2 Questions About Cabins And Crossbows.

2 questions


The picture above is the cabin I'm currently building.

If I build cellars on either or both of the 2 tiles with red dots, will my cabin count as "incomplete"?

Does anyone know how effective crossbows, specifically heavy crossbows are in the new version? (3.14b) Against both game and armored humans.
i.e if the reload speed is offset by increased damage or accuracy compared to bows.

Answered both of my own questions by save scumming and etc.

Having outdoor buildings doesn't make a cabin incomplete, not sure what makes a cabin not a cabin. Just didn't know enough about the game for this question.



Crossbows are still awful compared to bows.

Long reload time always got me locked into melee with Njerpez enemies after firing a single shot. Said shot fails to do anything significant. Out of 8 save scum firings with the heavy crossbow, worst injury seemed to be a hard hit to the thigh, which made the Njer "struggle to maintain balance". He still managed to rush me into melee before I could reload.


Animals are leagues away by the time you finish reloading and I didn't manage to kill any large game within the single shot window. Tried this on reindeer and elk several times each. Best result hit an elk in the thorax and knocked it down,but it stood up and ran away while I was reloading.

I had 60% crossbows as an owl tribe character.
Crossbow are still utterly useless in my opinion.

IRL crossbow should be much easier to actually hit than with bow. Especially on moving target. And the hit should do very significant damage even to armored targets. Of course it takes some skill to hit.

A single person using a crossbow sure has problems with the loading time, so it would be more like shoot once, drop and turn to melee to finish the target.

60 % crossbow skill should really hit well on any immobile or slowly moving target even at quite long range. But for moving target it would of course be harder, but still easier than bow with equal skill.

A single shot won't probably kill instantly, unless close enough or lucky to hit a critical spot. But it would severely hamper the movement and combat.

If I was calling the shots, I'd reduce the reload time of crossbows slightly. The current difference between their RoF and that of regualr bows is off even from prespective of realism IMO, to say nothing of balance. Just as importantly, I'd introduce a small preperation time (1-2 steps) for bows and thrown weapons as well (though this would need some kind differentation between wielded melee weapons and those that have been prepared to be thrown).

(Edit) On further thought, thrown weapons don't need further preparation time, but throwing should be limited to already wielded weapons. Currently it takes longer to take a weapon from your bag and do melee strike with it, than it takes to throw it.

Do you mean that since the cross bow once loaded can be carried arround and the trigger pulled with only aiming and the bow needs to always be drawn?

The actual advantage of a cross bow is that it takes far less training to be expert in.
I think to reflect this the cross bow more commonly starts with 3 mastery levels compared to most tribes starting with 2 in the bow.
That is quite a significant advantage in the game. Maybe it should be increased a little more? But either way, that is a better way to reflect the advantage of the CB, and IMHO, it is good to keep it that way.

Maybe if drawing an arrow always gave a chance of canceling a hide, that would be a realistic advantage as well. If we think of aiming and drawing and aiming as significantly different amounts of movement.

It really isn't about starting mastery. It is about one hitting better with 20 % crossbow than with 50 % bow. Bow arcs a lot etc. It takes a lot of skill to hit with it. But crossbow is very useful even with low skill. A stationary target is almost easier to hit than to miss even by a novice. While moving target takes some practice.

Instead of adding more skill to crossbow, the game should make crossbow more effective at lower skill level. It should really be a useful carry loaded, hit once and kill melee style even with 20 % skill.

I find that cross bows do scientifically more damage then bows, you have to remember much of it is based on your skill, if you have a 80 bow skill and a 60 crossbow skill..... try leveling your xbow skill, also I find loading your inital shot before battle firing, and switching off to a different weapon an effective approach to deal a lot of initial damage. out of curiosity what is your bow skill?