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[Drake Saint]

I made an account just to point out how frustrated I am with the ranged combat mechanics of Adventurer Mode.

An archer/x-bowman adventurer is completely overshadowed by one who is just a melee grunt who decides to throw stones at others.

But that's not all: not only when you're the one shooting you can't kill/collapse shit, but also the other ranged enemies can:

- Shoot you across the screen without needing to see you
- Kill you with one shot regardless of you're wearing steel armor or just cloth
- (may just seem to be my frustration at it) Shoot slightly faster than you

To make matters worse, in Dwarf Fortress mode, ranged marksdwarves have okay firing speed, balanced enough to not kill shit in one shot but also being able to shoot more before engaging in melee.

So, now that I have vented this, can anyone suggest/tell me good mods or any preview of update undergoing that fix this broken thing?

[GloriousImp]

I think the main disadvantage in adventure mode is that you can't aim for body parts with ranged weapons.

Now, crossbows are bad, but bows are still fairly nice in adventure mode, even with low skill I seem to be doing a lot more damage with the bow than throwing.

Throwing seems to be luck based, you can throw 100 rocks and bruise all of their muscles or you can take off their head with a roach, as long as you hit, bows will always turn their legs or arms into bloody paste, cause major bleeding or vomiting, etc.

[Kilroy the Grand]

I've never had this problem, all my crossbow dwarves I play as seem to do pretty well.

[Drake Saint]

I've never had this problem, all my crossbow dwarves I play as seem to do pretty well.

Pray tell me your definition of "fine".

Make another adventurer, the exact carbon copy of your crossbow dwarf, then put an equivalent for throwing.

You'll know what I mean.

[jrmy]

iirc changes are coming to ranged combat - what df has now is very placeholder-ish. I'm not really aware of any of the specifics, though.

maybe projectiles will get differing velocities according to how they were launched? that'd be pretty neat :B

[nogoodnames]

I did some quick arena testing on this. Three dwarves armed with a crossbow, bow and throwing vs. three naked dwarves with five spaces between them. Each dwarf was given 100 adamantine arrows (or bolts in the crossbow's case) and made grandmaster in archery and their weapon skill. I then took control of each in turn and determined how many shots each took to kill their opponent. The results are as follows:

Throwing: 10
Bow: 4
Crossbow: 3

Notably the two with weapons killed by blood loss while the thrower got a shot to the head. The thrower was also far less accurate, only getting two (albeit effective) hits.

Granted this was not a very extensive experiment and It would need to be repeated multiple times before it can be called conclusive. Still, the data seems to be leaning towards crossbows and bows being superior to throwing.

[Neonivek]

The issue is that speed is absolutely vital and the Crossbow is near suicidal to pull out.

Throwing's ability to throw, run back, and throw some more before even a fast enemy gets a chance to strike you back is far greater then the other two.

[Wimopy]

I did some quick arena testing on this. Three dwarves armed with a crossbow, bow and throwing vs. three naked dwarves with five spaces between them. Each dwarf was given 100 adamantine arrows (or bolts in the crossbow's case) and made grandmaster in archery and their weapon skill. I then took control of each in turn and determined how many shots each took to kill their opponent. The results are as follows:

Throwing: 10
Bow: 4
Crossbow: 3

Notably the two with weapons killed by blood loss while the thrower got a shot to the head. The thrower was also far less accurate, only getting two (albeit effective) hits.

Granted this was not a very extensive experiment and It would need to be repeated multiple times before it can be called conclusive. Still, the data seems to be leaning towards crossbows and bows being superior to throwing.

True and all, but don't forget that if you had a chance to get adamantine stuff like that, you prob wouldn't go for throwing. Try testing it with copper/bronze/iron/steel.
It's more luck, although I'm sure throwing bolts can be quite deadly. (Don't know how it compares to normal stones and stuff in action though.)

[nanomage]

I did some quick arena testing on this. Three dwarves armed with a crossbow, bow and throwing vs. three naked dwarves with five spaces between them. Each dwarf was given 100 adamantine arrows (or bolts in the crossbow's case) and made grandmaster in archery and their weapon skill. I then took control of each in turn and determined how many shots each took to kill their opponent. The results are as follows:

Throwing: 10
Bow: 4
Crossbow: 3

Notably the two with weapons killed by blood loss while the thrower got a shot to the head. The thrower was also far less accurate, only getting two (albeit effective) hits.

Granted this was not a very extensive experiment and It would need to be repeated multiple times before it can be called conclusive. Still, the data seems to be leaning towards crossbows and bows being superior to throwing.

The problem with this setup is that 3 shots took far more time than 10 thrown arrows. That's why injured enemies had time to bleed out.
Throwing is broken because it's so much faster than shooting.

[Broseph Stalin]

I did some quick arena testing on this. Three dwarves armed with a crossbow, bow and throwing vs. three naked dwarves with five spaces between them. Each dwarf was given 100 adamantine arrows (or bolts in the crossbow's case) and made grandmaster in archery and their weapon skill. I then took control of each in turn and determined how many shots each took to kill their opponent. The results are as follows:

Throwing: 10
Bow: 4
Crossbow: 3

Notably the two with weapons killed by blood loss while the thrower got a shot to the head. The thrower was also far less accurate, only getting two (albeit effective) hits.

Granted this was not a very extensive experiment and It would need to be repeated multiple times before it can be called conclusive. Still, the data seems to be leaning towards crossbows and bows being superior to throwing.

The problem with this setup is that 3 shots took far more time than 10 thrown arrows. That's why injured enemies had time to bleed out.
Throwing is broken because it's so much faster than shooting.

Isn't that realistic? Drawing your bow, knocking an arrow, aquiring a target, leading your shot, and firing is alot more complicated than just hucking things. Dwarf fortress strives for realism no matter how horrible and inconvenient it is. Throwing isn't as accurate and the projectiles aren't as fast as they would be if you shot them so it does have drawbacks.

True and all, but don't forget that if you had a chance to get adamantine stuff like that, you prob wouldn't go for throwing. Try testing it with copper/bronze/iron/steel.
It's more luck, although I'm sure throwing bolts can be quite deadly. (Don't know how it compares to normal stones and stuff in action though.)

I killed an elephant with a single thrown bolt and a coupe de gras in adventure mode. The simple fact that you can stack them and the fact that they have an edge makes them better than stones.

[SongGarde]

Just to point out, I heard Toady mention on several occasions a "separation of attack speed and movement speed", meaning he didn't intend for archers and crossbowmen to just stand there paralyzed when reloading. It should, in theory, turn this whole situation around. (Except the off-screen sniping. Arrrrgh!)

[UristMcHuman]

other ranged enemies can:

- Shoot you across the screen without needing to see you

AAARRRGGHH!!!!! That is SO damn annoying. When I have to go and kill a (cross)bowman bandit, I get shot at. EVERY. SINGLE. GODDAMN TIME.

On luck: I think, that when you take good skills at archery and (cross)bowmanship, you get lucky a lot. I occasionally take an adventurer with proficient in archery and bowman skills, and I fired a single copper arrow into some enemy's leg, it chipped the bone, and he immediately flew into extreme pain. The annoying thing is the speed at which bows fire. It's like pulling an arrow from your quiver, holding the bow horizontally, nocking the arrow, raising the bow, tilting it so it's vertical, pulling back the string, getting a solid lock on your target, and finally firing. With a crossbow, I can see why it takes a long time to reload. After firing, you have to drop the front end into the dirt, put your foot through the loop on the front, pull the string back, pull a bolt from your quiver, nocking the thing, removing your foot from the loop, raising the weapon, aiming and firing.

[Flaede]

I think the trouble is more the lack of a max cap on the ability to throw things. You end up like that crazy guy in Daredevil, killing people by flicking paperclips.
"The paperclip hits the wrestler in the throat
the paperclip is embedded in the wound
the wrestler is having trouble breathing
the wrestler suffocates"

Not Cool. Sure throwing is a fast action to take, but I shouldn't be able to toss a glassful of water at you and have it reach such a velocity that when it hits your leg you can't stand on that leg anymore.
Decapitation by throwing does depend on the material a bit, but not enough, I think. Sure I could decapitate you with a thrown sword. Or mess up your head real bad with a thrown arrow. Or blind you with a thrown rock. Or bruise you a bit with a thrown cockroach. The trouble is when you can level up throwing to a point where you can also decapitate someone with the cockroach.

The thing is, I'm not sure anyone disagrees with you about this (other than the Dragon Ball Z reenactors). It's just a hard system to implement. The best re-work of the bow/x-bow/throwing system in mods is in the Genesis mod. They tweaked the settings for bows/arrows in a pretty detailed way, changing the velocities involved, and the relative effects of arrows/bolts. They couldn't do much with throwing, however, since all of that is hardcoded.

[Excedion]

Throwing is more fun and i find it a lot more useful. Especially during a large ambush if your buddies get killed you can pick up their spears and chuck 'em at the enemies to thin out their ranks. Also slicing and carving knives that you get so many of are great for killing bogeymen. Shot and killed at least 20 of them by this stage.

[Drake Saint]

Throwing is more fun and i find it a lot more useful. Especially during a large ambush if your buddies get killed you can pick up their spears and chuck 'em at the enemies to thin out their ranks. Also slicing and carving knives that you get so many of are great for killing bogeymen. Shot and killed at least 20 of them by this stage.

That is the main problem. Bows/X-bows aren't balanced the same way throwing is.

If I wanted to have an marksman adventurer, I'd have to carry a lot of ammo to be able to kill stuff.

A set of 25 arrows is heavier than an iron shield.

Also, bows take more than twice as long to shoot than throwing (x-bows thrice).

Throwing currently has no disadvantage whatsoever. You can throw whatever the fuck you want, be more weight-efficient, easier to train (thus being able to be more accurate in a shorter time) and not only that, but you do roughly the same damage as well (launchers? nah, i'll just flick arrows and bolts with my wrists)