I ran across an interesting weapon today, made by Crosman:
The Airbow. They refer to it as a Pre-Charged Pneumatic (PCP) bow.
It looks like a TL8 bullpup assault rifle with an arrow sticking out of it instead of a barrel, and a thick shotgun-magazine-looking tube sticking out under the arrow - presumably the air chamber.
Stating it up should be fairly straightforward.
The Manufacturer claims 450FPS for the special-made arrows, with standard broadhead arrowheads. The on-board chamber holds 3000psi with volume enough for 8 shots before charging (with a compress gas cylinder or a hand-pump). RoF and reload claims "Eight shots in the time it takes for a crossbow to shoot three", so, about 2 seconds to reload?
Length is 33.5" and weight 7lbs.
How does this look for stats?
TL Weapon - Damage --- Acc - Range -- Weight - RoF Shots - ST Bulk Cost LC
8 -- Airbow -- thr+4 imp - 4 - x20/x25 - 7/0.1 ---- 1 -- 1(2?)- 6† -4 --$900 3
Notes[1- After 8 shots must be recharged with pressured air: 10 seconds for tank, 5 minutes for hand-pump] <--- times seem about right?
What ST rating would "450FPS" most closely represent? I am guessing
The Deadly Spring would tell me.
Damage/Range depending...
ST10 1d+2 imp, Range 200/250
ST11 1d+3 imp, Range 220/275
ST13 1d+4 imp, Range 260/325
ST15 1d+5 imp, Range 300/375
(those numbers need a dice+adds conversion? I can't place it right off, but i seem to remember 1d+4 = 2d?)
Comparison: The Basic Crossbow
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots Cost ST Bulk
2 Crossbow thr+4 imp 4 x20/x25 6/0.06 1 1(4) $150 7† -6
I figured min ST as 6 because it really doesn't take any effort at all to cock/ready the thing - the mechanism seems to be just metering in the pre-regulated air for 1 shot at a time, like opening a valve.