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[Niveras]

The problem is that the legendary gobbo melee fighter CANT kill a legendary dwarf EVER. 

Most of that is probably just the limit on how skillful a legendary goblin even gets. They might be legendary in one skill, with the requisite attribute gains spread across agility, strength, toughness such that no one stat ever reaches "supergobliny" and rarely "extremely" at that. Meanwhile your legendary dwarves aren't just legendary in one skill, they legendary+5 in a weapon, wrestling, shield using, extremely skilled with armor, which gives them a huge advantage in stats.

For a random siege goblin to match a legendary dwarf that's been training almost non-stop for a decade, they'd have to increase their skill and stat gains immensely.

[Name Lips]

Crossbow rate of fire does need work. I'm ok with them being remarkable accurate at close range, and able to kill a creature with one shot. That's what crossbows do.

But in-game I think they fire way, way, WAY too fast. Not just a little too fast. Not like I'm arguing that they take 3 seconds when they should take 4. No. I'm arguing that maybe a wait of at least a second between shots isn't unreasonable, as opposed to 5 or so shots per second.

[Sir Finkus]

The fact that bolts can kill and stun is all good! We want that, but think about how long it would take to load a crossbow... If crossbows could fire like a Garand semi-auto, there would have never been a need for spears, maces, swords or any sort of melee weapon. Indeed that is WWII technology.

*ahem*

[Jude]

Champion vs. army of goblins = easy win
Champion vs. army of bowgoblins = many arrows = at least ONE will come up on the freak chance of mangling champion's entire body and killing/maiming him for life

Seriously, last siege, I had some bowgobs show up, sent out my four champs (the entire military at the time) and one died, another got hideously wounded and is still in bed.

Of course, they were only wearing leather, as I was still training up my armorsmith on copper.

[Neonivek]

The rates of crossbow should change at the Combat Arc

Which is very far away.

[Sensei]

There was a massive nerfing of ranged weapons, and piercing things in particular. They work much more logically now, and native arrows do less damage on top of that.

As for the firing rate, if you want that changed, I suggest you advocate this thread.

[cephalo]

The fact that bolts can kill and stun is all good! We want that, but think about how long it would take to load a crossbow... If crossbows could fire like a Garand semi-auto, there would have never been a need for spears, maces, swords or any sort of melee weapon. Indeed that is WWII technology.

*ahem*

Very cool link! I still don't think those things can do 2 rounds per second.

[cephalo]

There was a massive nerfing of ranged weapons, and piercing things in particular. They work much more logically now, and native arrows do less damage on top of that.

As for the firing rate, if you want that changed, I suggest you advocate this thread.

Done

[Akigagak]

though during a brief time while fixing that the crossbows started shooting me in completely half (because the contact area was being miscalculated -- it was more like they were firing giant saws or something).

Anyone else want traps that do this?

[Neonivek]

though during a brief time while fixing that the crossbows started shooting me in completely half (because the contact area was being miscalculated -- it was more like they were firing giant saws or something).

Anyone else want traps that do this?

You mean like Weapon traps loaded with Giant Serrated Discs?

[Sensei]

No, that throw giant serrated discs.

You could create shurikens, but there would be no way to make them a strictly throwing weapon.

[StealthArcher]

The fact that bolts can kill and stun is all good! We want that, but think about how long it would take to load a crossbow... If crossbows could fire like a Garand semi-auto, there would have never been a need for spears, maces, swords or any sort of melee weapon. Indeed that is WWII technology.

*ahem*

Very cool link! I still don't think those things can do 2 rounds per second.

I don't think most any of us could carve three mugs from stone in 10 seconds, or grow plants in 3 minutes either.

Nor does a year normally only take half an hour to pass.

DF is not normal scaled time.

[Neonivek]

You could create shurikens, but there would be no way to make them a strictly throwing weapon.

Well they never had enough force (unless you gone into the fictional giant Shrukens) to sever anything really.

They apperantly functioned on the same premise as a blowdart

[Asehujiko]

I talked to a few engineers and (while slightly drunk) they came up with a mechanism for a self powered automatic crossbow. Basically, it involves bolts being loaded in cartidges together with a very strong coil spring. When the trigger is pulled the spring unloads, pushing back both the bolt and the bowspring over a tilting part of the stock which is  depressed by coil spring pushing gown a small triangular wedge in it's path and is released when it encounters a small notch, after which it is lifted in line with the rest of whatever you calls the crossbow equivalent of a gun barrel by another spring below it when the bolt is fully removed from it's storage, which disengages the bowstring from being pushed back and launches the bolt forward. The cartridge pushed out by a protrusion on the bowstring, which makes room for a new one, either pulled in place by being connected to the previous one or being pushed up from a magazine.

Tl;dr version: Uses pre-loaded springs for chambering a new round as opposed to recoil like with a firearm.

I can imagine a million ways something that operates completely on precisely calibrated springs under high pressure can malfunction, perhaps a chance that when firing the crossbow breaks down into a non-crossbow that can be converted back to a crossbow by a marksdwarf as a workshop like job that can be performed everywhere and is automatically added to the tasks of the dwarf whose weapon just failed?

If there's any large lapses of logic in the text above it's because:
1. The engineers in question have an expertise area not related to crossbows(electrical systems)
2. We were all drunk at the time.
3. I suck at converting a drawn sketch into words.

[LegoLord]

Ignoring any lapses in logic there might be, that explanation would match up pretty well with the other advanced technologies the dwarves have (atom smasher, perpetual motion machines, etc.)