Archery mechanics [Mod thoughts]

Combat system
#1

Hello, there are several topics discussing about archery, but I didn’t found information which is important to me. I would like to discuss about different types of bows and release methods and whole archery mecahnism in game.

I do traditional archery for tree years and for two years I participate in medieval archery competitions.

To begin with firstly I will provide basic characteristics of bows and arrows.

Bow types:

  1. Self bows - Easily made bow, better for hunting rather than figting / footmen bow
  2. Long bows - Powerfull bows, very long bows / footmen bow
  3. Reflex/Recurve bows - less expensive and less difficult build bows than composite, but still powerfull and short / horse archer bow
  4. Composite bows - expensive and difficult built bows, but short, powerfull and fast./ horse archer bow

1-2 Traditional bows / 3-4 Traditional Compound bows

Draw Weight:
Draw Weight is the peak amount of weight an archer will pull while drawing the bow. With a traditional bow, the draw weight continues to increase as the bow is drawn [more stamina consuming when drawing]. A compound bow will increase to the peak weight [less stamina consuming when drawing].

Draw weights differ from 40# up to 150/180#
Strongest bows are english warbows 110/180#
Composite bow should be from 70# to 120#

abbrevation for pound weight

Bow draw and release

  1. Pinch - only for weak bows
  2. Mediterranean - used for strong bows / average release, decrease arrow speed, for inexpierenced archers arrow could fall, difficult to shoot from horse.
  3. Thumb - used for strong bows / clean release, arrow does not fall from bow, easy to shoot from horse.

Required Equipment:
Armguard
Quiver english
Quiver english video
Quiver assian
Glove
Thumbring
Finger tab

You cannot shot without glove or thumbring always for a long time…Player could loose small amount of hitpoints after long shooting shoting without glove. While shooting with inapropiate glow accuracy should decrease.

List of Medieval arrowheads / just for named arrowheads and their shapes / not for commercial

Ability for draw length depend of: max bow draw length, bow draw strength, player strength
Ablity for holding draw depends of: bow draw lenght, player strenght, player stamina
Hand shake when stamina is low
Nocking speed depends of: player expierence, draw style
Shot spread depends of: player expierence / bow characteristics
Arrow speed depends of: bow draw stenght, draw lenght, draw style, arrow characteristics
Arrow damage depends of: arrow speed, arrowhead characteristics on targer armor, hit place

Will be updated and structured soon…

Archery like the world hasn't seen in hundreds of years
#2

Well, where to begin …

Bow types: You´re mixing two things together …
1.Selfbow refers to bow made from one piece of wood, so it could be bow used by indians as well bow used by english warbow men.
2.Longbow is not necessary strong bow. Usually you call strong bow as warbow. And on the other hand longbow is pretty wide term, sayng just that, the bow is long.
3.Reflex/recurve- In that time, when you want make this type of bow (usually you can see this bow at mongolia, china, hungary etc) you hava to use more than one piece of wood. Usually they are made from horn, sinew and wood, and that makes them composite bow.

1-2 traditional /3-4 compound ? Well all of them more or less traditional, depends mainly on curve and material of the bow. Also compound bow means modern high tech bow.

Draw weight- About drop of mongolian bows, i shooted from two weak ones, and i did not remember anything like this. But i shoot only from warbow, so i wont say it is not true.

At equipment you forget to mention tab http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_tab

About shooting without it, with bows around 50# it´s not so big problem, and i believe someone who shoots on daily basis can shoot without it for some time too, without any injuries. But loosing hitpoints over shooting without it is nonsense, more apropriate would be inability to shoot for some time.

And the thing about quivers, well lets say there were both techniques … :slight_smile:

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#3

Please, find me historical reference, painting or something else where soldiers with quiver on the back.

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Quivers in the middle ages
#4

You could shoot without a glove. I have friend who shoots all day with a 60# compound and just has calluses so he doesn’t notice it. I personally shoot with a glove but not an armgaurd. I’f your gonna go detail you should at least talk about the arrows. Spline, length, width, straightness. These all play a large part in archery. Also there is draw length don’t forget.

#5

There are already some discussions about this topic:


#6

I have Grozer Biocomposite 55# Crimean tartar bow and believe me you can shoot 10-15 minutes without glove and you will get hotty which hurts a lot… Thats why you cannot shout with the bows with bare hands. During battles you must have powerfull bow to have advantage of distance, possibility to penetrate armor 1-3 mm thickness armor and underarmor. I don’t think so that during medieval era the bows of 50# where used. In Battle of Grunwald museum I saw historical bows with 80#-110#.

#7

I know you have to use it with strong bow, because i am shooting with 118# yew warbow :wink:

But first i had 50# ELB and shooting without glove wasn´t a big problem. At least for me. Yes, i had a glove sometimes, but it was made from very thin leather …

The second thing, main hero is blacksmith. So i think he will use bow mainly for hunting, maybe at some contest. And for hunting you do not need heavy bow, you can shoot deer with 50# without problem. Same for rabbits and birds. And if he will use bow at battle, then ok, he will need heavy bow with all the equipment. But i still think the archery will be for 80%time out of battlefield …

#8

There were example how bows could be splitted in game categories. I agree that Selfbow and longbows are made from one piece of wood, but it was categorized by another attribute - length of bow. Longbows could be splitted to warbows and etc. Composite bows could be splitted to Hungarian, Mongol, Crimean Tatar, Turkish, Asyrian, Avar and so on. I thinks it is better to have couple categories, but not just one type bow in game.

For me it is important that game would have most important mechanics of real life archery, like draw weight, balistics, arrowheads, arrow spine, and not only longbows.

#9

On this topic there was a lot of discussion before. At this point archery in game is amlost, if not fully completed. So discusssion what we like is more or less pointless.
And there is more important things they have to focus on, than satisfying small amount of gamers with different draw styles, bow types atc. Maybe some modder will add in the future.

The most important thing to say is that bows at this time were almost extinct in army at bohemia :slight_smile:

#10

As a hungarian, I have exclusive experience with composite bows. Well, I also shot with an english warbow once, so… let’s just forget about that. One measurement is not a measurement. :smiley:

To have a little comfort, I shoot my bows (over 10 years I had 7 in my possession, and shoot with many more - you could say historical or “historical” archery is a stable business around here…) with a leather tab, but many of my friends do not use that. When you are shooting with your thumb finger, a ring is much more recommended, but I have seen people do just fine without that too. (Let’s not forget that the original bowstring wasn’t made of bandaged polymer-fibres either, and wasn’t built with the same thickness…) Of course, that could be just an exception from the rule.
Arm guard is not an absolute necessity either, you just have to shoot with an adequate technique. It isn’t easy to find it though, so we usually give one to beginners, if we can. I, for one, don’t have any.

But one thing is for damn sure: composite bows do not have a “drop”; maybe you feel so because when the string leaves the stool on the horn, suddenly you seem to pull a longer section of it, maybe you feel it because of anthropological reasons, but there is no mechanical reason for these bows to drop pull-weight, because the actual connection point of the string doesn’t change. Imagine that phenomenon in a metal spring?! These are not compound bows with pulleys, nor Oneida bows. Steppe compound bows can have very different characteristics, but I have never ever encountered one measured graph where the bow required a smaller amount of force at the end, nor have I read anything like that about any composite bow. Actually the opposite is the problem with especially the smaller type bows: they have a “wall” in them at the end of the draw-length capability.

Also, at that point I do not know about any evidence on our ancestors measuring arrow spine. As far as I know, they did have “calibrating devices” for “barrel-shaped” arrows, and they might have selected arrows for distance shooting and/or competitions, but possibly not based on rigidity.

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#11

I don’t think that this is pointless. Warhorse has told that they gonna release tools to mod this game. Always behind great game stoods big modders community which can take not realized ideas from this forum and put it in the mod. I am developer, so maybe if there will be some time and proper tools I will try to create a mod. I want to put as many information in one place to have a good resource for someone or myself to create a mod.

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#12

I always thought that, but didn´t have any evidence :slight_smile:

#13

I actually hope the archery mechanisms in the game won’t be like “mark on target means auto-hit”… There had been some discussion going on about archery in the forums .
Again, I do hope using a bow will be quite a … ‘thing’ in comparison to other games, so that a mod is not neceesarily needed. But still it might be a thing to keep in mind, Huff-huff.

#14

very good. i watch your mod. but in videos shown robust archery and vavra thinks system is good enough for own archery simulator, so i do not think much modding needed.

i believe archery, from information, and videos i have seen, will be best archery system(better than m&b, which is current standard)

#15

I have one remark - it seemed to me that in the shots from game, that the arrow is in the wrong position leaning on the bow.

the cock feather of an arrow should be away from the body of the bow, otherwise you put it in danger of being torn from the arrow shaft (resulting possibly in particularly curious injuries, when the strenght of the bowstring pushes the feather through the archers left hand before it is torn away from the shaft completely).

The best image I could find is here (meaning the bow is held in left hand):
“http://www.rightforu.com.au/ljac/step01a.jpg” - cant post images in forum yet.

Please write a remark, if you corrected it, or if I just see something that is not there :slight_smile: Or if it is worthless to remind such details :smiley: :smiley:

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#16

@Balduin - yep, been paying attention, the arrow was rotated 180 degrees. :wink:

#17

a compound bow does not fit into a medieval rpg… please leave them out. they are modern inventions, that are (imo) horrible to shoot anyway.

Lonja

#18

There is no compound bow in description. You have mistaken it with Composite bow - which is true medieval bow. Please read description more carefully.

#19

After shooting with a Hungarian composite bow for a week or so without a glove on my left hand, picking fletchings out of the back of my hand was not fun :slight_smile: But then again my lily white soft hands did not offer much resistance to intrusion

#20

Coming to think of it, I just realized that shooting a bow in game should not leave you with whole feathers and arrow nock visible - I mean, if you have the bow at full draw and you look at the target you want to hit, you do not see whole fletching on the arrow - you see only minor part, if at all.

Also, medieval arrows are long (30-32" = 78-82 cm approx), which means drawing the string almost to your ear for full draw on the bow. Now fletching was for war arrows 5-7" (10-15 cm approx), so that excludes it almost completely from your vision angle.

It is possible to get this sorted with “training” - as Henry never shot a bow, he sucks at drawing the full lenght, and he can get better with practice :wink: I will need to re-check this afternoon, if the master archer in Samopše looks better with that bow :smiley:

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