stumble over their spears where the goblin and human spearmen don't? BS. Goblins are even smaller than dwarves. They have the same size modifier AND thier equipment is considered "narrow" and will not fit even dwarves. Being able to run and fight with a long pointy object is a matter of discipline and skill. If the bayonet severely unbalanced the crossbow then maybe, but that would only be a problem if you made them out of lead. (or mounted a hammer, hehehe)

4. A firearm or crossbow built with bayonets in mind will be balanced to account for them. If your crossbows aren't working, you need a better bowyer.

5. When talking about firearms or crossbows the part we hold in our hands is called the GRIP. A handle is something you would find on a suitcase (thought some guns do have them). They come in two flavours, pistol and rifle. Its hard to say which the dwarves would use, and some crossbows in the middle ages didn't even have grips. They simply had a straight stock with a bent lever sticking out the bottom as a trigger.

6. Finally, what about the terrain here? Dwarf fortresses are made of tunnels and lots of them. ANY object that is very long will be extremely difficult to maneuver and fight with indoors. Currently this is not taken to account. A marksdwarf meeting a spearman in a tight tunnel could simply drop the bow and use the bayonet on its own. The spearman does not have this luxury.

[Derakon]

Actually a spearman in a tunnel would do pretty well as long as he could keep his foes from getting inside his reach, since there's no way to flank him and he out-reaches anything that isn't ranged. Now, a weapon that uses a chopping motion will run into trouble with tight corridors, but spears (and bayonets) both use stabbing motions.

[Tamren]

Chopping weapons only have trouble in tunnels if the ceiling is on par with your head. Which granted, is great for you if you design your fortress that way and guard your tunnels with phalanxes.

However spears suffer from a different problem which I can sum up pretty easily:
1. Bring spear into tunnel.
2. Try to turn around.

If a spear is long enough to give you a reach advantage over a longsword, chances are you will not be able to hold it vertically in a dwarf tunnel. So if you get flanked in a tight tunnel you are royally screwed. Dwarves could pop out behind you from secret passages at any moment. (or should be able to anyway).

Thats not to say that a spear is a bad weapon. Simply that "reach" spears suck goat chunks in tunnel fighting. They are more of an anti cavalry weapon. However I DID suggest dwarf war dog cavarly a while back so I wouldn't discard the idea out of hand  .