Ability to make wooden crossbow bolts with the hatchet

[Tysn 0]

With the addition of the hatchet making wood piles a renewable resource, I was thinking it could also be an interesting way to improve the crossbow. On paper the general advantage that the crossbow is supposed to have is that you can retrieve the bolts from zombies, making it a silent, ammo efficient weapon. However, in practice this doesn't work too well. Bolts take up a lot of space and are found in small numbers. Because of this, slight aiming mistakes (common with the awkward sights) or glitches cause the crossbow to be too big of a liability, and most players replace it as soon as they find pretty much anything else.

By implementing wooden bolts, the crossbow would be able to correctly fit the role of being an efficient but limited weapon. Bolts could be created one at a time via the context menu on the hatchet in forests, just like with the wood piles. And to keep steel bolts useful, wood bolts could be made non-retrievable (wood being not as durable) so players would still have an incentive to search for steel bolts.

While effectively having unlimited ammo may sound possibly overpowered, the current limitations of the crossbow should keep it balanced. Even with a large backpack, players are likely to only have enough space for about a dozen bolts at a time, combined with the non-retrievable factor of wood bolts would make the "unlimited" nature not as helpful during exploration of cities. Not to mention the crossbow isn't amazingly powerful to begin with. Zombies already require a headshot to take down in one shot, and the crossbow is generally awful for PVP. On top of that players would need to find both a crossbow AND a hatchet to fully take advantage of this system.

I searched other threads and most people seem to be in agreement that the crossbow is pretty underwhelming, so I think something like this would be a decent way to improve it. It would make crossbow appealing in it's own way, sort of how players will sometimes use the Winchester instead of high-end military weapons simply because of ammo availability. A system like this would make the crossbow a viable weapon like that. Any thoughts?

[Bandit Hunter 29]

Sure. I truly don't know how a modern day hunting crossbow would operate with carved wooden bolts in real life, but i'll suspend my disbelief in the name of a good suggestion.

[scoffield77@gmail.com 192]

+1 I love the cross bow also I came up with this idea in a post a while back but it didn't catch tension so i let it drop

Great minds think a like ;)

I suggested in my post that Steel bolts should have greater range then wooden bolts.

due to your suggest that you can't get them back, I think wooden bolts should do more damage since they can splinter and have less accuracy

[dharion@drahl.com 5]

+1

This might actually make me pick up a crossbow once.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

I suggested in my post that Steel bolts should have greater range then wooden bolts.

Wooden bolts would actually fly farther, if they were polished and calibrated, but deal less damage as they wouldn't penetrate as deep.

Handmade bolts should have pretty bad accuracy.

Instead i'd like the crossbow to take less space in a backpack. And maybe 3 bolts per general slot?

[mike10019314@yahoo.ca 3]

make it so you need empty cans as well as being in the woods to make em, a steel soup can could be cut to make a basic broad head, also making bolts would be better off as a task for a knife

[SixPackAbs 13]

i do believe a wooden bolt would basically explode when fired from a modern crossbow, but i would like to see a more reliable source of ammo for the weapon.

[billyangstadt 272]

Wooden bolts would make bolts retrievable.

The reason they aren't now is because, as in reallife, they go right through the target and bury themselves in the ground.

[scoffield77@gmail.com 192]

I suggested in my post that Steel bolts should have greater range then wooden bolts.

Wooden bolts would actually fly farther' date=' if they were polished and calibrated, but deal less damage as they wouldn't penetrate as deep.

Handmade bolts should have pretty bad accuracy.

Instead i'd like the crossbow to take less space in a backpack. And maybe 3 bolts per general slot?

[/quote']

penetration =/= damage.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

I suggested in my post that Steel bolts should have greater range then wooden bolts.

Wooden bolts would actually fly farther' date=' if they were polished and calibrated, but deal less damage as they wouldn't penetrate as deep.

Handmade bolts should have pretty bad accuracy.

Instead i'd like the crossbow to take less space in a backpack. And maybe 3 bolts per general slot?[/quote']

penetration =/= damage.

Bolts do not fragment - they simply puncture intestines.

So yes, penetration=damage.

Crude wooden bolts would splinter (still not near enough a bullet fragmentation) so should cause shock and bleeding irregardless?

[RaviN (DayZ) 9]

+1

ive not read any posts in this thread, just the title, thats says it all for me ^

[Serrath 0]

A modern crossbow would shatter a hastily-crafted wooden bolt. The result for the bow would likely be akin to dry-firing it, and may destroy your crossbow.

Suspending disbelief and going along with the idea since this is a video game and gameplay is more important than realism (we're killing zombies, remember?), I'd caution you that unlimited ammunition for a ranged weapon is a dangerous element to add. It drastically changes scavenging and pvp.

The crossbow is underutilized, especially with melee weapons providing silent, ammunitionless kills now, so keep thinking. It definitely needs a tweak.