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Old 07-20-2015, 04:51 PM   #31
Anthony
 
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

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Originally Posted by Otaku View Post
Ugh... originally did a wall o'text so let me try to make it concise. Reasons something like bow & arrows may be preferred weapons:
There's really no reason to favor a bow over a compressed air weapon or properly designed silenced chemical weapon; in the end, you have a device that propels a heavy projectile at a low velocity, and we have better energy storage systems than bending elastic materials nowadays.
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Old 07-20-2015, 07:54 PM   #32
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
The only one of these things you couldn't easily do better with a non-bow design is the surprise value of using something completely ridiculous. And if inflicting shock and bemusement is the goal, dressing your stuff up like a particularly campy Batman villain is probably easier.

Certainly in some circumstances a low-powered, low-profile weapon that can be used as a payload launcher is preferable to a TL-appropriate assault rifle. The problem is that a bow is a particularly ungainly way of filling that role. A compressed-gas gun or linear spring gun could do the same job in a more ergonomic (DX/E) and probably more accurate and powerful form.
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There's really no reason to favor a bow over a compressed air weapon or properly designed silenced chemical weapon; in the end, you have a device that propels a heavy projectile at a low velocity, and we have better energy storage systems than bending elastic materials nowadays.
Shall I go back and edit my previous comment to say "excuses"; I thought the thread already recognized that without a lot of bending, there just is no reason to use a bow and arrow for this setting? Clearly I didn't make that clear with my comments. >_<
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Old 07-20-2015, 08:39 PM   #33
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

This picture seems appropriate

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130505041002
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Old 07-20-2015, 09:56 PM   #34
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

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Taking cues from weby's excellent post: besides ultra-tech gadget arrows... what kind of sensors are in the setting?

Ugh... originally did a wall o'text so let me try to make it concise. Reasons something like bow & arrows may be preferred weapons:
  • Relative silence
  • payloads
  • best ranged weapon that sensors can't detect
  • people just don't expect it
  • collateral damage is easier to control

If you're in the middle of a war zone where everyone is fully armored up, it probably isn't a great weapon. If you're already inside the enemy fortress... or you're not even in a military or police facility but (for example) inside corporate offices and already past their heavier outer security (guards might be heavily armored inside, but if the outer defenses are worth it then they shouldn't need to be... right?).

Bullets, blasters, laser, sonic weapons, etc. might be dangerous due to collateral damage. Arrows designed for penetration and not inflicting raw damage may thus be the preferred weapon. There may also be the shock value of "primitive" weapons being used, especially if an old fashioned wooden bow and arrows aren't going to show up on sensors (and or can be fashioned from materials available in say a secure domed city style set-up) and no one is that crazy so no one expects it.

Sabotage/distraction are still legitimate uses. Arrows can contain payloads like tiny bombs and weby's examples included both poisons and biological agents. So... a master archer might be able to fire an arrow coated with an airborne pathogen right into a vent system with no one noticing, and if you are allowing an ultra tech bow then it might be fired from what would now be considered rifle range. It doesn't even have to be dangerous toxins or disease; if the arrow is unlikely to be discovered then filling the place with a noxious odor or one that smells like something more dangerous can be an easy way to clear the building.

If you think the arrow won't be found for a week or more (it is ultra tech so do they regularly check the vents for such things?) then just making sure a mundane, typical airborne disease is "going through" the workforce can make infiltration easier. Either because the usual security guards aren't there or because they are so short staffed they had to hire new people... which of course includes the PCs or their people. Imagine an adventure about subtle corporate sabotage; the PCs aren't supposed to kill anyone, they aren't supposed to do anything huge that will get them caught... but maybe sneaking on the roof, finding a relatively straight exhaust port/vent and firing an arrow made of a frozen, foul-smelling liquid that will lower moral, maybe prompt government inspections, etc.

Why yes... yes I am trying to come up with stuff off the top of my head and am too stubborn to admit defeat. =P
Reason six, "stay under the radar". This is a strategic reason rather then a tactical. If(as I hinted before) you are working with low TL cultures and wish to keep the Patrol from interfering with your evilness, selling them advanced bows might be better then weapons that will be noticed.

Reason seven, logistics. A local warlord might prefer making bows out of advanced materials to acquiring advanced weapons and the greater offworld dependance that goes with it. His men might also find it easier to use. And if they totemize techniques as warrior cultures often do, having a new version of a weapon they are familiar with has cultural advantage.
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Old 07-21-2015, 01:23 AM   #35
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

if you need to make U/T bows desirable just make guns basically illegal for anyone except the military but do to loopholes in the law the smart plastic folding bow with grav slicer arrows is perfectly legal. Real world weapons laws are often sillier than that,

Even citizens militia units would use them since they can't get guns or ammo at the legality class and no one much is familiar with them anyway.

If the hypothetical nation/planet/whatever polity is mostly peaceful, people might never see firearms except at military parades or in books but other weapons would be basically ubiquitous used for defense and hunting and lots of things,
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Old 07-21-2015, 09:35 AM   #36
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

[QUOTE=SimonAce;1920517]
Quote:
If the hypothetical nation/planet/whatever polity is mostly peaceful, people might never see firearms except at military parades or in books but other weapons would be basically ubiquitous used for defense and hunting
A mostly peaceful nation/planet has no need for weapons for defense either.
But sure, even now the majority of weapons are probably sporting equipment, not for killing people. But note that nobody needs to *improve* bows for that. You can't buy armor piercing or explosive or whatever arrows unless bows are being used to kill people in armor, and that's never going to make much sense if guns are available at all.

It's a genre convention you are trying to put a bit of plausibility gloss on, but it's never going to be very plausible, so don't contort the back story too much in the effort to provide more than a little gloss. For instance that militias with bows - guns are illegal but privately raised armies are OK - is going to need a *seriously* contorted back story.
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Old 07-21-2015, 09:41 AM   #37
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

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For instance that militias with bows - guns are illegal but privately raised armies are OK - is going to need a *seriously* contorted back story.
IME it's not all that contorted. Certainly no more contorted than privately raised armies with rifles being OK but people with pistols (whether solo or in a private army) being not OK.
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Old 07-21-2015, 09:41 AM   #38
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

Is the bow for "RUle of Cool" or "Realism?"

Realistically, why use a bow when you can use a gun?

If it's because a bow is cool, I would have a powered bow of some kind that has a kinetic draw that when pulled requires next to no strength, but when a charge is sent through the "String" is whips itself into heavy pull like a muscle, not relying on pulleys and tension, but electric pulses themselves.

Essentially it'd just up the bow strength by whatever margin. I'm inclined to add whatever I had to in order to make it effective for the campaign.

You can also have Superfine arrows of course, which would give +2 damage and armor divisor. Maybe some other technology could be employed to improve this, like hyper dense arrow heads with carbon shafts.

Heck, you could even do blaster arrows. They certainly did this in Star Wars Clone Wars.

http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/up...Lineup-TCW.jpg

Notice the strings themselves are energy and not strings?
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Old 07-21-2015, 10:08 AM   #39
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

TL12^ Quantum Archery

As with other implicate order interface (IOI) sports, the implanted web aligns the user's neuro-somatic system directly with the unified field. The 'bow' manifests a section of reality with a defined resiliency. The 'string' is an intercostal membrane joining the bow arc whose length is defined by the conviction the user can apply in the pseudo-dimension (defined by (Willx2+ST)/2). Aiming is an entirely neuro-somatic operation, so remains based on DX.

'Arrows' are extracted from a carried supply of plasmatter, and remain in an undefined eisen-state twinned to the user's implant web. Their exact capabilities emerge momentarily after launch based on a quick contest with the target's probability defenses, if any.



Edit: Is it weird that I expect pretty much everybody here will be able to make some kind of sense out of that babble?

Last edited by Donny Brook; 07-22-2015 at 07:02 AM.
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Old 07-21-2015, 10:29 AM   #40
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Default Re: How to go about making an Ultra Tech Bow

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IME it's not all that contorted. Certainly no more contorted than privately raised armies with rifles being OK but people with pistols (whether solo or in a private army) being not OK.
Yes, that would certainly be contorted.

If that's supposed to be a reference to US gun regulation, note that privately raised armies are only 'okay' to the sense of freedom of association. Any army-like way of using those rifles is very not okay.
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