What is the damage tier of arrows?

[Pensir]

 Is it always 0 regardless of the material used?

[Shoom]

Crude > Flint > Bone > Copper > Silver / Gold > Tin Bronze / Bismuth Bronze > Black Bronze > Iron > Meteoric > Steel

https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Arrow

Edited September 14, 2025 by Shoom
Forgot the newly added bone arrows

[Pensir]

Yes I know the difference in damage and break chance, but if I hit another player wearing armor how is the damage calculated? Melee weapons have attack tiers but arrows and bow show nothing alike, only the piercing damage

[Professor Dragon]

On 9/15/2025 at 5:36 AM, Pensir said:

Yes I know the difference in damage and break chance, but if I hit another player wearing armor how is the damage calculated? Melee weapons have attack tiers but arrows and bow show nothing alike, only the piercing damage

This is a more complex question than would first appear, which is probably why there haven't been many responses.

I think for most purposes, just treat the arrow damage as "damage."  It is "piercing" damage type, but that doesn't appear to matter a lot.
These are the values you can get from:
https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Arrow#Arrow_Tier

See here for how the armour calculation formula works, and why this isn't simple:
https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Armor#Technical

Interestingly, people have worked out pretty well what happens when different Drifter types hit you in different armours on that page, so maybe one of those results in the table will be close enough?

If you really want an answer to your original question, then barring someone with more knowledge chiming in here, you may want to consider reviewing the code here:
https://github.com/anegostudios/vssurvivalmod

OR maybe more simply, see if you can get someone to log into your world and shoot  you.

I am NOT a code person, but here are some "points of interest" that may be in the right direction(???).
Damage types - arrows use "PiercingAttack":
https://github.com/anegostudios/vsapi/blob/8b7ff79eb95bc6dfab47191751df988a2c332cfb/Common/Combat/EnumDamageType.cs

The arrow gets its PiercingAttack damage type here:
https://github.com/anegostudios/vssurvivalmod/blob/099f168f61b1bcab1ea98170e621081f04767840/Item/ItemArrow.cs
if (dmg >= 0)
            {
                dsc.AppendLine(Lang.Get("arrow-piercingdamage-add", "+" + dmg));

The main "Projectile" page:
https://github.com/anegostudios/vsapi/blob/master/Common/Entity/IProjectile.cs#L27

It does mention a "Projectile damage tier" - but what or how this works, I don't know.
    /// <summary>
    /// Projectile damage tier when hitting an entity.
    /// </summary>
    int DamageTier { get; set; }
 

If you figure it out, please post it here.

Professor Dragon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pensir]

Thank you that is a lot of helpfull informations

I asked the question since couln't do any test with other players but I figured out how to hit myself with all arrow types. Apparently all arrows count as tier 0 attacks and are almost ineffective against armored opponets, they are good only against  mobs since they don't have armor.

[Professor Dragon]

Thank you for testing!

Believe me, someone will have need of this information later.

I guess that is where the "Piercing" stat comes in.

Edited September 18, 2025 by Professor Dragon