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« on: August 07, 2008, 12:59:34 pm »
(wall of text warning! To make sure I don't lose any data this will be updated section by section)
So its been a while since we discussed missile weapons. While nothing will actually change until the combat arc gets worked on, thinking out loud here will help us create and refine ideas until then. It was mentioned multiple times that the addition of guns would unbalance the combat system. Personally I think this isn't true as all missile weapons have specific pros and cons that make them unique.
To start with: Bows, Crossbows, Slings and Guns.
Possibly upcoming: Thrown weapons, siege weapons
Bows: Bows come in all shapes and sizes. Most are similar and can be lumped into 3 general categories:
Longbow: The standard, any bow that is as tall as you when unstrung counts as a longbow. Some of them can get even bigger like the english longbows. However they are not fit for "general" use and are meant for mass rank volley fire.
Shortbow: Any bow significantly smaller than a longbow. Smaller with less power.
Compound bow: Compound bows use a pulley system in order to harness the power of very springy but short bow limbs. The shape of the pulley can be configured to reduce the amount of force needed to keep the string pulled back. This can be anywhere from 0 to 100%.
In addition bows can have many variants:
Recurve: The bow staff curves away from the user at the tips. Increases spring force. Also makes it much harder to string the bow by hand.
Composite: Often confused with compound. Composite bows are made of more than one material in layers such as animal horn or laminated bamboo. This allows them to be much stronger than one made of a single material. The bows the Huns used are a good example which were also recurved.
Offset: Offset bows are normal bows where the arrow is held closer towards one end of the bow rather than the center. While this looks very strange it has advantages such as being able to use a tall bow while riding horseback.
Ammo and reloading:
Arrows come in all shapes and sizes. The important part is the arrowhead. Its shape and weight combined determine what happens to the target on impact. Arrowheads can be made for general use such as broadheads or diamond heads. Or they can be specialized such as needle tips for attacking heavy armour. One often overlooked but very important point about arrows is that as bows get more powerful you must provide stronger and heavier arrows to match. If you take a really light arrow and try to fire it from too heavy a bow, the arrow will simply bend and shatter in your face.
Reloading a bow takes much practice. Its possible to whip arrows out of a shoulder quiver and nock them in the same movement like how Legolas does in the LOTR movies. Since arrows are very long it limits where you can carry them. Generally most humanoids have space for two quivers. One mounted on the shoulder, the other strapped behind the lower back tilted towards the shooting hand.
Pros:
- Can be very general or specialized to many tasks depending on what ammo is used.
- Many types of arrows can be carried in the same quiver.
- Smaller bows are easy to use while mounted.
- Can be used in massed ranks of archers.
- Fastest firing of all the available missile weapons. (with the possible exception of repeater crossbows)
- Can be mounted with sights for long distance shots.
Cons:
- Very and in the case of compound bows, extremely vulnerable to any and all damage. A damaged bow can explode into shards if used.
- Cut bowstrings render the weapon useless.
- Bows must be stored unstrung or spring power will degrade over time.
- Usage requires a lot of training and constant practice.
- Holding the string back in the ready position for extended periods can get tiring.
- Tall bows can not be used in low tunnels.
- The glues used to assemble composite bows are sensitive to moisture. (or at least the ones that were available at the time, we can leave this one out)
- The quality of the ammunition is very important for overall accuracy.
Crossbows: Since crossbows are effectively a bow mounted to a stock the same variants can be found. Crossbows come in many sizes but the power of the crossbow is more dependent on the strength of the bow limbs. The strength of the crossbow also affects what methods can be used to reload it. The general shapes are:
Pistol crossbow: These little ones are used to fire small bolts. These bolts are much weaker than full sized ones but are still very deadly when used against unarmoured targets or gaps in armour.
Wrist crossbow: A crossbow mounted flat against the side of your wrist. A lot more effective than it sounds but difficult to reload. Leaves the hand free to use something else.
Medium crossbow: What people generally think of. Has a rifle stock.
Heavy crossbow: Same as medium but reinforced to allow the use of stronger bows.
Siege crossbow: Also known as an arbalest. These are meant to be used to defend forts and castles via arrow slits or to attack one from behind moveable cover. Extremely powerful but hard to reload.
The strength of the bow limbs affect how you can reload it:
Hand: The simplest way is to pull the string back by hand. For pistol and wrist crossbows this can be done with one hand. For medium and heavy crossbows, generally a metal loop is attached to the front of the crossbow. The user stands in the loop and pulls upward on the string with both hands.
Lever: Levers are slightly easier to use compared to using your hands. The main advantage is that you can use the lever while moving. They tend to be somewhat bulky on the larger crossbows.
Ratchet: A smaller lever than needs to be pulled multiple times to reset the bow. This is a lot slower but allows you to cock a stronger crossbow. This is a lot more mechanically complex than a lever and prone to damage. This method can be used on the weaker arbalests.
Winch: A pulley and gear system combined with a ratchet. The most time consuming method by far but allows you to reload the heaviest of crossbows.
Since bolts are shorter than arrows you can store them all over your body. Quivers or racks can be carried wherever there is room. Small darts must be carried in pouches or they will fall out. In a pinch or for stealth you can even strap a few to parts of your body.
Pros:
- Unlike bows the base accuracy of a crossbow depends on its quality and not the skill of the user.
- Easier to use than all other missile weapons, guns included.
- Bolts are just as customizable as arrows. Since they are thicker and heavier they allow the use of exotic materials whereas arrows must be made of wood.
- Can be tripod mounted for increased accuracy. Also allows civilians to use heavier crossbows without difficulty making crossbows a good militia weapon.
- With a modified string which includes a pouch, crossbows can be used to launch rocks and other small objects.
- The bow can be detached from the stock and replaced allowing you to change the power of crossbows to suit your needs.
- Heavier bolts are not as affected by wind.
- Can mount telescopic scopes as well as better iron sights than bows.
Cons:
- Very slow to reload depending on the power of the bow and thus the method used.
- Almost impossible to string by hand.
- Less sensitive to damage than bows but damage tends to be more catastrophic.
- Generally shorter ranged than bows (but still very long ranged)
- Hard to use with long range volley fire.
- Poorly made crossbows or crossbows that fire underpowered ammo have reverse recoil that greatly slows reloading.
Slings: Slings are a simple weapon that anyone can use, but few people can use well. Slings differ from the other missile weapons in that the damage the weapon deals out relies completely on the strength of the user. Longer slings mean more power, but you have to be stronger and taller to use them. They come in a couple types:
Hand sling: A small sling about a foot long when folded. Its used to increase the range and force of thrown stones and other objects. Very easy to make from various materials.
Heavy sling: These are meant for throwing much larger sones or shaped bullets. These slings are as long as the user can handle. For 5' 6" me that means just under a foot and a half folded.
Staff sling: This is a heavy sling attached to the end of a staff much like the sling on a trebuchet arm. Slow to operate but it can throw stones out to extreme distances.
Its worth mentioning that the length of the sling will vary greatly depending on how tall the user is and how they use it. For underhand throwing slings can not be any longer than the distance between your hand and the ground when standing straight. Overarm slinging can use much longer slings but is less accurate at long ranges and harder to do underground because of the high arc of the shot. Sidearm throwing is the most "direct" of the methods but also the least accurate.
Slings can be made out of any material that forms a rope or sheet. This means that cloth and leather work well, but also foraged materials like damaged clothing or vines can also be used to make slings.
Something that isn't well known is that slings can also throw darts. These work the same way but fly very very far.
Pros:
- Plentiful free ammo in the form of stones. (smooth stones from a river or beach are the best)
- Weighs almost nothing, so it makes a good backup weapon.
- Can be used to garrote someone in a pinch.
- Can be made from foraged or recycled materials
- Kids love em and will passively train slinging skill (but beware of accidents)
- Rocks are hard to see in flight, especially when they fly at high arcs. This means they are rarely dodged.
- Rocks don't pierce armour well but they don't have to. They kill stuff without blood loss so are good for hunting.
Cons:
- Hardest missile weapon to use effectively by far.
- Slings made of weak materials degrade rapidly and must be replaces.
- Wear and tear on the sling greatly degrades performance.
- Requires lots of practice (so its good to start young)
- Not very useful against opponents with shields (unless you use good bullets)
- Reloads slowly without lots of practice (but once trained up they reload quite fast)
- The stone tends to fall out of the sling if the user has to make sudden movements (like dodging).
Note: I'll be the first to admit that unlike the previous three, I have zero first hand knowledge of medieval firearms.
Guns: The period of tech we supposedly must stick to in DF means that the quality of firearms is very low overall. That is not to say they don't have a place however. Unless Toady decides to bump up the tech level a few notches, the guns we do have access to are going to be expensive and rare.
I think we can safely deviate from the progression set down by our own history. If dwarves got thier hands on gunpowder technology, what would they start to do with it? The earliest gunpowder weapon were mostly crude cannons. The smallest of which was eventually mounted on a pole to form an infantry firearm that required two people to operate. A little further on someone had the idea to mount a small thin cannon on a stick, and the rifle was born. To qualify as an actual rifle the weapon must have rifling in the barrel which is probably beyond our tech level. But the shape and usage of these crude guns are mostly the same. Eventually someone made a really short version and along came the pistol.
Now as to when we stop moving up the tech levels, that has to be discussed. But the pros and cons of firearms remained generally the same in the time period we are talking about.
Pros:
- Extremely powerful. Where arrows and bolts could be fended off by plate and mail. Gunpowder weapons could usually punch through plate armour with ease, which eventually made it obselete.
- Guns are frightening to people and especial animals who are not used to being around them.
- You can carry a lot more gun ammo by space (and sometimes weight) than you can arrows or bolts.
- It takes more training to use a gun safely than it does a crossbow, but far less practice.
- Usable bullets are far easier to make than usable arrows or bolts.
- Cannons and rifles as well to a lesser degree can be loaded with whatever fits down the barrel. This can be anything from lead pellets to candles.
Cons:
- Extremely dangerous and unreliable. There are just so many things that can go wrong that I have to list them individually.
- Lots of recoil making repeat shots impossible.
- Improperly loaded guns will fail to fire and or explode. Reloading also takes a very long time and lots of training to do safely.
- The user must carry a large amount of gunpowder on his person and some sort of lit flame (since were a bit far back for percussion caps), the danger from this gets even worse when rifle bearers are in close proximity.
- Guns are very expensive to manufacture, even more so than crossbows. The standards of manufacture are also very high, cruder components will work but increase the danger of using them exponentially.
- All early firearms are very inaccurate.
- Rifles are made up of many more components compared to say a shortbow. Each of these components can fail rendering the rifle useless and will sometimes make it explode.
- Rifles are very loud and may render the user deaf for a time. This can be countered by stuffing your ears with cotton or a similar tactic, but that will also make you deaf.
- Rifles cannot arc projectiles over obstacles very well. They can do this at long ranges just as well as a crossbow but the minimum range is far greater.
- The blast a rifle emits is dangerous in enclosed spaces. This would for example make them hard to use inside an arrow slit. The resulting cloud of smoke also lingers and impairs the view of the user and nearby people.
- Early gunpowder has a tendency to go "stale" and is useless when damp.
- Guns are generally not prone to damage but the firing mechanisms are very sensetive.
- Some others I am forgetting and all the others you guys can think up of.
So basically its looking like guns would work in the game. But it would take a lot of time and money to produce them. A lot of training to use safely. And after all that, isn't very accurate. But it still has its place on the list as a unique and useful contender. Also keep in mind that infantry firearms are just one branch of the technology. There are so many other things we could do with gunpowder, even with lower tech levels.
Thoughts?
