Dwarf Fortress > DF Suggestions

Bow effectiveness is affected by material

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Snow Gibbon:
Currently, the material that a bow (or crossbow) is made of only affects it's effectiveness as a bludgeon in combat. Perhaps we could also realistically simulate material properties for their ranged function as well?

What I'm suggesting is that a bow made of a material with higher tensile properties will have lower effectiveness for smaller creatures or those with lower strength. For example, Freengus the Kobold will have some serious trouble trying to pull the string on a bow made of iron in order for the arrow to go anywhere meaningful. Meanwhile, Urist McMuscles or Mr. Giant over there will have no trouble pulling on it, and will gain whatever benefit it may yield to them (probably higher missile velocity than using an ordinary wooden bow).

This can apply to crossbows as well - A crossbow with a steel bow (i.e. an arbalest) may boast a greater shooting force than a wooden one and be able to punch through the heaviest armor, but can boast a slower reload time (Once Toady has fixed the fire rate for them compared to bows) and may require a Windlass in order to cock and load it.

This will give more variation to Fortress mode as well as Adventure mode - It will give reason to actually use both wooden crossbows as well as metal ones, dependent on whether you want to compromise speed over power or vice versa.

Good or no? Post below!

weenog:
Sounds like a natural step in improving the simulation quality.  I would rank it lower in priority than fixing things we already have which are broken, though.  Beekeeping, for example, or passing animal training knowledge back to your home civilization.

Escapism:
Are metal bows actually feasible, anyway? I've never heard of them exist outside of games.

Either way, wood type should matter for bow-making. Wood type was actually pretty important for bow-making. This will also add an increased incentive for trading, as different biomes produce different kind of trees.

Jheral:
I don't know of any bows that had metal limbs, but I do remember some crossbows that did. The one they call the Arbalest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbalest). Well within the timeframe for DF, even without considering superior dwarven craftsmanship.

And different woods should definately have different qualities as far as bows are concerned (english and welsh longbows were made out of yew, for instance, because yew was very well suited for that particular application - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata#Longbows). So I definately support this suggestion.

GreatWyrmGold:
Well, this suggestion is much better than I had feared. Good job.

Something like this makes sense. It would not only make things more realistically, it would also lead to ways to differentiate between ranged weapons as metal bows need more strength to fire optimally and crossbows take longer to reload without great strength.


Where would this leave adamantine crossbows?

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