Originally posted by SleepyLloydy:

I have a desire for this mod to add a new bow to the game that fills the role to the compound bow that the crossbow serves to the bow. This is still very much in the IDEAS STAGE and the wokring name I'm using for it is the Compound Crossbow - this might change though.

What I wrote about my thoughts is in the mod description:

While I intend to focus on a greater variety of arrows in the short term, I am also interested in creating a better version of the Compound Bow. Maybe something like a Compound Crossbow that is steadier, has less weapon sway, can use all of the same ammo as the Compound Bow while also being fireable underwater. It would also be able to use attachments including the laser attachment and scope. I need to talk to someone with more weapon experience than myself, but if it were logical then the upgraded bow would also fire arrows more quickly so it would be useful over greater distances and fire from a clip so reloads are less frequent.

A comment was left today by @Woolridge that I thought was really useful:

great mod and ideas so far, but please overthink that point with the comp. crossbow, because a crossbow is always weaker than a regular bow made of the same material and tech.
the shorter arms of a crossbow just can't deliver as much energy as the large ones of a regular bow can.
the main reason why crossbows were implemented was because they're simpler to use (steadier and easier to aim)
so i think the only advantage it should have is a steady aim and the possibility for attachments but on the other hand a slightly reduced damage.
that way it would be nicely balanced IMO, because the players who mastered the bow would have a slight advantage while the crossbow can be easily handled even by newcomers.

I'm going to research it and if real world crossbows do much less force than normal bows then it will make sense for the compound crossbow to do less damage than the compound bow. For some of these arrows, like the Drain and Tranq Metal Arrows, that would likely be viewed by many as an advantage.

As a separate issue... For this mod to remain clean and stackable I need to make sure items are either a) crafted in the players inventory; b) crafted in their own unique crafting table. For the arrows it works fine to make the base ingredient in the Fabricator and then to apply other items to the arrows in the players inventory. But that isn't true for a Compound Crossbow... I would love your input. Would you:
a) Prefer that the bow is crafted in the player inventory, despite how implausible that is; or
b) Add a crafting table that is specific to this mod to allow crafting the Compound Crossbow.
I can tweak the ingredients depending on what option is chosen to make it balanced. I did consider, if it were to be crafted in the player inventory, that the crafting ingredients could be x1 Compound Bow, x1 Crossbow + other materials -AND- a loooong crafting time (like 60 seconds). The compound bow would still necessitate a fabricator and between the compound bow and crossbow the necessary materials should be there... The long crafting time would both make sense (who can assemble two bows into a new one in under 2 seconds?) but it would also prevent people recrafting their bows quickly during PVP. I'm just not sure how repairs would/could/should be handled... More questions than answers here!

I'm working with a friend who is very skilled with 3DS Max so a new model should be available in the next couple of weeks. I still intend to work on the arrows in the short term, but I think this will make a really useful addition to the game.

Please keep the Compound Crossbow discussion within this thread - it will help me reference it all more easily when I get up to that stage :)

As far as I know, crossbows are made with metal limbs, because of that, if made from wood, they would indeed be weaker than bow of same material.
In any case, compound crossbow doesn't seem like a good idea to me, I'd be in for a repeater or heavy crossbow at that.
While repeater technically would work like guns, heavy would have a crank to draw it, and it should take a lot of time, but it should deliver pretty much a kick.

(Not directly related) Personally I'd like more if you made a possibility to attach things like flashlight or laser to the bow though.

About the crafting,

IF the new bow/xbow/whatever would be made like compound bow + say, metal + polymer etc. it would be like upgrading a bow, so it should be doable by hand, but...

it's quite unrealistic, so I think the best option would be new crafting station and make some more additions craftable at it and it should be ok. (repairs should be like with compound bow, at it's crafting station)

Making tranq, drain whatever else arrows by "dipping" their heads in narco/shrooms/whatever is quite nice and I think it's best that way.

Sorry for quite chaotic writeup, i'm no good with long texts.

realistically, a 'compound crossbow' would make no sense, in the fact that the advantage a crossbow and a compound bow have over a regular wood bow is the ability to use metal or composite limbs. the compound action of a compound bow doesn't actually add power to the bows shot, but rather allow you to hold a pull of the bow with much less effort while still using much heavier metal or composite limbs, thus allowing the limbs to add to the power of the bow while mitigating the muscle strain of having to hold the pull back to line up your shot. it doesn't lessen the amount of strength it takes to pull back the bow but allows you to hold it back very easily.

now a more powerful version of the crossbow would be possible but would in turn need to be a Heavy Crossbow, which is essencially a steel bow with a steel fiber string that has to be pulled back with a pulley instead of loaded by hand. this would allow it to fire the metal arrows and have considerably more force behind your shot, but would also take considerably longer to load as you have to hand crank the string back instead of quickly pulling it back by hand.

another option is to make a lightweight composite crossbow, which would be very similar to the default crossbow but made of lighter composite materials and have a bottom slung attachment rail. this would do the same damage as the standard crossbow with regular arrows and decreased damage with metal arrows, but would also weigh almost half as much on its own compared to the regular wood and metal construction crossbow. i have seen composite crossbows like this before, so it's entirely plausible.

as far as crafting the upgraded crossbow from a compound bow and a crossbow, i think that would be a little iffy, especially since both weapons have durability to take into account. i think the better option would be to have a separate crafting station, which i would call a composites workstation as it could be used to make a numbe of other, lightweight composite items, such as carbon fiber arrows and composite tools that have damage slightly less that metal tools but with better durability and less weight. this would be a real advantage to players that want lightweight alternatives to the higher tier items.

i would also like to see some kind of lightweight composite armor with very good insulation values and armor in between that of flak and chitin. i'm not good at modeling but i could give you a draw up of what i'm talking about if you want. the chest piece would be a long trenchcoat with a polymer plated vest underneath, and would provide both excellent hyper and hypothermic insulation and good armor. the pants would be cloth with polymer plates, and the boots would be high top combat boots. think the ranger armor from fallout new vegas but a little less bulk on the armored parts.

Thanks for the input - it does make a lot of sense that a metal bow would have a lot more power than a wooden bow.

It seems like the consensus is that a crafting table will work best. That works for me.

I'm hesitant to stray too far from the Compound Bow and related items as I've seen mods before that contain a dozen disjointed ideas and they often end up buggy and poorly maintained. That said - I am open to making multiple mods and putting those ideas into the other mods. I'm going to give more thought to the armour specific for a bow user though as that idea is really exciting to me. Especially if it included a hat that looked like Robin Hood's hat with a feather in it! I'll need to give it more thought though so assume it won't be included in this mod unless I say otherwise :)

that is a great idea, i would love to see a couple of split up individual mods that go together. didnt think about the hat, that would be a fun idea to have. is it possible to make it a hat skin instead of the actual hat though? robin hood themed stuff would be fun but anyone using it should be unique lol.

Just a basic idea, probably already made but I havn't been able to find it.

A mod that greatly reduces cost of make and repair of the compound bow and arrows as its stupidly high, plus a boost on compound durability.

I can't modify the Compound Bow or default Metal Arrow without either a) making a new copy of them; or b) editing core files (would stop this mod being stackable). But I think I can reduce the durability damage done to the bow when firing the arrows that this mod adds - I will give that some thought. The new arrows mostly do less damage to their target, so it would be fair that they do less durability damage to the bow they are fired from too.

Is there no straight up durability stat to modify for weapons?

Itharus each weapon has a durability stat that can be modified, though if I modify existing weapons (like the Compound Bow) then this mod will stop being stackable with other mods. Each ammo type also has a durability modifier too so you can make certain ammos more damaging to a weapon than others.

I gotcha. So you just want to avoid making a new weapon and instead make new ammo types?

Very happy to make a new weapon, hoping to add a compound crossbow, but I cannot with this mod modify the compound bow that exists in game. One possibility (if there were a good reason to modify the existing compound bow) would be to add a compound bow plus crafting table and all people to craft a "Compound Bow Plus" bow that required x1 Compound Bow (plus a few other items) and out came the Compound Bow Plus. That bow could then be modified to our hearts content in terms of things like durability, and still keep the mod being stackable. Durability alone isn't enough of a reason to do that though I don't think - with that extra info what do you think? Besides durability are there other elements of the default compound bow you would want to see modified?

Honestly, if you don't PVP, the Compound Bow isn't worth it atm. As an archer irl, I can tell you that the crossbow in game (which doesn't even need a foot loop or a lever to pull!) would be subpar to a good hunting compound bow. So I'm surprised that it underperforms on stone arrow/tranqs compared to the crossbow.

Personally I'd like to see the compound bow brought in line with assault rifles in terms of mats/level/engram requirements. Have it's durability upped to probably double the XBow's (as XBow was double the bow), and honestly? The mats for the metal arrows should probably make 5 damned arrows, not 1. Those mat costs are INSANE. Granted, this would only be worthwhile on a server where PVP was not an issue. I'd also toy with the idea of at least matching performance on stone/tranqs to the Xbow - else why bother with the compound ever? Even at making 5 rds for the mats, it'd be cheaper to use just about any gun in PVE.

Trying to figure out how to mod the little bugger myself to use on the server I play with my brother and a friend, but I'm having a hell of a time hunting down all the references :)

@Itharus: If you're getting into the Dev Kit and wanted any help, send me a Steam friend request. I'd be very happy to help you with what you're trying to do.

I think your comments are spot on about why we don't see the Compound Bow used more in game. It is a real shame IMO. There are a lot of items in ARK that don't see much use (another is the Homing Underwater Mine) becasuse of the unrealistic material costs and/or poor performance of the item compared to lower level options. Hopefully the Devs will hear us on these things and it will lead to big improvements between now and the game being released. Fingers crossed at least :)

Right on, I'd appreciate that! Ark DevKit has a helluva learning curve :)

Hey, wolde love to see a new underwater weapon, compound xbow is a nice idea, mabye a Harpoon of some sort, with the possebilety of adding flashlight or sights or somthing just an idea, the lack of underwater options of weapons is very limited

I would like the bows to be used underwater, thanks