I was thinking about this earlier. Give it the damage of the hunting crossbow as well as the accuracy of the light crossbow. Ammo in a clip somewhere between 3-4 and add a 1-1.5 second firing delay between rounds to avoid stacking range stagger on a foe (can be tweaked to accommodate range stagger if too fast). The firing delay could also be done as a "soft cap" in which your accuracy has a cooldown after each shot (big crosshairs). I would also give it the upkeep of somewhere between the heavy xbow and the arbalest and make it not usable on horseback. Give it the missile speed near one of the three lower crossbows to limit range as well as make it 2 slot. It would also probably weigh quite a bit, though that is debatable...
The only problem is that 10-15 pierce damage would not even penetrate medium armor. Although archers use low damage bows, their Power Draw boosts the damage they do. It would need to be 25-30 pierce minimum to be effective on the battlefield.
Proposed Stats:
missile speed: 38 - roughly the same as a mid-tier bow
weight: 5 - relatively heavy
accuracy: 75 - least accurate crossbow
difficulty: 9 - middle tier requirement
speed rating: 105 - comparable to heavy crossbow
max ammo: 5 - 5 shots in the chamber
thrust damage: 30 pierce - lowest damage crossbow
slots: 2
Cost: 7481 - between light and regular crossbow
Upkeep: 524
Can't Reload on Horseback
1.5 second delay between shots
Proposed Stats:This is not the least accurate xbow. Keep in mind that; in crossbows, every 4 damage reduces the actual accuracy by 1.(click to show/hide)
This is not the least accurate xbow. Keep in mind that; in crossbows, every 4 damage reduces the actual accuracy by 1.
I did not calculate the values and this still might be the least accurate xbow. But the difference might not be as huge as you think.
Real accuracy values:
Hunting xbow - 73
Light xbow - 72
.
.
.
Arbalest - 69
Zhugenu (what phantasmal suggested) - 68
Ok it is the least accurate, but It doesn't have much difference. That's what I was trying to say actually.
i thought a bit about it and read a bit more about the zhugenu and i would say those were my stat suggestions
Proposed Stats:
missile speed: 38 - roughly the same as a mid-tier bow
weight: 2,5 - relatively light
accuracy: 73 - least accurate crossbow
difficulty: 6 - low tier requirments
speed rating: 185 - a bit quicker reload then the hunting crossbow (because the zhugenu didnt used a slider system like over crossbows, if you look at the picture it has a lever)
max ammo: 3 (i read the article in wikipedia again and missunderstood the context, the zhugenu had only 3 bolts)
thrust damage: 20 pierce - lowest damage crossbow (to even it out high reload speed = low damage)
slots: 1 (it was a small crossbow)
Cost: 7481 - between light and regular crossbow
Upkeep: 625
Can't Reload on Horseback
1.0 second delay between shots
Oh I didn't know base accuracy has a such effect. Is it the same for bows too?
One more thing you might want to consider, you should also take into account of headshots. When you can fire more frequently, that also means you will have a higher chance of taking headshots; which would make a such weapon pretty effective. I'm all into the idea by the way, considering it will have a low accuracy; people should learn how to dodge after all.
Proposed Stats:(click to show/hide)
Stephen: Your account on the Chu Ko Nu looks pretty much on to me, except that the iron lever that draws back the machine gives you about a 3 or 4 to one mechanical advantage, so the actual draw on the prod can be as much as 100 lb (at about 6-7 inches), with the draw on the lever still being only about 25 lb. This still makes a pretty weak bow, with about as much power as perhaps a 35 or 40 lb. handbow. (Compared to English Longbows from ship Mary Rose, that are calculated as a minimum of 100 lb. draw at about 22 inches, and the average bow from that find of 139 bows coming out at about 125-130 lb. draw. (The heaviest max out at about 175 lb. of draw. That oughta take a pretty beefy fellow to draw.....! )
The darts were quite small (8 inches.)
It fires weakly so you have to tip the darts with poison
First, the maximum practical rate of fire is about 1 shot a second. Attempting to go faster than that can lead to misfires and scattering bolts all over creation. Sometimes the thing misfires, and 3 or 4 of the top bolts in the magazine hop right out of the magazine if it is not closed. /With a little practice you can keep the 10 or so bolts of a magazine pretty much in a 3 foot circle at 15-20 yards.
The bolts for this machine are generally unfletched
The Chu Ko Nu is bulky and unwieldy, though not particularly heavy. It may weigh 10 lb. with bolts in magazine.
I am pretty sure base accuracy (before doing the damage calculations) determines how much accuracy is gained per point in wpf. At 1 wpf this crossbow would only be slightly less accurate then an arbalest. But as you raise weapon proficiency the arbalest would become much more accurate. For proof, make a STF alt with 180 xbow proficiency and bring an arbalest and hunting xbow. You will see that the hunting xbow has a lower accuracy than the arbalest. I would not be opposed to decreasing the accuracy further but I am not entirely certain about the formula relating wpf to accuracy.
I would prefer not to give 2hers a rapid fire crossbow. I understand that you want the xbow to be uneffective against medium armor but 90% of the server is in an armor value at 40 or above. At 20 pierce against these guys you might as well be shooting nerf darts at them. If that is how you want it to be then there is almost no point in buying one to use. If you used MW steel bolts it would work out decently though, even at 20 pierce (20p-->31p). It would be interesting to make them only compatible with bolts as well... but that is another discussion.
Dat arrow stun... certainly not the weapon cRPG needs.