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[Dakk]

I couldn't find a general thread for general ranged combat improvement suggestion, probably because the search function hates me, so I thought of making a thread for general suggestion to improved ranged combat in both fortress and adventurer mode, so here goes:

1-At the moment, NPC bow/crossbowmen in fortress and adventurer mode are able to shoot at a much larger range then the player adventurer can. Many times I have been shot from way beyond my field of vision, as if they have scoped crossbows or something. I suggest that the adventurer should be able to do this as well. The player's field of vision needs to be much larger to counter that, but in order to avoid huge  lag, you would only be able to see that far when either aiming with a ranged weapon or using the [l]ook command, which would dramaticaly increase your field of vision and range while you're doing it, thus allowing you to actualy snipe at enemies from afar like they do to you. This would give ranged weapons an advantage over throwing, that would only be possible at the normal range.

2-Aimed shots should be allowed for ranged weapons aswell, albeit much more skill dependant and harder to pull off then with a melee weapon in close combat. You should also only be able to aim at generic parts, such as head, upper/lower body, arms, legs, etc, unless you're really, really skilled.

3-Reload times should be applied to adventurer mode aswell, no more shooting every turn. Of course, they should be different for bows and crossbows, and not take stupidly long. Just enough to stop ranged attacks from being spammed every turn. Throwing weapons should still be possible every turn, though.

4-If we are to have battles between armies in DF, ranged combatants should be able to do an "arched shot", in which they aim upwards and shoot, making the projectile fly in an arch and start to fall, towards the enemy. This would allow for super long range shots, but also much less accurate. You'd be lucky if your arrow/bolt even hit the square you were aiming at. The travel time should also be taken into account.
Obviously aimed attacks should not be possible when using this method, which would only be useful during larger battles.

These suggestions would allow for some differentiation between ranged weapons and the throwing skill, like so:

Bows: Faster then the crossbow, slower then throwing. Allows "long ranged" shots. Innately less accurate then the crossbow, and takes more skill to be used effectively.

Crossbows: Considerably slower then bows. Allows "long ranged" shots. More accurate then the bow, and takes less skill to be used effectively.

Throwing: Faster then the bow, much faster then the crossbow. Does not allow "long ranged" shots. Accuracy largely depends on skill, and it takes alot of it to be used effectively.

[Sfon]

Only major problem currently is throwing is brokenly good in adventurer mode, imo. Far too much like a machine gun. The combined acts of taking out another piece of ammo and readying it may be faster with throwing than a bow, but it still needs to be done. It should take time, less than a bow/xbow but still more than a sword slash. This is especially true for someone with low throwing skill.

Arrows/bolts also need to not be able to be thrown effectively. Maybe a throw force tag that could be set per item, reflecting how easily it can be thrown well. Not a simple cap, but a sort of middle value. Something with a throw force of 100 would need the same amount of strength to be thrown at 70 as an item with 1000 would need to be thrown at 700.

[MrWiggles]

Bows, in general, and crossbows in general were as accurate as each other, historically.

As for reloading speed, that was dependent on the proficiency of the user. Bows in general, are less accurate when being rapidly fired, where as crossbows kept better accuracy when being fired as fast as possible.

Though, a highly proficient bowmen could shoot more arrows then an equally skilled crossbowmen, but not considerable amount.

[Dakk]

Bows, in general, and crossbows in general were as accurate as each other, historically.

As for reloading speed, that was dependent on the proficiency of the user. Bows in general, are less accurate when being rapidly fired, where as crossbows kept better accuracy when being fired as fast as possible.

Though, a highly proficient bowmen could shoot more arrows then an equally skilled crossbowmen, but not considerable amount.

Twice as fast makes for a considerable difference, me thinks. Thats a longbow also, one of the most unwieldy bows. A smaller composite/recurve bow would most likely fire even faster.

Throwing skill's speed doesn't need to be lowered, its accuracy thats the problem, at the moment you can throw random stuff out of your bag with the same accuracy of a crossbow. Throwing should be faster due to the fact you're not reloading anything, just picking and throwing.

The crossbow is inately more accurate then the bow due to the position of your arms when firing it. When using a bow, both of your arms are exerting a good deal of force on the bow constantly, while they're mostly at rest when shooting a crossbow, allowing for a better aim. Of course, the difference becomes less and less apparent if you have a skilled bowman with strong, steady arms.
This fact alone was what made the crossbow gain popularity in the middle ages. You could outfit a large numbers of rather unskilled soldiers with crossbows, and they'd achieve similar effectiveness to archers. The only actual training a crossbowman would require is for reloading quickly, shooting a crossbow is rather trivial. Bowmen were usualy recruited from the hunter population, because they already had years of experience with the bow, and training bowmen was expensive as it took a long time to turn an unskilled peasant into an effective archer.

With the crossbow you can eliminate a good deal of variables that rested on the shooter's strenght and phisical fitness. The crossbow's range is a constant thing, while with the bow it largely depended on how skilled your archer was.

[blizzerd]

crossbow fires slow but accurate (armor piercing) bolts, some larger crossbows where even used as man-portable siege weapons

warbows fire longer range but where used as a swarm weapon (not very accurate) no bowmen could hit 1 human sized target in his first shot at medium firing range
especially longbow was used in masse to swarm rains of arrows on large targets (formations of footmen)

composite bows are one of the most accurate bows you can find, but nowhere near as accurate as a crossbow, plus not as much stopping power and the composite bow was more made for an individual hunter, not as a war weapon