Bow accuracy

[PoisonPen]

I have 90 skill in bows, 0% encumberance, masterwork longbow, and fine arrows -- and I still miss birds more often than I hit at a range of one full screen.  English longbowmen could routinely hit something the size of a playing card from 200 yards.  I understand that these characters are hunter-trappers and fishermen, not professionally trained warriors, but missing more than half your shots at a range of 30 or 40 yards seems unrealistically inaccurate.

[JEB Davis]

While I understand the frustration you feel at missing those shots, I respectfully disagree. Also, I would love to see some real evidence on that English longbow playing card size target at 200 yards claim. And believe me, I've been a big fan of the English longbow since I was a kid 4 decades ago.

[PoisonPen]

I can't find it now on his mess of a website, but that figure I got originally from Bernard Cornwell, well known for his exhaustively-researched historical fiction.

[trento007]

My character has a bow skill of 97 and is using a masterwork longbow as well, and the few times I've had to hunt birds I've had relative success within a few shots with normal arrows. The thing that strikes me with your post is that you say you are at a range of a full screen from them, assuming that is zoomed out, 24 tiles from the center of your character to the edge. This may not be a large distance in real world lengths but it is effectively the farthest our character can see and hope to interact with without getting closer. The key here, get closer to the bird to take your shots and you will have more success. I generally will take my shots from around 12 tiles away as it's not too difficult to sneak or walk up on a bird flying high to do so, before they fly away.

Some points on why missing at the max range would not be uncommon:

Two lines starting at the same point and with only a single degree difference in direction will eventually amass a very large distance between them the further and further the lines go. So to say, inaccuracy of the shot is going to be expressed more heavily the further the distance the arrow has to travel.

Wind resistance and bullet (or arrow) drop will come into play to veer your arrows off course, and surely the designers have taken that into consideration while making the randomness of the projectiles, even if not literally adding in those factors.

Given that "the period when the longbow was dominant (c. 1250–1450 AD)" and that the game takes place in the late iron age "considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC" I feel there is little reason to expect the longbows within the game had been perfected and thus wouldn't be quite as accurate as historical models you can see being shot nowadays or as the bows from when the longbow was dominant.

[Erkka]

  the game takes place in the late iron age "considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC" 

Iron Age in Finland is roughly 500 BC - 1200 AD, and the game world draws its inspiration from latter Iron Age, around 1000 - 1200 AD. The thing is, while the most of Europe was living Middle Ages, culture in Finland wasn't dominated by Catholic Church. In Finland we had anything like Middle Age only after 1200 AD, when Viking kings had converted to Christianity and launched crusades into pagan Finland to spread the dominance of Catholic Church. Oh well. But I'd guess 1200 AD pagan hunter bows were about as skilfully crafted as 1200 AD English bows.

What comes to the actual subject of this thread, one main factor which I don't see mentioned is if the target is moving or not. While you could hit an immobile target size of a playing card, it becomes consiredably harder to hit a target of same size if its moving at irregular speed. So if you want to hit birds at max range, try picking the stationary ones - but then, if they are standing on ground, they are so low that other factories (like the gravity pull) are more likely to make it so that your arrow hits the ground before reaching the target.

[PoisonPen]

Perhaps there could be the possibility of an aimed shot, then?  Taking a turn or two to steady your shot on an unmoving target should greatly increase accuracy, and probably more accurately reflect the reality of bow hunting with a devastating first shot which, if it fails to bring down the prey, then turns into a long and grueling pursuit.  I haven't done any bow hunting myself, but I've accompanied someone who does.  The only exception to his one-shot-one-kill technique is bear hunting, where he uses a broadhead arrow, then uses his Russian wolfhounds to force the bear to run so it tears itself up inside on the arrow and eventually dies of internal bleeding.

[Draba]

You are vastly overestimating the accuracy of longbows at range.

A quick comparison:
- no matter how good archers were, they were at best equal to current olympians
- olympic archers use recurves that have much, much better accuracy than historic longbows(better technology, light arrows specifically made for competition)
- in perfect conditions competitors can hit a 12.2 cm diameter circle from 70m with a bit over 50% chance, the very best ~90%

No matter what the source is, there is just no way random soldiers with bad equipment were performing better than today's elite, at more than 2.5x(!!!) the range.
Another comparison, a comfortable range for hunting deer with modern composites is ~40 yards.

[LoLotov]

As a side note, I find that javelin accuracy is quite well done, and realistic considering it was a worthwhile thing to do with your time back then. At a 90% plus skill, you can not expect to ever score more than a glancing blow at the outside edges of it's range, and accuracy declines significantly beyond about 7 tiles. Not impossible out to ten, but again, realistic glancing blows, and a waste of a javelin in any circumstance. However, at close range, within 5 tiles, accuracy is not a problem, and you can expect very significant stopping power in comparison to regular arrows, as well as a saved turn equipping a melee weapon when you don't have to remove your bow seperately.

[trento007]

Another factor that came to mind about the success you may have with bows is your characters attributes, I am pretty sure higher governing attributes will affect the success of the skills using those attributes. You may have 90 skill points in using bows but if your strength, dexterity and eyesight are all bad then you might not have much luck using bows. The attributes/skill relationship can be found in a table on this page:

http://unrealworld.wikia.com/wiki/Skill_points

Thank you for the correction Erkka I was unsure having read a post that said the game took place sometime after 900AD, and went with what wikipedia said on the iron age. Great game by the way.

[shorun]

I have 90 skill in bows, 0% encumberance, masterwork longbow, and fine arrows -- and I still miss birds more often than I hit at a range of one full screen.  English longbowmen could routinely hit something the size of a playing card from 200 yards.  I understand that these characters are hunter-trappers and fishermen, not professionally trained warriors,.

as someone who spends on average 1h bowpractice at about 40y (i think, i use metric, about 25m) for half a year (summer), i can confirm.

 but missing more than half your shots at a range of 30 or 40 yards seems realistically accurate.

a regular bow, nothing fancy. with regular arrows. wind and other variables. hitting a target a card size is rather hard. even at "only" 25m distance. but mabe that's just my poor eyesight.

[PALU]

A yard is 3 feet, which are 12 inches, which are 2.54 cm. This means a yard is marginally longer than 90 cm, so 40 yards should be about 35 meters.