Atlatl

[Donovar]

It would provide a nice middle ground between a spear and a bow, while not having the damage of a thrown spear however it would be more deadly than a bow but with less range and no ability to melee attack.

[Streetwind]

Okay, you'll have to allow me a question: why would I, as a player, use this weapon? 'cause, you know, a spear does more damage... and can melee attack.

Bows are mainly good at one thing, and that's launching a lot of projectiles quickly. Great for things whereyou might need multiple attempts to hit, and hitting at all is more important than damage - like when sniping down that fleeing wolf that only has like 1 HP left. For everything else, a spear is typically the better weapon. And any other weapon that does what a spear does except worse will not be worth using.

You need to give it something, some niche, in which it is better than either a bow or a spear. However, it still needs to leave bows and spears their own niches. And for this, it often pays to not think in terms of stats, like damage or range. Instead, focus on situations that actually come up in gameplay. What situation have you, as a player, encountered that made you think "I have both a bow and a spear with me, but neither of them really serves me well here, I wish I had something else"? That's when you can go and propose something to fit that niche.

Of course, there's a case to be made for "because it's nice and themely". But in an alpha-stage game with an already gigantic roadmap ahead of it, this is the kind of feature that gets cut to reduce bloat and keep the project manageable. It's probably better as a mod, instead of part of the core game.

[AlteOgre]

Odd proposal. A spear-thrower aka atlatl is in fact designed to enhance speed and consequently range of a launched spear/javelin/dart. If implemented I'd expect it to result in higher piercing damage and longer range (requiring to aim lower than without the throwing device) at the cost of 'loading/charging' time and the limitation of no 'auto-recharge'.

[Tim Newsome]

I spent a little bit of time reading about this just now. https://twipa.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-pros-and-cons-of-hunting-with.html was most insightful. The author concludes the atlatl works best on medium to large animals in somewhat open environment, and bows work better on small to medium size animals in more dense forest.

Critically for VS, an atlatl can be made from a stick, so would be available earlier than a bow. Contrary to OP, a spear thrown by an atlatl does more damage than one thrown by hand, because it goes faster. It has a larger effective range as well.

If there were bison in the game, atlatl would be the preferred weapon to use on them. They may be better against bighorn sheep. If you can get more damage in your first attack, that means you're less likely to be killed by the ram as it charges you.

[baba]

I think what would make this worth it is if you could stack a few of these 

[Donovar]

Preferably it would have its own unique ammunition that stacks to like 3-5 and is crafted with say 1 spearhead/arrowhead 2 sticks and a feather "or without the feather for an accuracy penalty" maybe have it 1 shot headshot rams and even larger animals, i remember a documentary i saw and it showed a fairly large dart head that had pierced the cranial cavity of an ancient bison