TL4 vs. TL7 melee weapons

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Arguably these are why TL7+ arrows, bolts, and conventional bows and crossbows are fine for the cost of cheap, of course.

Bows and crossbows are not. That's specific to melee and thrown weapons, plus arrows and bolts.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Bows and crossbows are not. That's specific to melee and thrown weapons, plus arrows and bolts.

I stand corrected.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Bows and crossbows are not. That's specific to melee and thrown weapons, plus arrows and bolts.

Though unlike swords, bows have several TLs of actual improvements (which mostly aren't reflected in the rules).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Rupert

It's not necessarily superior to really good modern steels.

Depends on the feature you are looking at. The primary drawback of steel relative to fiberglass (or wood) is that it's heavy - for the same energy storage you'll need something like 5 times the weight, even of modern spring steels.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I'm sure if there was continuing demand for thousands of swords a month that would be automated effectively.

Just imagine that it's a sword blade rather than a golf iron:

How It's Made: Golf Clubs

(The grip itself starts at 3:00 in. Simply attaching it is still largely manual.)

Google tells me there's about a billion dollars a year in wholesale sales of golf clubs in the US alone. It also shows me around a factor of ten difference in retail prices, but that's still likely in the low millions of clubs per year. A mere 12,000 swords a month might not even rate this much automation :) We don't get to see the automation making things like double-sided tape and molded rubber. (That's part of that whole network of industry that's part of the advantage of higher TLs, not just isolated design of pieces and single materials.)

Or, heck, why settle for analogies?

How It's Made: Swords

Those are of course for the current low-volume hobbyist market, not serious military applications. But it might still give an idea of what the production facilities and methods might look like, in contrast to the sweaty guy with big arms pounding on an anvil.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Right... useless for 'fiddly' work... (note this is a "Forged in Fire" style youtube video)

That’s a power hammer, not a giant TL 4 trip hammer. And definitely not a striker, which is a human who is not holding the hot metal. Strikers are always slightly off mark, which is why they’re good for moving metal, but not for fiddly work. I actually do this as a hobby (but not blades) and have friends who do it as their trade.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Strikers are useful for larger items where a lot of metal needs to be moved, like seriously upsetting some stock, but anything fiddly like a sword blade may not be the best use of the extra muscle. I could see strikers being useful for larger bearded axes or maces.
For completion, here’s a striker video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mwy2_09M3Bw

Strikers were used to speed up the production of sword blanks.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Though unlike swords, bows have several TLs of actual improvements (which mostly aren't reflected in the rules).

High Tech talks about High Tech bows and crossbows briefly (and of course The Deadly Spring does too at more length), it's just that the way they improve is not the free quality steps given to blades from Basic.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yes, but there's a tradeoff between acceptable breakage rate and other traits. In general increasing penetration but reducing the wound channel will be a beneficial tradeoff, unless the wound channel reduction is much larger than the penetration increase.

You only need to penetrate far enough to reach a vital organ or major blood vessel, which is a few inches. Any over penetration reduces performance by making it harder/slower to withdraw for the next attack.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

You only need to penetrate far enough to reach a vital organ or major blood vessel, which is a few inches. Any over penetration reduces performance by making it harder/slower to withdraw for the next attack.

Getting a weapon stuck in an enemy is not ideal, but unless specially designed otherwise, a weapon that's easier to stick in is also easier to pull out, and in any case having a weapon stuck in your foe is hardly the worst problem to have.