Pyramid #3/33 Bow Worksheet: Still working?

[DouglasCole]

In the LT Crossbows thread, two different people reported issues with the included sheet.

I'd like to see if this was an issue for anyone else . . . my copy, the one I downloaded/extracted out of my copy of Pyramid #3/33, works fine.

Try the main sheet, as well as one of the samples. If the Gremlins ate the Cost Factor calculation (or anything else), I'll ping Steven about it and see what we can do.

[Icelander]

The Gospel according to Cuddle Fish.

[Steven Marsh]

By the by, Douglas, if you can fix this universally and want to fire me a revised version, I can update it into the PDF bundle -- although, of course, I'd like to make doubly sure it's working well before pushing an update. (IIRC I had a standing offer to you and Bruno to update the spreadsheet if y'all could sort out some new unusual materials to add to it...)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Steven Marsh

By the by, Douglas, if you can fix this universally and want to fire me a revised version, I can update it into the PDF bundle -- although, of course, I'd like to make doubly sure it's working well before pushing an update. (IIRC I had a standing offer to you and Bruno to update the spreadsheet if y'all could sort out some new unusual materials to add to it...)

Given Cuddle Fish's update, and your reminder of the offer to update with new materials, let me see what I can do to make a more robust version.

[Bruno]

I'm wondering if the $ is causing issues only in some programs (or some versions of programs). It works for me as implemented in Excel 2000, 2003, and 2010 on Windows XP and 7 (only versions I have access to). I haven't tested it on Google Docs or in LibreOffice/OpenOffice or on other operating systems.

*shrug*

I have material data lines for Antler (species was unspecified, I suspect a kind of deer), fresh Cattle Femur (I couldn't find stats for dried), Elephant Ivory, Silkworm Silk, Spider Silk, and some speculative data for Giant Spider Silk and Essential Yew for extra amusement value.

EDIT: I apparently also added Aluminum Bronze and Tin Bronze. Huh.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I have material data lines for Antler (species was unspecified, I suspect a kind of deer), fresh Cattle Femur (I couldn't find stats for dried), Elephant Ivory, Silkworm Silk, Spider Silk, and some speculative data for Giant Spider Silk and Essential Yew for extra amusement value.

EDIT: I apparently also added Aluminum Bronze and Tin Bronze. Huh.

I was wondering if it would be fun to add Dragonbone. In my campaign, all dragonbone is amazingly light and strong, i.e. about as dense as carbon fiber composites, but with a tensile strength somewhere in the vicinity of high-tech vanadium-titanium steel alloys. If it comes from the bones that launch the dragon into the air or absorb the impact when he lands, they are also elastic and springy, like horn.

Dragonsinews, not coincidentally, are also stronger than steel, while remaining sinew springy.

I also have Elven Lifewood, which I suspect is similar to your Essential Yew. Like yew, but better. The living wood responds to the user's actions and the elasticity is amazing. Relative to dragonbows, the elasticity would be superior. Not as incredibly strong, of course, but strong enough for human/elven scales. Because of the cooperative nature of the material, grants an extra +1 to Acc.

Neither material was available to my PCs on the open market, so I don't know about price. Dragonbone and dragonsinew required expert magical lore to be extracted intact while Elven Lifewood must be created by elven druids, rangers or priests and gifted to a deserving hero.

[Bruno]

Short of creating interesting exceptions in the spreadsheet, all I can do with it at the moment is play with the material properties - and basically they're all compromises :)

Since Essential Wood is "three times as tough", abstractly speaking, I gave it a much higher tensile ST (3 squared times aka 9 times as much as Yew) and being mostly ignorant of what an Elastic Modulus is, I tried multiplying Yews by 3 to see what popped out.

What popped out was Essential Yew being not particularly better for bows you could make out of Yew (and is insanely expensive), but once you got up into higher power ranges the Yew bows start snapping where Essential Yew of the same dimensions keeps powering through. Essential Yew is what you turn to for your Ulysses bow, or your siege weaponry, because Steel might be tough enough, but the Essential Yew blows it out out of the water for performance :)

Alternately you make a very similar but slimmer bow out of much less wood, giving you a light, strong, powerful bow. Same Thickness, one third the N seems to work out nicely, but the reverse is even better (1/3 thickness, stable N) - but you want about a 4 inch riser to grip in the middle. Slightly better range due to the lighter arm weight, and if you go with the really light version you get more damage too.

Spider silk instead of sinew seems to be basically pointless, but it's interesting anyways. I made Giant Spider Silk basically "Essential" Spider Silk, because what the hey, right? Since I'm making up numbers here I might as well be systematic about it.

I should add copper on here and play with "Essential" Copper numbers.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Since Essential Wood is "three times as tough", abstractly speaking, I gave it a much higher tensile ST (3 squared times aka 9 times as much as Yew) and being mostly ignorant of what an Elastic Modulus is, I tried multiplying Yews by 3 to see what popped out.

There's your mistake. Essential [Stuff] is better in all the ways that matter, but doesn't suffer any drawbacks for being so. The yew you want for bows isn't supposed to be three times stiffer when you make it Essential. If anything, you want to improve the elasticity, not decrease it.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Spider silk instead of sinew seems to be basically pointless, but it's interesting anyways. I made Giant Spider Silk basically "Essential" Spider Silk, because what the hey, right? Since I'm making up numbers here I might as well be systematic about it.

Why are there no bowstrings? I guess it's a nice simplification when dealing with historical bows and crossbows, but synthetic bowstrings are one of the things that make modern bows much more efficient and as for fantasy bows, that's where we'd put the magic spider-silk!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

There's your mistake. Essential [Stuff] is better in all the ways that matter, but doesn't suffer any drawbacks for being so. The yew you want for bows isn't supposed to be three times stiffer when you make it Essential. If anything, you want to improve the elasticity, not decrease it.

If elastic modulus is the same as young's modulus, tripling yield strength and also tripling young's modulus means you can bend it just as much as you would be able to bend normal wood.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

If elastic modulus is the same as young's modulus, tripling yield strength and also tripling young's modulus means you can bend it just as much as you would be able to bend normal wood.

Yeah, but what kind of Essential bow-wood is that? Tripling tensile strength while leaving elastic modulus alone is going to produce a much better Essential Yew for bowmaking.