I'm a big fan of the
Better Bows mod, it adds a sense of progression to Feed The Beast's combat that simply isn't there right now; for example let's say that I want to go and kill an Enderman for a pearl or an Eye of Ender in order to find a Stronghold. Taking out this Enderman is going to be rather tricky if I go in hand to hand so ranged combat would seem like the obvious choice in this situation, unfortunately unless you've made good progress with your Thaumcraft research or have a mining laser taking this approach to combat simply isn't possible.
Now though with the Better Bows mod this is, simply craft yourself an Ender Arrow and you'll be able to both target and hit an Enderman, but also give yourself the ability to more accurately aim your Ender Pearl shots, something that can be very useful in the early to mid game. That though is just one example of the awesomeness that this mod provides us players with, it allows us to mix potion brewing with archery and makes the already deadly skeletons even deadlier equipping them with better bows and occasionally poisoned arrows.
The mod also goes so far as to completely upgrade the models for both the bows and the arrows:
3D arrow rendering
Bows are rendered in three "layers", the wood, string and the arrow.
The Arrows' that impact upon the water are met with splashes and bubbles.
The mod also adds another element of gameplay in the form of items known as quivers, these allow the player to switch between the plethora of different arrow types they may come across while exploring Minecraftia. Quivers can hold up to 64 items in 16-sized stacks, to allow you to have multiple types of arrows per quiver.
The mod's so neat it even comes with a sleek little UI for when the player decides to craft it:
These are just a few of the arrow types that have been implemented into the game. Now though we get to the point of what it does and doesn't replace, what version of Minecraft it currently runs on and what the mod author's views are on Modpacks such as Feed The Beast. Well firstly it runs on the latest version of Minecraft (semi-latest at this point but it is being updated to 1.6.1 as we speak) and the mod author has expressed keen interest in keeping the mod as up-to-date as possible.
Secondly, t
his mod does not replace vanilla bows, so if you want to use the bows from this you'll have to craft them. The vanilla bow crafting recipe is removed, however, and the crafting recipe for the normal bows is changed to have leather for padding on the string. However, this mod has to replace vanilla arrows to make them able to split, so expect a message saying that item ID 262 is mismatched.
Finally, the mod author's fine with other people using his mod in mod packs so long as they give him the credit for creating it in the first place. In my personal opinion these could be a really great mod for Feed The Beast to come and adopt and although it adds nothing massive like the Aether II or Divine RPG it certainly helps to spruce up the combat and adds genuine complexity and even some diversity among each individual mob in the game. It certainly adds to fear of seeing a skeleton, even if you're decked out in full enchanted nano armour, something that's a rarity in Feed The Beast nowadays.
