[Guide] Those Wondering About the Hunter QCX

When the crossbow was released on Thursday, I played and recorded some of my first experiences with it, after a lot more gameplay with it, this video still remains true, though I use a 3.4x now.



I'd love feedback below or on the video itself, whether you agree with me, have suggestions, etc.

I just hate the idea that a thousand years in the future there would be a crossbow.
It's like I remember modern warfare being where the 1887 shotgun did the most damage. It's just immersion breaking and angering for anyone who knows anything about weapons.

This isn't a serious game, and it hasn't been for a long time.

Still, not a totally ridiculous one.
Or at least, not yet.

Um, we have crossbows that shoot out pink hearts.

Game has bright pink camo added: Random it-breaks-my-immersion-in-an-fps hater is fine.

Game has crossbow added: Random it-breaks-my-immersion-in-an-fps hater gets upset.

Ahh the internet.

Planet Fortress 2

*Call of Battleplanet Fortress 2

Anyone who knows anything about weapons know that crossbows have more punch than most ballistic weapons equal in size. You take a modern crossbow and pit it against a modern rifle, the crossbow will always win in both power and penetration. Hell, even a good compound bow and arrow will be serious competition for a rifle.

So, if you take into consideration future materials to build better compound crossbows, they'll still put bolts where bullets can't go.

I find that very hard to believe. Any sources on that?

i would go 3.4 sights and anything closer just rely on your hipfire with a laser sight. it has almost smg accuracy.

Confirmed for knowing nothing about weapons.
The highest end crossbow bolts go about 375 Feet per second.
An average .308 round goes about 3,000 feet per second.
If you know anything about kinetic energy, it's obvious which one you'd rather get hit with.
Source: physics class and a borderline unhealthy obsession with weapons.
and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.308_Winchester
http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=740193

Also, just in general. There's a reason every single army in the world switched from crossbows to muskets (which have an even lower rate of fire than crossbows.) It's because crossbows are rarely deadly, you'll need a torso shot and even if you miss major organs it's pretty likely for someone to survive. (with modern antibiotics)

The fact that you're doing physics with English units certainly brings your analysis into question (and makes me want to cry).

I wasn't trying to get into the numbers. You can do that if you want, I believe I'm correct. But honestly I haven't done any number crunching.

Velocity isn't the only consideration for transferring energy into the body is really the simplest way to put it. A bullet and a bolt-head are generally shaped differently, have different pressure dynamics, have different cross-sections, and the methods by which they damage tissue are very different. Bullet-proof armor can be penetrated by crossbow heads at certain ranges because of these differences, and at close ranges the differences in speed don't make much of a difference. The most important thing isn't so much energy as it is kerma.

For example, at closer ranges a high-velocity, larger-caliber bullet may actually do less damage (depending on where it hits) because it will go straight through the target. A smaller ball with less velocity will actually do more because it will bounce off bony anatomy, causing it to damage more tissue (this was the advantage of muskets and early gunpowder weapons over crossbows, as well as the fact that it is much easier to produce simple bullets than it was to produce arrows--any soldier could melt down scrap lead and use a mold to make more musketballs, whereas you would need a more sophisticated mold, most likely harder metals (and thus more complicated machinery) and craftsmen able to create the bolts from specific types of wood).

Arrows and bolts similarly deliver damage to a larger area, and once they have entered a target continue to do tearing damage. Don't forget that the whole reason that crossbows replaced longbows and recurve bows was specifically that they could penetrate thick metal armor event at range and while moving quickly (such as from horseback). It shouldn't be surprising that with a few hundred more years of refinement that they should still be able to penetrate armor.

Yes but the head of a crossbow bolt (a normal one) is just a little bit larger than a rifle bullet. And with all this fancy future armor we're wearing I really doubt bullets would go straight through. And also, how far could you refine a crossbow? make the string more elastic? Bolts more aerodynamic? There's only so much you could do before you have to move to a different platform. Like trying to make an automatic musket.

Size doesn't matter so much as areal cross-section, density & mass of the projectile, and construction of the projectile. Many bullets are made to explode on impact, which causes more damage to soft tissue, whereas crossbow arrows are meant to penetrate through armor (more pressure because of smaller cross-section). Because of this, bullets impacting armor, helmets, etc. don't NEED to penetrate armor, because they are still able to transfer energy through mechanical waves. A grenade doesn't need to hit you to break your teeth for the same reason. The pressure waves are what do the damage in this case, not the metal bullet itself. If your engineers were designing weapons to penetrate shields and still do damage to tissue covered by body armor, this would likely be the better choice.

As for refinements, the constraints are primarily restricted to machining of the head (we've got nanites, allowing for designs on a microscopic scale specifically designed to penetrate armor), the material of the head (nanoscale engineering of alloys designed to penetrate the types of armor used by soldiers on Auraxis), the material of the arms (also able to be engineered to a much higher degree--allowing increased stiffness without the material cracking and breaking with use--same with the strings and pulleys. I'm sure there are some carbon nanotubes somewhere in there ). From a materials science point of view there is a LOT you could do to make a piece of metal more or less penetrating, especially as generally you want to tailor the material of the head to the type of armor you want to penetrate. The material of the armor worn by Auraxian soldiers is similarly going to be constrained, and if we actually look at the design, a lot of it appears to be cloth, spandex, various meshes and so on reinforced by armor that allow a combination of movement and armor.

But a crossbow bolt penetrating say your leg isn't really that deadly. It would cause hardly any bleeding because it wouldn't leave a hole, it would seal itself. And with adrenaline pumping (unless it hit a vital organ) you could easily continue the fight for a while before having to deal with it. Compared to a bullet which punches a hole in your leg and you're now bleeding out of that hole and there are bullet fragments that cut around your leg that are also causing bleeding, etc.
In general, bullets do more damage than crossbows.