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[Footkerchief]

So now you're saying that machine guns shoot a number of bullets per second that a person could reasonably count?

Ok, maybe this will clear up what I've been saying:
If you mean the current firing rate of the in-game crossbows, that's not worth basing any argument on.  It's not some carefully chosen canonical number. The rate only seems to exist as a manifestation of the agility & encumbrance based action rate which is pretty much in place for performance reasons.

So basically tell me you think machine gun was a poor choice of words and we'll be in agreement about most of this.

I didn't call them machine guns and I hardly feel obligated to retract someone else's words.  This would have been a lot easier if you'd just, you know, read what I said and quoted it instead of wildly attributing various statements to me.

I don't know that the operation speed of a crossbow is all that improbable compared to melee combat, if you are willing to consider that the dorfs are using a "light" crossbow with an attached cocking lever; it should be possible to cock and load a crossbow in 3-6 seconds, and fire it in within the next 1-5 depending on how long you spend aiming, and assuming you don't fire from the hip.

(I have a light crossbow, not very powerful, that's cocked by placing the butt against the hip or gut and pulling the string back with your hands; it takes half a second to pull the string back, and I could probably fire it every six seconds if I didn't worry too much about aiming and practiced quickly loading it a little.)

To be honest, it does seem unlikely to me that dwarves' hardcore combat crossbows are only as powerful as someone's modern toy crossbow.  However, if you could cite some historical evidence that such a crossbow (sans magazine mind you, because a large magazine is about the only saving grace of a weak crossbow) was regularly used in battle, and that it really did have that rate of fire...

[Puzzlemaker]

This thread confuses me.

What is everyone arguing about?  Crossbows fire as fast as a dwarf can swing a sword, which is basically impossible.

Any time metrics or comparisons are pointless, as the only thing you can base it off of is relative time of other actions.

Anyway, basically any other point made currently is moot.  Wait for the combat arc.

[Shoku]

Of course not, the OP started with that. In your first quote to me you demanded that I prove the dwarves shoot as fast as they make melee attacks and things have made little sense from that point on. Your earlier post about a lot of these numbers just being there because Toady needed SOMETHING to put in seems to fit with what I've wanted to talk about but for some reason you've tried to force me to talk about actual DF mechanics in terms of real world equivalents a bunch of times and I really don't understand why you'd say this stuff doesn't match reality and then demand I prove this stuff matches reality when I hadn't claimed it did.

[Footkerchief]

In your first quote to me you demanded that I prove the dwarves shoot as fast as they make melee attacks and things have made little sense from that point on.

Since you seem completely incapable of actually quoting what concerns you, I'll help you out:

Of course, someone picking up a sword for the first time would largely swing it down so it hit the ground and then have to struggle to lift it again for another swing. I expect this to take about as long as it would take me to cock a crossbow and someone who had been practicing shooting for several months (like my father has been doing) could do it much more fluidly, again at about the rate I think someone with about as much practice with medieval swords would swing it.

I would be amazed if you could provide some non-anecdotal evidence for these claims.  Note that we're talking about crossbows without magazines.  This source says 2-4 bolts per minute, this one says 2.

We were both obviously talking about the real-life firing rates of crossbows and swing rates of swords.  In the above quote, you claimed these real-life rates were about equal.  Now, were you or weren't you claiming that as part of an argument that it's reasonable for rates in DF to be about equal?

Also, are you done trying to force the words "machine gun" into my mouth?

[Shoku]

In your first quote to me you demanded that I prove the dwarves shoot as fast as they make melee attacks and things have made little sense from that point on.

Since you seem completely incapable of actually quoting what concerns you, I'll help you out:

Of course, someone picking up a sword for the first time would largely swing it down so it hit the ground and then have to struggle to lift it again for another swing. I expect this to take about as long as it would take me to cock a crossbow and someone who had been practicing shooting for several months (like my father has been doing) could do it much more fluidly, again at about the rate I think someone with about as much practice with medieval swords would swing it.

I would be amazed if you could provide some non-anecdotal evidence for these claims.  Note that we're talking about crossbows without magazines.  This source says 2-4 bolts per minute, this one says 2.

We were both obviously talking about the real-life firing rates of crossbows and swing rates of swords.  In the above quote, you claimed these real-life rates were about equal.  Now, were you or weren't you claiming that as part of an argument that it's reasonable for rates in DF to be about equal?

Also, are you done trying to force the words "machine gun" into my mouth?

I've said several times that that is the central point of my argument and you keep arguing against me so why shouldn't I think you're saying that?

I'd argue about what I was saying but Reese and Malthias have done a thorough job of the "RL attack rates" subject and I think I've done a thorough job of explaining the in game rates so talk to them if you want to argue real world mechanics or start talking to me about in game ones.

Edit: Reading over that I noticed it's totally ambiguous and doesn't answer your question. I've not exactly been expressing my thoughts clearly at a few points in here so to clear that up: I avoid typing dwarves as often as possible because I hate how these browsers think it's not a word.

[Reese]

I don't know that the operation speed of a crossbow is all that improbable compared to melee combat, if you are willing to consider that the dorfs are using a "light" crossbow with an attached cocking lever; it should be possible to cock and load a crossbow in 3-6 seconds, and fire it in within the next 1-5 depending on how long you spend aiming, and assuming you don't fire from the hip.

(I have a light crossbow, not very powerful, that's cocked by placing the butt against the hip or gut and pulling the string back with your hands; it takes half a second to pull the string back, and I could probably fire it every six seconds if I didn't worry too much about aiming and practiced quickly loading it a little.)

To be honest, it does seem unlikely to me that dwarves' hardcore combat crossbows are only as powerful as someone's modern toy crossbow.  However, if you could cite some historical evidence that such a crossbow (sans magazine mind you, because a large magazine is about the only saving grace of a weak crossbow) was regularly used in battle, and that it really did have that rate of fire...

When did I say it was a toy? it's certainly isn't the strongest crossbow, but it's a real and dangerous weapon(it's meant for target shooting and a model I used for an actual competition event as a boy scout), and, I should point out, while it doesn't have a very heavy draw, I'm not even what you would call a person of average strength.  It's perfectly reasonable to assume that a trained warrior, who would be much stronger than myself, could cock a similarly more powerful crossbow with the same level of relative effort.  The wikipedia article on crossbows even has two illustrations of cocking levers such as I mentioned, and a crossbow specialty site I found searching suggests that such levers can give a mechanical advantage for cocking of up to 5:1 ( http://worldcrossbow.com/FAQ.html )

From all this(the thread in general), and if anything, I would suggest that it's more unrealistic that an axe can be used with the same frequency as a short sword than that a crossbow can be fired at the same rate as an axe swung.

I would agree with you if it were explicit that the DF crossbows were siege bows that required a cranquin to cock or if dorfs were allowed the knowledge of metalurgy and engineering necessary to create what modern metal shops are capable of in terms of melee weaponry.

[Shoku]

Well when you shoot a REAL crossbow at someone's head it will rip the entire brain out and pin it to the wall. Anything less is just a toy like the kind you put an eye out with or use to give your heart a belly ring.

[cephalo]

I'm the one who said 'machine guns' but I guess I should have said 'semi-auto'. Currently the effectiveness of xbows greatly devalues everything else. From a game design perspective, that is a problem.

Simulating the tissue layers and what not to make bolts less effective, is one way to deal with that I guess, but we all know that an xbow bolt(maybe not the Chinese one) is designed to penetrate armor. We certainly don't want xbows to be ineffective. I assume we would like to use them in fortified positions where they can't be rushed by melee, and use the others in the open field. It's not ideal in my mind to confine melee fighters to a handicapping device, only used by experienced players, but on the other hand, I want my xbows to be effective on the walls where they have plenty of time, no matter how long it takes to reload. 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

well, i find it possible to use crossbows in a balanced fashion.  untrained dwarves are inaccurate, and they tend to have arc problems if you use higher zlevels and don't <fortify> the whole wall.  So I use limited #s of loopholes and I only issue crossbows to the militia.  (Professional military is all melee.)
you can also lower damage, which does help.

[Reese]

I should point out, BTW, that, while I think that the rate of fire can be considered realistic(in comparison to melee weapon swing rates), realistic doesn't always mean fun, I just think that arguing the unreality of the rate of fire is not a very good tack for game balance... both because I don't think it's unrealistic, and, generally speaking, because realism is what has to take a back seat for proper game balance to be achieved in most games I've played.  Though balance is a funny thing, where single player games are concerned...

[Shoku]

I'm the one who said 'machine guns' but I guess I should have said 'semi-auto'. Currently the effectiveness of xbows greatly devalues everything else. From a game design perspective, that is a problem.

Simulating the tissue layers and what not to make bolts less effective, is one way to deal with that I guess, but we all know that an xbow bolt(maybe not the Chinese one) is designed to penetrate armor. We certainly don't want xbows to be ineffective. I assume we would like to use them in fortified positions where they can't be rushed by melee, and use the others in the open field. It's not ideal in my mind to confine melee fighters to a handicapping device, only used by experienced players, but on the other hand, I want my xbows to be effective on the walls where they have plenty of time, no matter how long it takes to reload. 

Semiauto doesn't appease me. Footkerchief has given enough reason to think that these aren't any kind of automatic and my understanding of the mechanics makes them a very poor fit for an arbalest except for that one thing that has effectively been a bug. I'm saying it's only as fast as the melee attackers anyway and unless you picture these fights like soul calibur rounds where people can swing their sword all around and just keep bouncing off of the guy blocking while the motion stays fluid...

But ya, now things have to go through the skin and ribs and muscle to get to the heart and that's if there's no armor sitting over it so in the next release we'll get to really see how much Toady intended bolts to pierce armor.

-
When I was last active on here the general player seemed to think that their armored units should have been more protected from ranged attackers. The things that shrug off bolts too easily and that you can't very well fight with melee units are what we have ballista for. These (ideally) fill certain niches in game balance you know?

[Hummingbird]

well, i find it possible to use crossbows in a balanced fashion.  untrained dwarves are inaccurate, and they tend to have arc problems if you use higher zlevels and don't <fortify> the whole wall.  So I use limited #s of loopholes and I only issue crossbows to the militia.  (Professional military is all melee.)
you can also lower damage, which does help.

True, but we shouldn't have to self-impose a different play-style in order to make crossbows not overpowered, as that is artificial and lame.  Ideally we'd have to decrease our crossbow use not because we want to give ourselves a challenge, but because it won't be strategically tenable anymore to rely on marksdwarves.

[Shoku]

Lowering their damage doesn't balance them very well though. You get to where they are basically doing nothing and hitting the organs is all accomplishes anything.