Stringing a bow can take as little as 5 seconds, if you use a foot-sling. One end caps the end of the lower limb with the string in place, the other end is placed about 1' down from the top. Place a foot on the sling whilst bent forward and straighten up, this will bend the limbs with little or no effort allowing the top end to be slid into place. Both the string and sling can be left on the bow whilst "unstrung"; the sling can also be left on whilst you fire, but 4 1/2' of cord trailing of the bottom is a real nuissance. The part that takes the longest is "take-down" removing/adding the limbs to the handle, although saying that my current recurve is a "clunk-click" design and takes ~15 seconds to assemble, my original take-down recurve took around 2 minutes to assemble!

If you own a compound or cross-bow, you really need to invest in a "stringer". Whilst both of these bows suffer less from continual readiness, their performance will degrade overtime if they are not "unstrung" in storage.

There is a previous thread about arrow weight and it was left with a weight for a STR10, 5'10" human using arrows in the 1,500-1,800 grain range. Some modern compound bows can achieve 50% of a lowish velocity bullet speed.

If a troll was of canon average height and had a strength of 15 the arrow weight would be around this.

My draw length is 34", a troll is 30% taller and has 20% longer arms
= 34"*1.3*1.2 = 53"
My peak poundage on a compound is 86lbs and I have STR4.5
= 86lbs*(15/4.5) = 86lbs x 3.33 = 286lbs peak poundage

This gives a minimum arrow weight of 1,159 grains for a standard (human) poundage hunting bow and a massive 4,600 grains for a Ranger-X (STR15) troll-modified bow.

Comparing this to a standard light pistol would see the arrow travelling at half the velocity, but massing 50 times more.

It still wouldn't matter, unless you had a different kind of arrowhead. The reason the arrow is damaging is the hole cut (or crushed) into the target by the arrowhead, and to a very minor extend crushed by the shaft. To make use of a 1,200gr arrow at 350fps you should have a 4-blade, 4" wide broadhead. If the size of arrowhead stays the same, you aren't doing significantly more damage to the critter you're shooting at, unless you're hunting really, really big game (e.g. elephants).

What's a "standard light pistol", though? Let's go with a full-size 9x19mm pistol (Glock 17, Beretta M92, etc). Light pistols are supposed to be crappy and weak, so let's go with 124gr at 1150fps for 367 ft-lbs of kinetic energy.

The greatest velocities I could find for any crossbows with Google was 350fps, with a few 330fps and several 300+fps figures. Assuming a 4500gr arrow at 350fps, that's about 1225 ft-lbs kinetic energy.

A RL Ruger Super Warhawk equivalent, a 7.5" barreled .454 Casull revolver fires a 260gr bullet at 1800fps for 1871 ft-lbs of kinetic energy. A 12G shotgun might fire 850gr of shot at 1300fps for well over 3000 ft-lbs of energy.

In terms of energy, the troll bow isn't too terrifying. It may well penetrate several meters of flesh and bone and will fare decently against armor as well, but it doesn't have what it takes to create a particularly large cavity. [Edit]For the record, I certainly don't believe kinetic energy is a very good way of guessing the amount of damage caused to humans by a projectile. Just showing that the numbers on those bows aren't that scary.[/Edit]

The strength of a bow is in cutting, and the STR 15 full-steel Ranger-X bow could make good use of a 6-8" wide broadhead -- getting a 6" x 0.2" hole straight through you is going to suck, no doubt about it. But unless you do make use of that additional energy by having a huge arrowhead or some other method, it's just going to be wasted. Like firing .50BMG SLAPs at humans when you've got very good 7.62x51mm JHPs.

Well, if you know the amount of time from arrowhead hitting target and fletching touching hole (assuming a complete penetration, you could rig a small explosive inside the arror to blow once a certain amount has penetrated the target.

EX explosive arrows? Sweet.

Well, a larger cutting surface would increase the damage code. We're not talking about increasing the damage code, just the penetrating power.

Power is part of the Damage Code, and exactly how big a hole something makes into a target is part of Power, too. Consider (EX)-Explosive ammunition, for example -- it won't penetrate any better, makes a bigger hole, and the game mechanic is +1/+2 to Power.

True.

So would everyone be happy if we just assumed that str 15 bows were using 4" wide broadhead arrows, and that the whole arrow weighed a couple pounds?

I wouldn't, because no arrow should ever penetrate armor as well as an Assault Cannon. But I don't allow STR 15 bows to begin with, so I don't think I count anyway.

That's an issue with the basic formula for a damage code in the first place, though, Austere. In much the same way as their melee weapons/hand to hand rules, the developers (purposefully, I tell myself) slanted the game a bit so that firearms are fairly underpowered compared to some of the "cool" older methods (your NAN guy with the survival knife and the tomahawk, the adept with the bow, the adept japanese guy with the katana)....

They slanted some of the basic damage codes and whatnot to allow for someone to make a "style over substance" character a viable option (and in many cases, a disgustingly viable one).

Well you're never happy when we talk about anything related to guns, Austere.

Critias: I tend to agree. We should all keep telling ourselves that.

I don't think they've purposefully or by mistake made Assault Cannons particularly underpowered. 18D is a whole lot, and the numbers start breaking down at such huge Power ratings (because resisting becomes an all-or-nothing type of deal). The biggest problem is the steadily increasing returns of being an even stronger archer.

Has anyone done a study on the relative impact of a "combat" bow on the human body and from what range?

I think we've established the SR gun damages tend be a little...odd at times.

Without practical information to make a comparison, a lot of this argument is moot.

If you don't think a troll using a compound hunting bow made of titanium and designed for only the cyber-augmented or...well...trolls is a good idea or should have natural limits, go for it.

-Siege

The only comparison I can offer is that a commando 220lb power-cam crossbow gets much better pentration on various parts of a car than a 12-gauge shotgun at 30ish yards.

12-gauge shotgun firing what? Not the least bit surprised if it was birdshot, slightly surprised if buckshot, very surprised if it was a slug. What kind of arrowhead? (Or is it a "bolthead"?) Which parts of an automobile stopped the shotgun rounds?

350 grain bolt at 350 fps : 95 ft-lbs of kinetic energy.

haven't had time to read through all the posts, but throw in a couple dikote arrows and we are talking about 9S to xS damagecode for a starting char.

having let's say three different types of arrows: 1) dikote standard arrow, 2) exex-arrows and 3) hammerhead-arrows. put these in 3 different holsters on your back and you are ready to go.

my char is an ork-physad-mage.
strength 8
12M damage with rangerx
dikotearrows 13S
called shots 13D
with exex 14M

mind you that this is only for sniping purposes. else he slings killing hands S.


damn, i am a munchkin. but anyway. i don't think it's that broken to be changed, since he's already beyond 200karma and initiatelevel 4. gm'ing him almost only as a npc.

Well yeah, Shot does squat to hard targets outside of a certain distance, but load that gun with slugs and the bow cannot compare at all.

Well, yeah a slug would do a lot more but they aren't the easiest things to obtain when your bigest target is a fox.

In regards to the low fps that AE found, these are limited by 2 factors. First, if they went any faster you'd have a hard time finding arrows that missed and second the speed at which the limbs release stored energy. Factor one is irrelevant, we want faster arrows and factor two can be dealt with by a small modification to how the bow is made.

We have had the idea of replacing the bending limbs of a compound bow with a series of pneumatic pistons pre-loaded with a nitrogen atmosphere. Pulling back the string would compress the gas, storing energy as normal. On release the multiple pistons will impart energy faster over a longer distance on the arrow. Depending on the results from all the maths, we should see an increase in fps by around 3x. Also under investigation is the effect on fps when draw length is increased to 53" from 28".

Please bear with BFTG Innovations as we finalise the CAD/CAM templates.

Flipping back to SR on a slightly related note (didn't want to start a new topic just for this)- Repeater Crossbows. Are they SA or SS (the description tends towards them being SA, but that's pretty damned sick), and could the Quick Draw Adept Power be used to unshoulder and fire the weapon in a single simple action?

-JH.

Depending on which repeater bow you select, the quickdraw could be used to unsholder and fire the loaded bow. On some early repeaters the action of "loading and cocking" the bow was part of the firing sequence so the repeater could not be left ready to fire.

An un-powered repeater cross-bows would have to be SS, there is just no way its going to fire more than once every 3 seconds, no matter how fast you are.

BFTG Innovations do have the designs for a powered repeater cross-bow.

Slight hijack.

I was building a Bow setup last night and purchased the Bow Accessory Mount from CC. It mentions you can add 1 imaging or smartlink system.

Can a Bow mount a laser sight instead? And would it need the mount to do so? My non-cybered Adept had to purchase Smart Goggles to make the Smartlink work and the bonus there is only +1, which is essentially the same as the Laser sight. The Laser (and Hi-Powered Laser in CC)sight writeup says it's for Firearms, but then again, so does the Smartgun Link.

Ideally, if a Laser sight could be mounted w/o the Accessory, one could save that accessory slot for an Imaging Scope, so that shooting long- and extreme-range is easier.

Don't know if it helps, but you can buy a distance corrected laser sight for a bow today.

Accessories that are fitted to a bow in RL:

a) Kisser - small plastic disc placed on string that lines up with the corner of the archers mouth to ensure correct lateral alignment and draw length for the bow.
b) Peeper - small oval disc placed in the string to ensure correct vertical alignment of the bow.
c) Laser sight - normally mounted on a pivot to adjust for distance
d) Optical zoom sight - 'nuf said
e) Multi-pin sight - multiple sights for preset distances (eg. 50, 60, 80, 100, 120 yrds)
f) Extendable sight - Helps to narrow the range to a few feet and accuracy at long range
g) Laser range finder - Not common, but have seen a builder use one
h) Bow-mounted quiver - for rapid reload (usually 4, 6 arrows max)
i) Counterweight rods - for balance and stability
j) Sling - Allow the archer to leave their "bow" hand open, increasing accuracy
k) Trigger release mechanism - A pistol trigger that holds the string with 2 ball-bearings removing any twisting of the string on release
l) Cable-stops - On compound bows only, these stops sit on the steel cable running between the cams to ensure that draw length is the same everytime.
m) Spring Arrow rests - The bit of metal that the front of the arrow rests on is spring loaded so it doesn't alter the arrow's path when the fletchings pass over it

For the arrows

n) Curled Fletchings - increases arrow speed and stability by spinning the arrow
o) Carbon fibre/aluminium core shafts - to flatten trajectory and extend distance.

Being a bit of a technophile and the fact it really rubs recurvers up the wrong way I use options a, b, c, d, f, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, and o. Each of these makes a small, but noticable improvement to my accuracy and RoF.

Some interesting ideas. I'll have to check with my GM on what I can and cannot do.

For that matter, does anyone have a listing for a Quiver? Neither SR3 nor CC has one that I know of. I'd like to know the cost and capacity.