Good bows, and where to find them

@ytzk that's pretty cool, I'll have to remember it.

 

I would say a bow user would have either a magickal or technological focus. The money problem for a magick user isn't so much of an issue, as because you have to have a decent magickal aptitude for a bow you will likely have some back-up offensive spells and so should never really be caught in too much of a bind. Plus, I'd say there's a lot of money to be had in the game anyway - though you're constantly using it up I've never found it to be an issue (well, only early on it the game but I could still use solely my bow for the majority of the time).

For a tech user, most people likely go for the pyrotechnic bow as it's pretty much one of the best bows there is and the schematic is pretty easy to come by (it's in the BMC I think) and most people will want it earlier than when someone has one you can take in the game (fire master in Tulla, there may be another I can't remember). As such, to make it you need a fire obstruction (they are very rare in the game, members of the Willenbecker gang have them and for that you need to do the firearms mastery quest - which you probably won't do as you're using a bow, plus the fact they tend to throw them before you can manage to kill them). To make a fire obstruction you need level 6 explosives, meaning that you can already make explosive grenades at level 5. These sell for over 700 each to firearms salesmen, with the price of the constituent parts being much lower and being spammable if you wait and reset store inventories - hence unlimited money and unlimited arrows.

Still, if you really are worried the most elegant solution for your mod would be to include an arrow schematic that allows for product of arrows cheaper than what you buy them for in a store (like the bullet schematic).

 

Re:

I'm afraid that's not true. The penalty is there, for it checks the weapon, not the projectile.

 

Pff, facts!

Oh well, I guess what I meant was: the penalty versus magick for firearms is a bitch; it's not so bad for bows.

 

Arrow schematic eh? Hmm might see where I can learn how to make schematics.

Starting to think for the moment I'll just add in chests to the dungeon with some arrows and items to sell. Probably with be easiest for the early part in the game the player is in.

You know it's strange, but I've always heard on this forum bows are terrible (damage wise), but now I think they're just expensive to maintain which can be solved by chests and random bow creeps. Might make a higher level of bow later on so the damage a neutral guy gets scales as well. I want a pure archer viable - not tech or magic. If I went with magic, it'd be better to just buy plenty of fatigue potions and rest as need. Do way better at range with harm then with a bow. Though you don't have nearly as many action points early on - It's amazing how fast a character with 14-18 dex can move and how easily they kill stuff while taking no to almost no damage.

Speaking of bows I must remember to put in expert teachers. Apprentice is nice, but I want to see that double damage in action.

 

Arcanun is great for this. After the game files are unpacked, check the .mes files, the ones used to make backgrounds for player characters.

You can change what any schematic does from those files, but to make an entirely new schematic you'll need to make a new proto.

You could do something like take metal shavings and rags to make arrows, 'cause when else do you use that garbage?

 

Re:

The value of the tech-weapons-vs-magick-beings penalty depends only on the weapon user's tech aptitude and his opponent's magick aptitude. Whether the weapon in question is a gun or a tech bow is of no significance, actually.

Rags are used for producing molotov coctails. Metal shavings are indeed of no use.

rroyo included a schematic to create arrows from staves and metal shavings in his A:WIP. No idea if he created a new proto, but unpacking the mod and checking its files should answer whether he did or not + if so, how he did it.

 

If you keep shooting down my wild assumptions with carefully researched facts, Muro, I'm going to start thinking twice before posting whatever pops into my head.

I mean it!!

Btw, off the top of my head, the latest ingredients for rroyo's arrow schematic is metal shaving + wooden staff.

 

Thanks guys I'll give it a go and let you know what happens. I've never created an item before so I only have a vague idea how to do it, but there's an item creator program out there somewhere right?

@ytzk

Lol don't worry everyone benefits, I didn't know any of that stuff!

@Muro

So there ISN'T a use for them. One thin that surprised me about looking at the tech skills for the first time is how so many of the useless items actually went into making stuff. I guess the shavings will have a use now

 

Pidgeon if you'd like to create an arrow schematic, you could change one that exists to it easily. Follow the steps in my modding post to get to the game files of course, then get your description.mes and find the arrow item ID (the number next to it's name in there). Go into the schematic.mes and replace the Result part of your chosen schematic (2nd to last value, the sixth line there) with the number you saw in description.mes (arrow's item ID which is 7038). To change the description on the schematic crafting menu, change the wording in schematic_text.mes.

The only thing you (apparantly) can't change about Arcanum without devoting years to it is the artwork. Though the required items are autogenerated by the data you put in there (assuming you change the required components).

An easy example is the first schematic in schematic.mes:

//Heal Lite
{2000}{10} //Name
{2001}{11} //Description
{2002}{532} //Drawing
{2003}{10061} //component 1
{2004}{10062} //component 2
{2005}{10059} //Result
{2006}{5} // Result Amount

This is the crafted healing item for herbology.

Change it to:

//Heal Lite
{2000}{10} //Name
{2001}{11} //Description
{2002}{532} //Drawing
{2003}{10061} //component 1
{2004}{10062} //component 2
{2005}{7038} //Result
{2006}{500} // Result Amount

and now kadura stem + ginka root = 500 arrows.

I did something similarly convenient in my mod, by making crafted bullets yield 500 each time.

 

@Leonidus

Cheers, I'll give it a try. Do you know how to do it with creating a brand new schematic. The comments you've put there make it look fairly straight forward (I remember seeing the text file with the names and/descriptions somewhere as well) but do I need to extend proto ranges anywhere or anything else?

 

Can't say that I do. I've only edited what already exists. If you do want to make an entirely new schematic, it's probably going to be abnormally complicated and cause problems in places you'd never think possible, like most of modding Arcanum.

 

If there was a way to duplicate any one schematic proto file, the newly-made proto could be edited into something else. Though as you've implied, Leonidus, this may be a gross oversimplification. However, the Carcanum mod has many more schematics than the original game, and I know rroyo's Arcanum WIP took advantage of those for even further unique schematics.

I'll readily confess that I don't know of how those were added to the game unless additional schematics were added using WorldEd.