Bow-crafting re-imagined

[Eturian]

Just a little suggestion…

Basic crafted bow remains unchanged.
Metal bow can be dismantled for the limbs and small metal handle. String is lost during deconstruction.
New pages for new bow limbs can be found out in the wilds, and added to the carpentry book (or Fletchers’ book in future?)
Mix and/or match bow limbs to create the bow you want. All are functionally identical, but metal limbs can still receive attachments such as blades for use in melee, while the wooden limbs can receive a variety of purely decorative items, such as feathers and crystals etc.

Once you’ve chosen your handle (must be a short handle) the first limb you attach becomes the upper limb. Then attach dried grass (or twine or whatever) to both ends to complete your new bow!
Limbs can be attached to longer handles, but only for cosmetic decoration and cannot be connected by a bowstring. Sorry

Maybe a crossbow could be constructed in a similar way too? Basic plank / shield centre for the body, and by attaching the appropriate pieces it becomes a weapon.
Choose your style of limbs as before, and complete it with a new marvel of technology; the “trigger lever”, a single piece of forged metal with trigger, string catch and hinge all in one!

[Zebulaun]

What if we could make bows with wyrm claws and also have bows that can be sharpened to do melee damage? Awesome idea and art btw, bows seem to have been left behind in the revolution of crazy weaponry.

[Eturian]

Yeah, having some rarer mob drop items to make limbs from could be cool. Maybe some Gotera wood limb too.
And yes, although bows can’t be toooo varied to still be functional (I’d personally hate to see those daft-looking jrpg-mmo style high-tier bows. Keep them grounded in relative realism please), it’s not right that there’s currently only ONE way to craft a bow! They deserve some more love.

[Edit]

Not much of a problem, but I think it would be good if the limbs to have a spike on the end that they connect (like the tang we have for all the blades) since there is no way those things wouldn’t snap without it.

I really like the visualization of crafting bows with some customization, and it would be cool to use some of the same items for making crossbows like you show.

What if we could make bows with wyrm claws

I think they should need some work to be done for the claws can fit as limbs, so that we aren’t just popping mob drops straight onto handles and so we can have more details to them than sting wrapped around a sharp blade.

[Eturian]

I completely neglected to draw those little connective spikes, but yes, those should obviously be there.
Thanks for the positive comment

[Edit]

Yeah, its a simple way to do it that I’m sure a few people already thought of, but the illustration really helps show off the idea, ignore that I fixate on weird little problems like how a wooden bow needs to be one single piece of wood or you’ll get a lot of stress on it, though it would be interesting if you took one piece of wood on the carpentry table and could carve the different sides right there and have one whole piece of wood, expecially when we get new types of wood that are sure to have different flexibilities and those some would work better as bows and others wouldn’t work at all.

[Eturian]

I did check for previous similar ideas, but didn’t find anything similar enough to post this in as part of, so new thread made sense. I completely understand and agree about the real life issue of making a wooden bow from multiple sections, but let’s just assume the ATT way of simply plugging things together provides a strong enough bond with no additional work. Same as making huge and hugely complex melee weapons that somehow stay together
I’m very interested to see how more wood types impact on bow-making. Hopefully it will actually allow us to make laminated bows, instead of the entire bow simply being a different wood. (Although I wouldn’t expect them to factor in different wood properties for what each part of the bow is made from!) Wait and see, I guess.

[Edit]

Oh I wasn’t saying there were any ideas for this already, more mentioning that its an idea that no one has put down in a post and especially not with an illustration. I understand keeping it more simplified, but it is a bit different from melee weapon crafting as putting a sword into a handle is a simplified version of doing the same thing, but with studs or using epoxy and maybe even closing two halves of the handle around it, but having bow crafting bow crafting be the same pop in thing is more of a divergence than a simplification. Again I’m not saying it really needs to be too close to it, but I do like the idea of bow crafting being reminiscent of IRL bow crafting like what we have now where you chisel the bow shaft to be straight and then using string (dried grass) you bend it it which give it it’s tension.

[Tiltedreality]

as a bowman i love the idea feel like bows where left behind in general little to none craft or customization compared to every thing else

[Bossun_Alta]

This would probably be how we can expand bow crafting. Controlling the curvature of different sided bow arms is gonna be a little iffy. What do you guys think the impact of having a longer side to another should be?

[Eturian]

Like a Yumi bow? Personally I’d say purely cosmetic and still functionally identical to any other bow.
Like having a generic invisible bow that everyone gets to use, but the visible version is customisable and decided by the user. Otherwise surely there would become THE best bow type with THESE certain limbs and variety would suffer.

[KindredSpirit]

If you mean the bow has uneven sides, the arrow could be shot at an angle appropriate to the longer side (long top = higher natural angle).

If you mean both sides, then maybe skills take longer to charge and you have to pull back further but you deal more damage (and vice versa with shorter arms)

[AMAGI]

I like the idea of longer charging timer and stranger damage for long bow, it makes a difference between short bow and long bow.
Although I am not a big fun of the idea of shooting higher with off centered bow,
In really, an off centered grip bow does shoot towards to the longer limb side as yumi bow, but that is in relationship with the body of the bow instead of the relationship with angle of the draw. As when you draw a yumi bow, the upper limb (longer one) will tilt forward that is not an intentional action, it is caused by the natural tension of the un even limps, but the so the arrow does angled upward related to the body the the bow, but it still shoot straight related to the angle of your draw.
But in vr games, the bow hand angle is automatically angled by the angle of your draw, with this, you can’t make it tilt as the picture, unless it is the design of the game. So it is unnecessary to make it shoot upward.

[Edit]

If we have offset bow sides they should not fire the best, but maybe when crafting bows you set the location that arrows automatically connect to, so if you make an offset bow you can still have it work if you know how to craft it right. But I think this should only work with long bows as you wouldn’t have as much to pull back with a smaller bow.

If you have it so bows are crafted in a similar way to how we have it now (make the base and then bend it with the string and keep it tight) you could have it so you have to then apply the handle to the bow (in the center unless you are making an offset bow) and then you also set the auto connect area for the bow string (again in the center if now offset). You could even have different bow lengths to start with.

I think having it so you just make the length of the bow, curve it while you make it if you like and then attach the cloth to where you want the handle on the wood should be and where you want the arrow to connect would be the best, but I illustrated both in this image.

Note: the color coded area is showing cominations of handle and arrow location that would cause the arrow to fly normally.

[tevtag]

I would love to see a long bow in this game or even cross bow