Stronger, slower ranged weapons. Higher tier ranged weapons.

[Redpaws]

After having played with CO/Bullseye vs vanilla, I've come to really appreciate the slower tempo, higher impact ranged gameplay from those mods. Even more so with the Crossbow mod. Being able to take out a creature in one well-aimed shot is so much more satisfying than just spraying a hail of inaccurate arrows that is the current archery.

To take out a rabbit in one hit, you need a recurve bow and bronze arrows. If you can't get a recurve bow, which requires Hunter to craft (or bought from Survival Goods), you'd need black bronze or iron arrows with a longbow. To take out a rabbit. This is assuming you can even hit it, with how wildly inaccurate bows are beyond 10-15m. But while it is inaccurate and weak, it can also fire off around 3 arrows per seconds, which feels silly in itself, not to mention how fast it burns through your supply of arrows, leading to significant ammo economy issues. The consistency of aiming in Bullseye (with fixed aim), slower draw speed, and higher alpha damage feels so much better than what the base game offers, and I think there's a page that can be taken from it.

Then there's the lack of end-game progression. Being able to make an iron/steel tier ranged weapon would be amazing. Again nodding towards mods, the Crossbow one adds crossbows for each tier of metal, and has enough punch to drop wolves, pigs, and even goats in a single hit with the steel tier ones. It is VERY satisfying to drop a wolf from 80+m with a single bolt. Doesn't necessarily have to be crossbows, maybe some sort of compound bow or whatever else using gears and/or iron/steel nails could work too. Just something that can oneshot wolves (15 HP) with steel arrows, even if it needs the Hunter bonus to reach it.

Oh, and change bows to be right-handed. (Bonus points for an option to swap all weapons to be left handed)

 

TL;DR
Make bows a lot stronger and slower. I shouldn't need bronze arrows and the best (Hunter exclusive) bow to drop a damn rabbit in one hit, a bow shouldn't feel like a machinegun, and there should be some late game ranged option that can drop a wolf/pig in one hit.

[LadyWYT]

I do agree that crossbows would be a nice late-game ranged option, mainly due to the fact you can carry them pre-loaded. However...

11 minutes ago, Redpaws said:

TL;DR
Make bows a lot stronger and slower. I shouldn't need bronze arrows and the best (Hunter exclusive) bow to drop a damn rabbit in one hit, a bow shouldn't feel like a machinegun, and there should be some late game ranged option that can drop a wolf/pig in one hit.

There's already an early game option that drops small prey like rabbits and chickens in a single hit--the spear. A flint spear will do the job, unless you're playing Blackguard, in which case that ranged penalty is really gonna be felt. As for killing pigs in one hit--that is what the butcher knife is for and why it's a good idea to invest in livestock. In regards to killing larger creatures like wolves and deer in one hit...yes, that's realistic, but I don't think that's great for gameplay balance. It's a bit nice to have natural threats like wolves and bears retain some threat status in the late game, even if one is well-equipped, as it helps keep players from getting too complacent. As for deer...if prey animals can be killed that easily, that removes a lot of incentive for livestock and homesteading in general, which isn't ideal. To keep it fair, wild game would probably need to be made much harder to find(instead of easier, as it has been), and I'm not sure that most players would find it fun to need to spend several days hunting just to acquire their next meal. A better option in that case would be to keep hunting as-is, but add a temporary blood trail that the player can follow to track down their prey. They'll still need to spend a decent amount of effort in that case, but they won't need to devote entire days to the hunt.

[Redpaws]

44 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

As for killing pigs in one hit--that is what the butcher knife is for and why it's a good idea to invest in livestock. In regards to killing larger creatures like wolves and deer in one hit...yes, that's realistic, but I don't think that's great for gameplay balance.

I don't see the issue with an iron/steel tier ranged weapon being able to drop a wolf or even deer/goat in one hit. By then, you've likely already invested into livestock or decided not to touch it. It'd just make late game hunting easier, and with a tweak of higher alpha/lower fire rate, the DPS wouldn't be higher (probably lower, vanilla bow is insanely fast), meaning bears would still be just as much of a threat as they are now. Being able to drop a wolf in one ranged attack with steel tier gear would feel really good though, and the increased ammo efficiency would make ranged actually viable for hunting down rust creatures during storms without carrying like 4+ stacks of arrows. Especially with how much effort it takes to make arrowheads. Think I spent a full hour making two stacks of arrowheads... And for the rabbits, sure, there's the spears, but I think a longbow/recurve should be able to drop a rabbit in one hit with copper arrows (flint with Hunter), considering longbow/recurve both requires a saw to make.

Again, hunting with the Crossbow mod feels -really- satisfying. One shot, one kill, but the slow reload means you have to make the shot count, and wolf packs are still a threat. Just, not having to run after a wounded animal for a follow-up shot (or three...) in the steel era is pretty great. It'd be nice if the base game offered a similar experience once you've reached steel.

Edited October 4, 2025 by Redpaws

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, Redpaws said:

I don't see the issue with an iron/steel tier ranged weapon being able to drop a wolf or even deer/goat in one hit. By then, you've likely already invested into livestock or decided not to touch it. It'd just make late game hunting easier, and with a tweak of higher alpha/lower fire rate, the DPS wouldn't be higher (probably lower, vanilla bow is insanely fast), meaning bears would still be just as much of a threat as they are now. Being able to drop a wolf in one ranged attack with steel tier gear would feel really good though, and the increased ammo efficiency would make ranged actually viable for hunting down rust creatures during storms without carrying like 4+ stacks of arrows. Especially with how much effort it takes to make arrowheads. Think I spent a full hour making two stacks of arrowheads...

Except it's fairly easy to get to iron and steel by the first winter, if you know what you're doing. It's also easy to acquire iron gear simply by trading at a certain location as well. Livestock takes a fairly significant time investment and generally doesn't start being really productive until the middle of year 1 or so, assuming the player started animal husbandry year 0. Several players already skip livestock due to the hassle of acquiring it compared to the ease of hunting, so making hunting even easier further diminishes the incentive.

As for combat in general, spears are quite strong compared to other weapons, with the strongest spear(black bronze) doing a whopping 8 damage per hit when thrown. With practice, it's fairly easy to throw spears quickly and kite to pick up thrown spears, so the fact they aren't stackable isn't as much of a limitation. If you give spears an iron/steel option, then they're going to end up other weapons easily in most every scenario. As it stands, bows hold the advantage over spears in that they take fewer inventory slots due to stacking ammunition and have greater range and accuracy. 

I will also note that if the weapon can drop a target in one hit, then DPS no longer matters. It doesn't matter if the standard bow fires much faster than the proposed crossbow, because the player only needs one shot with the crossbow to drop most any target. At that point there's no reason to bother making any other weapon. Of course, the effectiveness of a ranged weapon hinges upon the player's ability to actually hit a target...but it's not really hard to be a decent shot, and it's easy to just wait for a target to get so close that it can't be missed, especially if there's a guaranteed one-shot-kill.

17 minutes ago, Redpaws said:

Again, hunting with the Crossbow mod feels -really- satisfying. One shot, one kill, but the slow reload means you have to make the shot count, and wolf packs are still a threat. Just, not having to run after a wounded animal for a follow-up shot (or three...) in the steel era would be great. It'd be nice if the base game offered a similar experience once you've reached steel.

I'm not saying a crossbow wouldn't be satisfying to use, or that I wouldn't give it a bit more punch to balance it out. I just think letting it be a one-shot-kill in most cases is too strong. What I would do instead, I think, is give it attack power that's similar to the bronze spears(or slightly better), with a slower reload time than the bow. Maybe something like 10 damage for iron tier, 13 for steel. It's not going to kill pigs or wolves in one shot, but pigs and wolves you can track down easily enough to finish off, or in the case of wolves, just let them run away since they won't bother you. Surface drifters and bowtorn(tier 1 or below) can be easily dropped in a single shot, while shivers can be finished off with a quick hit from a falx.

The main advantages I would see in this case is a ranged weapon that the player can carry around and use to soften up targets easily at range, or outright dispatch them in the case of weak targets. In certain cases it can also make hunting easier--hares, chickens, foxes, raccoons, and some of the smaller deer species--but not so easy that the player won't be encouraged to ignore livestock completely in favor of hunting. In regards to ammunition, I'd probably also make it comparable to the bow in terms of crafting, but perhaps with 6 bolts produced at a time instead of the bow's 9 arrows, in return for a lower breakage chance on the bolts. At this point, it becomes a choice between a really strong initial shot with higher recovery rates of ammunition, or a faster fire rate and overall more potential damage at the expense of higher ammunition loss.

[Lame Fox]

I have not tried any mods yet, but I do agree that ranged combat/hunting as is feels a bit spammy. I think it's largely because of how erratically things can move, combined with block-based terrain making vertical movements inherently extreme. In other games I would lead ranged attacks on a moving target but here, targets frequently and rapidly change heading and bounce around as they move. This makes landing subsequent hits quite a pain, and favours high initial damage.

Combined with the spread of a bow it really feels like the best chance is to just fire as fast as possible from as close as possible. I do carry some spears too and honestly they feel a little better to use but they also don't stack so space becomes an issue. If I take too few I'm in the middle of trying to hunt/fight trying to find out where on earth the spears went. Maybe I need javelins/pila.

With animals in particular I've taken to relying a lot on trapping them in terrain/water or specially designed traps, then finishing them off. However it makes me regret specializing in ranged damage, since I don't even need it then. Monsters for whatever reason are easier targets but even they are flipping their heading around on a whim while moving, they seem to just have lower top speeds (so far).

Although it wouldn't really solve the underlying issue, I wonder if being slowed by hits (or wounds?) would help a bit.

[Redpaws]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I will also note that if the weapon can drop a target in one hit, then DPS no longer matters. It doesn't matter if the standard bow fires much faster than the proposed crossbow, because the player only needs one shot with the crossbow to drop most any target. At that point there's no reason to bother making any other weapon.

From my personal experience, this is far from true, going by CO balance. Recurve was made to be weaker and faster, while the longbow is slower and stronger. For the crossbows, it's pretty much a scale of alpha damage vs reload speed, but the DPS is pretty terrible for all of them. The recurve can oneshot rabbits even with flint arrows, so small game hunting is easier across the board.

This is all just Combat Overhaul stuff as a reference. It is just a good example of what COULD be done for ranged weapons, not a call to straight up copy it.

The aiming have been change from a box with random spread, to a crosshair that drifts around randomly, but no random spread. Higher accuracy makes it drift less. Holding it too long will increase the drift a lot. The aiming applies to the crossbows as well, but got no penalty for aiming for an extended time, for obvious reasons. This change lets you accurately drop a stationary rabbit from 50m fairly consistently if you get good with handling the crosshair drift. Very satisfying to do so, I might add!

Some general info and breakpoints. Though keep in mind this is as ranger, who gets +50% faster draw/reload speeds instead of a damage bonus in CO.
Bows are fairly unchanged. Mainly just slower, stronger, and way more accurate. Longbow got a very high projectile speed, recurve does not.

• Recurve fires every 0.6~s (slightly slower than vanilla bows), twoshots wolves/pigs with steel arrows.
• Longbow fires every 1~s, twoshots wolves with copper arrows, twoshots deer with steel arrows.

Crossbows can be cocked ahead of time, remaining loaded even when stored away. But you still need to load the bolt back in if you deselect it. Takes about 0.8~s to load a bolt, same across all crossbow types. Slower than the draw speed for the recurve, faster than that of the longbow. The reload times below includes loading the bolt. The two steel crossbows have incredible projectile speeds, while the latch has much slower projectiles, about on par with recurve. Stirrup sits somewhere between recurve and longbow.

• Stirrup crossbow (bronze) 3~s reload, forces you to be stationary while cocking, oneshots wolves with steel bolts, twoshots deer with copper.
• Latch crossbow (iron) 2~s reload, twoshots deer with bronze, can't oneshot wolves/pigs even with steel.
• Goat's foot crossbow (steel) 4.5~s reload, oneshots wolves with copper, deer with steel. Requires a spanning tool, taking one extra inventory slot.
• Windlass crossbow (steel) 7~s reload, forces you to be stationary, oneshots deer with just flint bolts, twoshots brown bears with steel. Requires spanning tool.

As you can see, you can have high alpha weapons without the highest damage one being just "the best". Even the windlass being able to twoshot a brown bear isn't game breaking, not when a longbow can down it in 6 hits with steel arrows. Even with a preloaded windlass, longbow kills slightly faster. Recurve needs 9 hits, and is faster still. A stirrup crossbow will drop ONE wolf faster, but if there's two or more, the bows will generally outperform it. The crossbows also tends to be overkill for smaller targets. Don't want to spend 7s reloading per surface drifter or chicken after all.

Crossbows are great for opening up a fight, peeking in and out of cover, picking off lone targets, ammo efficiency (especially against bosses), and hunting. The latch and goat's foot crossbows are also great for kiting, as you can reload while running. Bows are vastly better against multiple enemies and general DPS, being far more practical for hordes of enemies, or dispatching extra tough enemies quicker. Locusts, temporal storms, boss/bear/nightmare DPS, bell encounters, small game hunting, those sort of situations.

Sorry for the very long post, I just really like how there's this variety of ranged weapons, and how most are sidegrades rather than just "bigger number equals better", and the options for things that can make hunting medium game a lot easier. It's a shame that the vanilla offerings are so lacking in comparison, both in feel and effectiveness. I think they could do so much more with it. Also would be really nice having a hunting weapon that don't risk having my prey dive headfirst down a damn abyss after being hit once, lmao

Edited October 4, 2025 by Redpaws

[Steel General]

Realistically, keeping a crossbow cocked is bad for it - the wood will stretch, the steel will take a new set, and you won't find out until you fire it. They might handle it better than a bow handles staying strung, but it's the same fate.

If I were bear hunting with a crossbow that could two-shot a bear, I'd carry two of them when I went bear hunting, cock and load them both before it knows I'm there

So, to balance archery having the punch it should, I suggest making the equipment more delicate and finicky - let bowstrings stretch in the rain, and bow staves stretch from being left strung. If you're going hunting, string the bow before you leave home. If you're doing other stuff and happen upon an opportunity while a bow is in your kit, you'll need to take a minute to string it. Make better and worse strings - waxing it will help it last in the rain for a little while - and carry extras if you depend upon the bow.

[Redpaws]

9 hours ago, Steel General said:

If I were bear hunting with a crossbow that could two-shot a bear, I'd carry two of them when I went bear hunting, cock and load them both before it knows I'm there

Lmao yeah, this is true. Though does mean you're using up 4 inventory slots minimum. In the Firearms mod, the "New York reload" trick gets even more silly, since you can store them fully loaded, rather than just cocked. Incredibly impractical, but you could make and carry 10 loaded muskets (steel tier) in your hotbar, and just obliterate the first boss in like 5 seconds. Then spend 5 minutes reloading them all... Think crossbows fits the theme of the game better though.

But I'd be happy with just any form of steel tier bows that's like the CO recurve and longbow. One that shoots faster (still slower than vanilla) and doesn't slow you down much when used, for high mobility and direct combat, and one that's slow but really powerful and accurate, for sniping and hunting. Or just... A steel bow and steel crossbow, for the same purposes. Some sort of Jonas-tech styled ranged weapons would be really cool!

All that extra upkeep stuff just sounds annoying and unfun though. Like having all your iron and steel gear rust after getting wet from rain or water, unless you oil them every third day.

[Thorfinn]

On 10/4/2025 at 10:34 AM, LadyWYT said:

In regards to killing larger creatures like wolves and deer in one hit...yes, that's realistic, but I don't think that's great for gameplay balance.

Right. Killing deer and such in one hit doesn't bother me (though it is hardly realistic) but it just does weird things to the balance. Currently, I think recurve and steel takes 3 hits, unless you are a hunter  and the idea is to make the crossbow able to one-shot? Which would also one-shot a tainted drifter?

Sounds a tad munchkin.

 

[LadyWYT]

12 hours ago, Redpaws said:

Some sort of Jonas-tech styled ranged weapons would be really cool!

I think this is the better option for one-shot-kills(for weaker opponents) at range, really. Jonas tech is fairly difficult to obtain, since the player not only needs to complete all the basic progression tiers to get some of the components for making it, but also needs to get specific Jonas parts themselves(which can be tricky due to RNG) as well as fuel certain Jonas tech with temporal gears. Fueling such a device via temporal gears might not sound expensive, since currently it's easy to hoard a lot of gears due to there being no real demand for them, but once there are multiple contraptions that all demand use of them, the player will need to be a lot pickier about what they use their gears for. 

[Redpaws]

19 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Right. Killing deer and such in one hit doesn't bother me (though it is hardly realistic) but it just does weird things to the balance. Currently, I think recurve and steel takes 3 hits, unless you are a hunter  and the idea is to make the crossbow able to one-shot? Which would also one-shot a tainted drifter?

Sounds a tad munchkin.

Try out the Goat's Foot crossbow in the Crossbow mod! See for yourself! Adding Combat Overhaul as well is optional, but it gives faster crossbow reloads for hunter (and tinkerer!), in place of the +20% ranged damage (vanilla +ranged% doesn't work at all with crossbows/CO ranged weapons). Make sure to change the aiming style to "fixed", as the default option is just... Weird. Works kinda like the old Metroid Prime games.

Yeah, you can pop a lone tainted drifter in one shot real quick, but you'll be spending 4.5s~ (7s~ without CO hunter/tinkerer) reloading after. The instant there's more than a single enemy chasing you down, you'll see how it is very much possible to have high alpha damage ranged weapons be a sidegrade to lower damage but higher DPS bows.

 

9 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Jonas tech is fairly difficult to obtain, since the player not only needs to complete all the basic progression tiers to get some of the components for making it, but also needs to get specific Jonas parts themselves(which can be tricky due to RNG) as well as fuel certain Jonas tech with temporal gears.

I was thinking something slightly more accessible. Like being made out of Metal Parts/cupronickel, rusty/temporal gears, as well as steel, and requiring a blueprint from one of the story locations. Given the nature of the boss, maybe from the second location?

Maybe instead of splitting it up into two weapons, it could be neat to have it as a two-in-one, being able to 'overcharge' shots. Lets you fire uncharged shots as fast as other bows, with very slightly higher base damage, then give it like, 3-5 light indicators, or just one that shifts from green/yellow/orange/red, or some other visual/auditory aid. Could just be the gears turning and clicking into place, visibly tightening the mechanism up further, just something with sharp and clear stages. The longer you aim/hold the charge, the stronger it gets. With steel arrows and a maxed charge, taking maybe 5-6 seconds to reach, you can drop a deer or tainted drifter in one hit. Half-charged, able to drop a wolf/pig/deep drifter. Have it slow you down more the stronger the current charge.

Unlike a crossbow, you wouldn't be able to keep a high alpha damage shot 'ready' ahead of time, or swap between 5 of them for a massive damage barrage. You're not going to be able to spend 5 seconds charging up in direct combat, but it'd make general hunting and sniping bowtorns from cover work really well, as well as not eating through your entire arrow supply for bosses with fully charged shots, at the cost of overall DPS compared to spamming quick shots.

Just another possibility. I just want -something-, at -some- point in the game, that lets me drop at least a pig/wolf without having to chase after them when they inevitably run away after the first hit.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Redpaws

[Bruno Willis]

On 10/5/2025 at 9:16 AM, Redpaws said:

• Recurve fires every 0.6~s (slightly slower than vanilla bows), twoshots wolves/pigs with steel arrows.
• Longbow fires every 1~s, twoshots wolves with copper arrows, twoshots deer with steel arrows.

This trope always annoys me. In real life recurve bows and such are just straight up better than longbows. Especially composite bows, (which is what the recurve bow is in VS) they are just better in all ways, except that they're harder to make. They're also better than basic crossbows (able to pack a bigger punch with a significantly longer range), they just require more skill to use. The reason crossbows got popular was that you could chuck them at just about anyone and make an archer. A good longbow or recurve archer had to train for most of their childhood to get good. 

On 10/5/2025 at 9:16 AM, Redpaws said:

The aiming have been change from a box with random spread, to a crosshair that drifts around randomly, but no random spread. Higher accuracy makes it drift less. Holding it too long will increase the drift a lot. The aiming applies to the crossbows as well, but got no penalty for aiming for an extended time, for obvious reasons. This change lets you accurately drop a stationary rabbit from 50m fairly consistently if you get good with handling the crosshair drift. Very satisfying to do so, I might add!

This seems like a really good way to simulate bow skill, because you can actually get better at using them as you get used to them. Crossbows really should give you a penalty for aiming for an extended time though: they're heavy and kind of awkward. 

Edited October 6, 2025 by Bruno Willis
Wrote compound instead of composite (but its even more true for compound bows)

[Redpaws]

Honestly though, I think just straight up doubling the damage values of all bows and arrows, reducing the draw speed by 60-70% (so it's a DPS loss), and using the Bullseye mod style for aiming (the RNG aim feels awful tbh) could be good enough. So instead of flinging one 6.5 dmg arrow (recurve + steel, best you can get) every 0.35~s, you'd fling a single 13 dmg one every 1~s. Could optionally tweak simple/crude bows to be faster/weaker, similar to what they are now, considering they'd have a much lower draw strength.

Exact numbers will need adjusting for the lower tiers, but I think having the best bow with the best arrows deal 13 damage would be the perfect sweetspot. Just enough for a hunter to be able to drop a pig/wolf in one hit, but not a deep drifter. Best bow could be something above recurve. Again, maybe something Jonas-tech looking that requires a blueprint from some story location. Compound bow with gears for the pulleys?

I really just want the archery to be less spammy and more methodical. 3 arrows a second that can't reliably hit anything past 20m feels bad.

[MKMoose]

A simple charge mechanic would be fitting and work well for bows as well. You could shoot three arrows per second, but at the cost of accuracy, range and power, with the only benefit being maybe raw DPS, at least against targets with a low protection tier. Alternatively, wait up to about a second (less for lighter bows, longer for heavier ones) for the aim to stabilize and to achieve full draw with higher damage, longer range and better accuracy. Then, if you keep holding the draw too long (more than ~2-4 s), you start losing not only accuracy but some of the range and damage as well.

This along with potentially adjusted aiming would allow for much more skill expression with the bow while also achieving much more interesting tradeoffs with crossbows other than just the matter of damage and rate of fire. Crossbows could have higher alpha damage and would be easier to use by allowing much longer window for an accurate shot and more consistent range and damage at the cost of long reloads as well as much lower maximum range and lower accuracy than a well-timed arrow. If storing drawn crossbows is a problem, then it can be easily addressed by requiring to load the bolt again if it is stowed, or by having the crossbow slowly lose string tension (this could be fixed by replacing the string) and/or durability if cocked for too long.

I love the idea for a blueprinted or Jonas tech weapon as well. Simple firearms could offer a massive-damage but low-accuracy endgame gimmick, and something more exotic could fill a gameplay niche that can't be easily filled with a period-accurate weapon.

Edited October 10, 2025 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

8 hours ago, MKMoose said:

A simple charge mechanic would be fitting and work well for bows as well. You could shoot three arrows per second, but at the cost of accuracy, range and power, with the only benefit being maybe raw DPS, at least against targets with a low protection tier. Alternatively, wait up to about a second (less for lighter bows, longer for heavier ones) for the aim to stabilize and to achieve full draw with higher damage, longer range and better accuracy. Then, if you keep holding the draw too long (more than ~2-4 s), you start losing not only accuracy but some of the range and damage as well.

I feel like this is somewhat how the vanilla system works already. You can fire the bow very rapidly, but it's very tough to actually hit the target like that without a lot of practice, especially at range. As for holding the draw and taking time to aim, I'm not sure that the accuracy starts degrading directly, but I have found that it's difficult to hit the "sweet spot" for maximum power and accuracy that way. The best method I've found is to take the time to make aiming adjustments before drawing the bow, if possible, and then firing roughly a second after draw--no sooner, no later. There's still a bit of shot drift, especially when wearing armor, but a smooth, quick rate of fire has been the way to go. 

However, that method does take a lot of practice to really get the timing down. Perhaps one way to make it a little easier to master, without really changing the vanilla system, is simply to change the reticle color when it meets the crosshair at the "sweet spot". The crosshair already changes to a red color in melee when a target is in range, which helps the player determine when to swing, so the reticle changing color to indicate the best time to fire would probably help players get more out of their ranged weapons. At that point, all they really need to do is practice their aim, especially for moving targets.