Bow damage for different types of bows

[Kizz]

This is 0.9 ver. notice as follows :-
1) Bent Hunting bow 7c / Acc 99 / Spd 97
2) Short Bow 10c /Acc 99 / Spd 97 / Draw 1
3) Normad Bow 10p /Acc 99 / Spd 96 / Draw 2
4) Mongol Bow 5c / Acc 99 / Spd 95 / Draw 3
5) Warbow 10c / Acc 99 / Spd 93 / Draw 4

Leads me to think that bows are not balance right?

 

[Roh]

Arrow damage brings them up. I believe what makes the bows "better" is how far and how fast they shoot. Which isn't shown. Though for me the cut damage became a problem because too many types of armor completely negated all damage over and over. Far as I can tell a headshot to a chain coif should never be 0 damage but I was getting it over and over.

The Warbow likely has less of an arc than the show bow. By a good bit.

 

[Perfumly]

Headshots for 0 damage on helmets that don't cover the face are really annoying, but I don't suppose there's much you can do about designating the face to be able to take damage with a helmet on that doesn't have a facemask.

 

[Roh]

That's sort of not what I meant. Chain coif has much lower protection than other helmets in this mod. It's around 40 where full helms and such are around 90. Now when the 0s were still coming up I had decent power draw and like 150 archery. Cut damage just wasn't doing it.

I mean it's already near, or totally, impossible to destroy a shield with arrows or bolts. And there is the force field for higher level shield skill. Making it so that the shots you actually land have a nil chance of doing damage is just a bit much.

 

[General_Disaray]

It would be beter if the bows had the base damage like the arows have now and the arows them selves held the damage type, be it C or P or what ever else you like. Some of the arow types should be C damage, the barbed and other broad head types while the bodkin type arows should be P damage. This would be more realistic as you could shoot an armord knight with a powerful long war bow, or compasoit saddle bow, using a broad head arow and watch it largly bounce off of his armor but if you use the same bow and sling a bodkin or other armor pearcing arow at him and watch as his armor folds and he dies an unpleasent death. Using the same bow and arows against an unarmord target, or an under armord target, would net largly oposite results; the broad head arow would do far more damage than the bodkin type due to its larger cuting surface.

 

[Roh]

I don't think that is actually possible with the games code. Besides Any actual arrow... Hell even a ballista bolt I think.. Are considered piecing weapons. The better part of their mass is behind a comparatively narrow striking point. The weight behind it pushing it through. Least that's how I see it. Doesn't really matter if it has little blades on the head or barbs. Long as a good deal of power is focused on a narrow point of contact I think that is considered piecing.

 

[Mooncabbage]

It would be beter if the bows had the base damage like the arows have now and the arows them selves held the damage type, be it C or P or what ever else you like. Some of the arow types should be C damage, the barbed and other broad head types while the bodkin type arows should be P damage. This would be more realistic as you could shoot an armord knight with a powerful long war bow, or compasoit saddle bow, using a broad head arow and watch it largly bounce off of his armor but if you use the same bow and sling a bodkin or other armor pearcing arow at him and watch as his armor folds and he dies an unpleasent death. Using the same bow and arows against an unarmord target, or an under armord target, would net largly oposite results; the broad head arow would do far more damage than the bodkin type due to its larger cuting surface.

I agree with this I think.

Would it be possible to have companions auto select equipment based on price rather than damage? That might result in some sillyness, (I've seen armours with modifiers like "strong" which are worth a lot more than standard higher grade armours with less armour), but my Borcha has a Hunting Bow he refuses to upgrade because it does 13 damage. I know I could manually upgrade it but it just seems like the system is a little broken.

Speaking in terms of physics Roh, it's the dispersion of the force of the arrow over the striking area that affects it's armour piercing value but not necessarily it's damage. While technically they would all be considered piercing, the different damage types have different effects. My understanding is Piercing damage either ignores or reduces armour, where chopping damage does not. Hence it would be appropriate to have arrow heads designed for armour piercing to have piercing type damage, and less of it, while broadhead arrows primarily used for large game, would do more damage, of the chopping type.

Does that make sense? It's reflecting reality in the game engine, rather than defining the way the arrow actually behaves in reality.

 

[Roh]

The well I suppose it wouldn't be bad if the cutting type arrows had raised damage to keep them from being utterly useless. But again I don't think that they will be able to decide the damage type by arrow. Just have a strong feeling that is more of an engine mechanic. Would likely take a great deal of scripting if it were at all possible. With all othr and company have to do it doesn't really seem worth the effort.

 

[General_Disaray]

I think I recall seeing it done up with the arows carying the damage type in the original 1257 for M&B. It may have been another mod though.

 

[Roh]

Really? I could be wrong. Or maybe they did as I said and scripted it. Never saw that myself and I tried a fair number of mods.

 

[Kizz]

As it is now bow on shields and head shots dont do much damage, which is nice, cuz u now need to go and melee up.

 

[othr]

There are two schools of thought on bows and their damage vs armoured opponents.

One group says that bows were extremely deadly and could penetrate any mail/gambeson combination from long distances.  There are multiple videos to prove it.

The other group says that arrows could only slightly penetrate this mail/gambeson combination.  It would break the skin of the wearer but definitely not kill him.  There also many videos to prove it.

In addition Maciejowski bible pictures depict many violent scenes.  Not one of them depicts anyone in armour getting killed by an arrow.  Jan Dlugosz describes the battle of Liegnitz, and he specifically mentions the fact that those with armour on survived, those without did not.

So I decided to go with group #2 and the information I was able to get from the other two sources, arrows are deadly vs lightly armoured opponents and weak vs heavily armoured opponents.

P.S.

As far as headshots go, the game can't tell if the helm is open or not.  It just looks at a cube around the head and decides it's a headshot.  Also those bow values seem out of whack I need to fix those.  There are also other values attached to bows, the velocity of the missile is a very important one that's not shown on any loot screen.

 

[Mooncabbage]

Basic physics of the projectile dictates that the velocity of the arrow is going to dictate it's armour penetration value, in combination with the head of the arrow. A wider head is obviously going to tear up more flesh on the way in, and a flanged head is going to cause damage while on the inside and if any attempt is made to remove it, but the wider head is going to be much less effective at penetrating armour.

I feel certain that a small, pointy head without barbs is going to penetrate armour, but probably not cause too much damage due to low velocity, a small penetrating area and the lack of barbs. The reason I feel confident is that I've fired a 30lb draw bow over the target at 100 yards and hit a tree and the arrow went several inches into the tree. Most bows at the time would have been well over a 30lb draw. Also this wasn't a compound bow or anything fancy like that, so it wouldn't have been much more efficient than the Self Bows of the time.

 

[Roh]

I could see plate keeping arrow shots from being instantly lethal. I could see the really heavy leather on chain keeping it from being instantly lethal to a lesser extent. But with current damage and your average power draw regular chain and such.. I'm talkin the raider crap... was making bows useless.  Maybe leave them piercing but lower the arrow damage? That or maybe make mid tier guys use crappier armor? There are a good number of swordsmenn, spearmen, and that tier in just about every army. And with cutting damage they generally laugh off arrows with their current armor.

Even with piercing damage on the only way I kill things below vet tier with one ****, aside from shirtless looters, is with a headshot. And half the time that won't drop a vet with one go.. And I don't think I've managed to drop any top tier with one headshot. I have 4 PD, 220+ bow prof, and mongol arrows.

For some reason my AI archers... kinda suck. I don't get it. They have good stats. But seem to aim all wrong. Maybe they don't know how to adjust for your changes to velocity and drop off? They keep shooting the ground like 10 paces in front of the guys most times. I haven't tested extensively on that one but I've seen it 3+ times so far.

 

[Mooncabbage]

I also commented that AI archers are useless. I thought it was a stat thing.

 

[othr]

There are plenty of discussions on this topic and it took me a long time to make up my mind about arrow damage.  I watched countless videos for the pro and the anti camps.  Read countless articles from people who call themselves experts, there is no consensus on this topic.  Even on these boards you can find countless arguments about this topic.

I don't want to argue about it, arrow damage is going to stay the way it is.  If you don't like it I suggest you try the item editor and tweak it to your liking.

 

[Mooncabbage]

Fair enough I suppose... Although I do wonder what you will do about Longbows and stronger Crossbows, which we well known for their ability to pierce armour.

 

[othr]

Fair enough I suppose... Although I do wonder what you will do about Longbows and stronger Crossbows, which we well known for their ability to pierce armour.

Maybe arbalests did, anyway, the siege crossbow and the heavy crossbow can penetrate armour.  I will add 'special' bows with a higher 'draw weight' for the Welsh.

 

[Mooncabbage]

Well I don't know about the welsh longbows, but my understanding is later longbows typical among the english had a 150lb draw, and so required not just a great deal of practice to aim, but enormous strength.

I take it you mean that they'll have higher velocity and do more damage?

I wonder if it's possible to base armour penetration on the velocity of the projectile? Make it less about the arrow and more about the bow it's coming from. After all, you can have the sharpest arrow in the world, if you're firing it from a plastic bow from a toy shop it's not going to do +28p damage

 

[othr]

The game takes into account armour value of the target, bow damage value/type, arrow damage value/type, penetration modifier for this damage type and then draw weight of the bow, air resistance, distance, some random variance factor.

As you see stats for the bow - 'draw weight' is actually very important.  if it's low the arrow will land at your feet, if it's high the game will take the speed of the target, the speed of the projectile and this will add a large 'speed bonus'.  You often see the speed bonus message, it's the same for arrows just not shown.

Based on those it comes up with the number, I'll set up npcs to shoot at me in various armour types and keep on doing this till I get the values I feel are good.