TiC Crossbow number crunching
- Thread starter ShneekeyTheLost
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On Infinity i was able to make a crossbow out of Pink slime from MFR and with a thaumium binder and fiery bowstrog. With manyullum tipped bolts i was able to do 54.5 hearts of damage in 1 shot with a reload time of .25 secs
And when you update to a more current version, you'll find that turns down to around 17.5ish.
I wouldn't say that at all. I used a test dummy to compare a pink slime crossbow with a moderately pimped out (steel, 288 quartz) cleaver I had been using. The cleaver did 15 damage per hit and the crossbow did 17.5.
A couple things to keep in mind:
- That's 17.5 damage four times a second. You don't even have to spam clicks; you just hold down the button and it autofires.
- 17.5 appears to mean 17.5 full hearts, not the "+XX attack damage" you see in the tooltip. For example, the cleaver tooltip says "+29 attack damage" but the dummy reports 15 damage. To me this suggests the tooltip's "attack damage" refers to half-hearts.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that the crossbow appears to have an optimal range. When I stood at least 18 blocks away from the dummy, it hit for 25-27 damage every shot.
A weapon that hits harder than a cleaver, at range, 4x a second? Seems pretty useful to me.
Try it without the quartz and you'll find the crossbow's damage doesn't change much.
If your cleaver was only doing 15 damage, you didn't have enough nether quartz on it. You can easily do over 25 damage in one hit with one.
Raw damage as a numerical value is not always relevant. What IS relevant is the number of hits it takes to kill a mob. A Rapier can drop just about any normal mob in two hits, which is why it is generally a superior choice to any of the other swords because it swings faster and bypasses armor. There's really zero difference between doing 15 damage and doing 17.5 damage unless you end up running into a mob which has between 31 and 35 hearts, in which case the crossbow will still two-shot while the cleaver requires a third.
A crossbow is a significant investment of resources, one expects it to be able to outperform most of the other weapons available. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that anymore. A plain vanilla bow with enchantments can beat it at this point. So why bother?
Good points, and BTW I really appreciate your analysis in the OP.
I agree that per-hit damage isn't the most important factor to look at. In fact, I'd suggest the most relevant factor is the amount of time it takes to kill a mob. For example, the pink slime crossbow can drop a wither to half health in 2-3 seconds, before it can even return fire (just tried it). 17.5 damage four times a second adds up quickly: 70 damage per second, to be exact. (Possibly as much as 100dps if the observation about optimal range was accurate.) And it sure doesn't hurt that it can hit targets so far away that they can't see you.
Well, I won't argue that all crossbows in general are worthwhile. But the pink slime crossbow is superior in every respect to the green slime crossbow, and certainly to any vanilla bow. Its buffed reload time is so short that it doesn't even feel like a delay anymore. It's like a rapier that works from long range and autofires without spamming clicks. I kind of love it a little bit.
Try plastic. Same punching power, faster reload time. Save you an entire Redstone modifier to get down to .5 fire rate.
My preferred crossbow is as follows: Plastic limb, thaumium stock, fiery bowstring, paper heavy binding. Total of 5 modifiers before adding extras, packs the best punch a rapid-firing crossbow can be expected to punch, and in general is going to be about as good as it gets for TiCo ranged weapons.
here's some good way of making a great crossbow:
Signalum limb (it's like broken in how good it is)
a stock (dosen't change much)
Fiery bowstring (and if you don't have it use normal, enchanted makes it do less damage do to the simple fact that it decreases the arrow speed)
unstable ingot binding (and if you don't have it use obsidian)
the modifiers you need is only reinforced (if you don't have iguana tinker tweak mod add moss then)
bolts:
enderium coated (the most damage)
manyullium rod (I was using pokefennium about 18.5 but it was a bit too heavy, this great weight 12.38 (not too much nor too low))
slimy fletching (has 94% accruacy)
btw reinforced makes no diffrents on projetiles all it does is decreases the chance that it'll not break when it hits the ground(arrows, bolts and others with no durabillity bar)
and with this setup it does 40 heart by default (no modifiers)
btw what does tough do
Signalum limb (it's like broken in how good it is)
a stock (dosen't change much)
Fiery bowstring (and if you don't have it use normal, enchanted makes it do less damage do to the simple fact that it decreases the arrow speed)
unstable ingot binding (and if you don't have it use obsidian)
the modifiers you need is only reinforced (if you don't have iguana tinker tweak mod add moss then)
bolts:
enderium coated (the most damage)
manyullium rod (I was using pokefennium about 18.5 but it was a bit too heavy, this great weight 12.38 (not too much nor too low))
slimy fletching (has 94% accruacy)
btw reinforced makes no diffrents on projetiles all it does is decreases the chance that it'll not break when it hits the ground(arrows, bolts and others with no durabillity bar)
and with this setup it does 40 heart by default (no modifiers)
btw what does tough do
There is one argument for looting on a crossbow. It's Ghasts. They don't close in, they only drop 1-2 of their item. There aren't really spawners for them, unless you've also got Twilight Forest, which not every pack does. So looting is a good thing to have. Though I'd build a different crossbow for that than most tasks. Looting, light bolts with very high arrow speed out of the bow.
Also, there's no reason to put more than 1 Lapis on a looting/fortune item. It'll eventually accrue to Looting 3, so there's no reason to waste lapis.
Also, there's no reason to put more than 1 Lapis on a looting/fortune item. It'll eventually accrue to Looting 3, so there's no reason to waste lapis.
If you got Iguana tinker tweak mod it'll have a chance to add 100 lapis instead off giving something else
how is it that I'm never able to that, it works for everything exept ammo...
Wow, ten month necropost. Good job with that.
Assuming you have ExtraTiC. You are right, that mod IS broken. Which is why I tend to not use it. And it didn't exist when the original post was made.
You can pick up an extra modifier by using a Thaumium Stock. It's useful if you aren't using ExtraTiC to stack redstone.
Fiery is the string of choice, yes. I believe that was already amply documented.
Wait, how are you getting unstable ingot bindings? Won't the ingot go boom when you try to put it into the smeltery? However, if your crossbow already HAS .5 draw speed because ExtraTiC is broken, obsidian binding isn't the worst idea for the extra durability. Granted, with something like Fluxed on there, it won't ever be an issue, but eh...
You'll likely want Fluxed as a superior option to Moss. Other than that, those of us that aren't using ExtraTiC need redstone.
Again, you are using ExtraTiC, which is not taken into consideration with the original experimentation. Many rods are a bad idea, just use Steel. More weight and easier to repair.
MFR Pokeball for the auto-spawner. Alternately, use EnderIO.
And by the time it's gotten up there, you'll find that no one else has been playing 1.7.10 in years, there's been not just one but two presidential changes of office, and MC is announcing the release of 'Minecraft Pi' since it is version 3.14
Or you can use the otherwise completely worthless Lapis to give yourself Looting 3 when it will actually be relevant.
Clearly you're not shooting/mining enough things. 
But I get the point. And approve of Minecraft Pi.
But I get the point. And approve of Minecraft Pi.
Signalum crossbows are definitely busted. If dartcraft and draconic evolution ever mated, their ungodly spawn would be the signalum crossbow.
That said, I use it anyway because I don't give a shit about twitch play in minecraft and therefore could care less about weapon balance.
That said, I use it anyway because I don't give a shit about twitch play in minecraft and therefore could care less about weapon balance.
By midgame, "wasting lapis" makes as much sense as "wasting atmospheric nitrogen". Given how long it takes for it to get all the way to 450 from 1, you might as well get it all the way there rather than wasting drops.
I've been known to use both methods equally. In the ultra-early game when you genuinly have only a few dozen lapis kicking around and you'd rather not go mining for 5 minutes, that 1 lapis makes sense.