Slings and slingshots!

[Thunkkin]

And also why crossbowmen were often kill-on-sight when captured. 

[Dalmeth]

Note on crossbows : the numbers you folks are digging up are based on constructions made of iron.  Not only that, but crossbows with the craftsmanship necessary to get anywhere close to the forces you mention are likely works of art in themselves.  The expense would be enormous, which is currently not seen in much of any weapons on Zalanthas.  Let's not even talk about maintenance.

At those times, owning a well-crafted weapon of war was equivalent in expense to owning a sportscar.  It was your life in more ways than one.

As for slings, keep the current ones as they are but introduce another set of longer slings that can fire heavier stones.  Give those the increase to damage and penalty to damage as mentioned here in this thread.

Someone write up the slings and the larger bullet objects.  Sadly, I don't think current objects can be cross-classified as the larger bullets.

[aphex]

Writing up a new sling doesn't change the fact that slings, in their current incarnation, are the total suck compared to bows, long and short. (which are the only truly 'viable' archery weapon at the moment. gimme a break xbows)

This is a balance thing. Slings just need to be altogether more powerful or offer coded advantages against targets with certain types of armor. Slings are weapons that survived THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF USE on Earth, and did a damn fine job until a few epochs passed.

A trained soldier (or even a sheep herd who's spent a lot of time with his handy sling fending off wolves) is accurate, and is deadly, in either one on one or group combat situations.

As for slings, keep the current ones..

Why are we doing this again? Keeping something that's useless code-wise? Oh. Skill upping archery?

[Boggis]

Note on crossbows : the numbers you folks are digging up are based on constructions made of iron.  Not only that, but crossbows with the craftsmanship necessary to get anywhere close to the forces you mention are likely works of art in themselves.  The expense would be enormous, which is currently not seen in much of any weapons on Zalanthas.  Let's not even talk about maintenance.

True enough but even the Gastraphetes in Ancient Greece had a range of 300 yards or so. That's a relatively simple design, was made virtually without metal bar reinforcing some ratchets on the sides and out-ranged contemporary bows by approx. 70 yards and was accurate enough to clear defenders from city walls at that range. Later in Medieval times armies had whole units of equipped with crossbows and while they wouldn't have had the power of a true work of art they did the job against knights just fine and mustn't have cost -that- much or armies would've just paid for people to train day in day out with bows.

Maybe while we're at it we could get the Chinese repeating crossbow which dates from 2,000 years ago written up too:


I had a go with one of these in China before. Not much power in it but so easy to fire off tons of bolts very quickly.

[hyzhenhok]

Crossbows should be low-skill, high-power weapons that only have the drawback of being slow to reload. They should be coded that a guild_warrior can pick them up and use them without having to branch archery first. To counter this, they should be military-only weapons that only soldiers are allowed to carry.

Bows and slings should both be useful and powerful and both require a large degree of practice. The only real difference, for the sake of simplicity, should be that one deals piercing damage and the other deals blunt damage.

[SMuz]

Well, just offering another POV on the debate.. it is a fantasy game after all. And in a fantasy game, you can have a dwarf tossing a small chunk of obsidian at your face. A HG would be able to sling a large chunk of obsidian through someone's skull.

[5 day lifespan]

My initial belief stands.  Slings should do near as much damage as arrows, with the balance in stun.  Arrows can be poisoned.  Crossbows, much like axes, should do HP and armor damage.  The big prohibiting factor can be cost and likelyhood of breaking (or ditch that part if there isn't a weapon repair ability.)

[jmordetsky]

The pumpkin, perfect cheap target for learning many ranged skills, including knife throwing, bows, crossbows etc and if you live in the right areas you can pick them for a good 4 months of the year woot.

All i ask for is throw knife pumpkin so I can practice throw ala gangs of new york.

add keyword Amsterdam
say (thumbing his nose) Lord, place the steel of the Holy Spirit in my spine and the love of the Virgin Mary in my heart.

[Comrade Canadia]

The problem with crossbows isn't that Zalanthians would lack the technology. The problem, for me, is that they don't fit the aesthetic. Weaponry in Zalanthas should all be conforming to a theme appropriate to the various cultures and the materials said cultures have available, not random weapons that look cool that suddenly can be made out of bone and obsidian. But, honestly, whatever. Keep the crossbows. The mentality behind ditching crossbows would apply to around half of the weapons we already have. Just toss slings on the pile, please!

[jmordetsky]

The problem with crossbows isn't that Zalanthians would lack the technology. The problem, for me, is that they don't fit the aesthetic. Weaponry in Zalanthas should all be conforming to a theme appropriate to the various cultures and the materials said cultures have available, not random weapons that look cool that suddenly can be made out of bone and obsidian. But, honestly, whatever. Keep the crossbows. The mentality behind ditching crossbows would apply to around half of the weapons we already have. Just toss slings on the pile, please!

Anything can be made of half-giant hair. ANYTHING!

[Jdr]

It is Zalanthas' duct tape.

[FantasyWriter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ieWrWLjii0

Its a hand-held slingshot but still.

[roughneck]

We need to get Eustace Conway on here to solve these discrepancies.

My opinion, based purely on speculation is this:

For the hunter a bow would be superior for big game as you're abe to make something bleed and as it slowly bleeds it, track it to the place it dies and skin it.  You can't kill a moose with a sling because you can't kill it with one shot.  For smaller game, slings would rule.

Although I believe there's a part in the Bible in 1 or 2 Samuel where it talks about David killing a lion or a bear with a sling.  He also killed a lion with his bare hands in there.

In war I see bows being advantageous because of the ability to have a hundred archers fire volleys and rain death on large areas of their foes.  I'm not a physicist but I imagine that firing an arrow on a steep angle like that it's going to pick up a lot more speed falling back to the ground than it would if you fired it in a straight line, unless you were fairly close.  Even compound bow hunters don't get -that- far away because they fire in straight lines.  I've never seen the volley tactic done used on Zalanthas however and there's obviously no way to codedly do it either.

Last Ranger I played could drop a Jozhal with five or less stones very consistently before he even branched archery.  Set up loading it with a macro or trigger and it becomes a very inexpensive and useful means of hunting.  It is useless for combat right now though, and I'd love to see it become a more viable that way.

Bows will -always- have a place in Zalanthan war because of an arrow's ability to deliver poison which is a big part of combat and war in armageddon which is extremely cool imo.   We never have to worry about bows being totally displaced by a cheap supbstitute so bring it on!  Badass sling pain.

[FantasyWriter]

history channel: longbow v. crossbow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HagCuGXJgUs


The first clip of a full episode on the long bow. (also from history channel):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaZ6pQiYclo&feature=PlayList&p=EE5978BAC2CF6E56&index=34


Can't find any good documentaries on slings yet

[Is Friday]

They tested Roman slings in Deadliest Warrior iirc.

[X-D]

I like the history channel one.

51 seconds, 10 arrows...Did not seem even winded to me...oddly, in arm that could cost you the same stam as running three miles through the sand...go figure.

[musashi]

Last Ranger I played could drop a Jozhal with five or less stones very consistently before he even branched archery. 

wait ... what?

[roughneck]

Last Ranger I played could drop a Jozhal with five or less stones very consistently before he even branched archery. 

wait ... what?

I'd be interested to know if other people who've played rangers with an high archery skill performed like, but my pc carried a sling around for low hp critters all the time - largely just because I thought they were fun to use and emote with.  The problem is by the time you get decent enough to do it you could drop the same critter with one or two arrows anyways.

[Pale Horse]

Last Ranger I played could drop a Jozhal with five or less stones very consistently before he even branched archery. 

wait ... what?

I'd be interested to know if other people who've played rangers with an high archery skill performed like, but my pc carried a sling around for low hp critters all the time - largely just because I thought they were fun to use and emote with.  The problem is by the time you get decent enough to do it you could drop the same critter with one or two arrows anyways.

I think he's actually referring to the fact that you said your ranger "branched archery" ...a skill that all guild_rangers get at creation.

[musashi]

Last Ranger I played could drop a Jozhal with five or less stones very consistently before he even branched archery. 

wait ... what?

I'd be interested to know if other people who've played rangers with an high archery skill performed like, but my pc carried a sling around for low hp critters all the time - largely just because I thought they were fun to use and emote with.  The problem is by the time you get decent enough to do it you could drop the same critter with one or two arrows anyways.

I think he's actually referring to the fact that you said your ranger "branched archery" ...a skill that all guild_rangers get at creation.

Yeah, that.

[Qzzrbl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk9FewFIvdM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yLBBwDqyPE&feature=related

Not even metal armor on Zalanthas could stand up to a skilled sling-wielder with rocks....

[Qzzrbl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCxgOUcUU-g

For help with emotes, if you're a sling user IG.

[FantasyWriter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXFgvdqwaU0&feature=related

Grey Forest ranger/weapons crafter.

[brytta.leofa]

I'm not a physicist but I imagine that firing an arrow on a steep angle like that it's going to pick up a lot more speed falling back to the ground than it would if you fired it in a straight line, unless you were fairly close.

That isn't really correct.  The energy imparted by falling will never be greater than the energy it took to shoot it up in the first place, plus you'll lose a little energy from air resistance. 

The advantage of shooting up is that you get longer range.  The arrow will drop a certain distance for every unit of flight time.  If you shoot it level, your range is limited by how far it can go before it drops all the way to the ground.  Shooting at a higher angle (within reason) increases the available drop distance far more than it lengthens the trajectory to the target.

I've never seen the volley tactic done used on Zalanthas however and there's obviously no way to codedly do it either.

There are units of archers, but AFAIK they can only be targeted at a single gemmer at once.

[roughneck]

Last Ranger I played could drop a Jozhal with five or less stones very consistently before he even branched archery. 

wait ... what?

I'd be interested to know if other people who've played rangers with an high archery skill performed like, but my pc carried a sling around for low hp critters all the time - largely just because I thought they were fun to use and emote with.  The problem is by the time you get decent enough to do it you could drop the same critter with one or two arrows anyways.

I think he's actually referring to the fact that you said your ranger "branched archery" ...a skill that all guild_rangers get at creation.

Yeah, that.

I meant branched archery into the skills it leads to, pardon me for the misunderstanding  .

I'm not a physicist but I imagine that firing an arrow on a steep angle like that it's going to pick up a lot more speed falling back to the ground than it would if you fired it in a straight line, unless you were fairly close.

That isn't really correct.  The energy imparted by falling will never be greater than the energy it took to shoot it up in the first place, plus you'll lose a little energy from air resistance. 

The advantage of shooting up is that you get longer range.  The arrow will drop a certain distance for every unit of flight time.  If you shoot it level, your range is limited by how far it can go before it drops all the way to the ground.  Shooting at a higher angle (within reason) increases the available drop distance far more than it lengthens the trajectory to the target.

I've never seen the volley tactic done used on Zalanthas however and there's obviously no way to codedly do it either.

There are units of archers, but AFAIK they can only be targeted at a single gemmer at once.

I humbly thank you for clearing that up