Tinker's Construct Bows

[Lohengrin]

Anyone got any tips or suggestions for a good TiCo bow layout? Haven't gotten into them much yet, but would like to play around some with them. Just looking for some pros/cons and maybe a nudge in the right direction so not to burn tons of time sussing it out solo. Good results, bad experience, anything would be interesting honestly. Haven't seen alot of chatter on the subject so curious to hear some.
I dearly love my straight up vanilla bow (power V, infinity I, Knockback I). Served me well. Used a Dartcraft bow too, and that is pretty solid, but I'm sorta wohoo and mleh at the same time on DartCraft. Just cruious how they all compare. My next bow I was going for was a Bloodwood Natura bow with similar enchants, but I like options. Er, right...less babble.

So, TiCo Bows: Discussion...Go!

 

[Emasher]

Green slime crystals seems to work well for the rods, and if you have thaumcraft installed, you're going to want to use enchanted fabric for the string. As for modifiers, lots of redstone will improve the draw speed, and you'll probably want to throw some moss on as well.

As for the arrows, you want to keep them light and use lots of quartz.

 

[PeggleFrank]

I just make a wooden bow with an enchanted bowstring, and throw modifiers on it.

As for arrows, I make a stack of manyullyn heads (And sometimes alumite), feather fletchlings, and thaumium sticks. I proceed to put a nether star and a block of gold w/ diamond on the arrows, and then spam quartz. It can reach up to 6 hearts (12 damage), and takes out anything not heavily protected almost instantly.

 

[RedBoss]

Do those of you using these arrows obsess about retrieving them? That's what made me completely ignore this part of the mod, the expense of arrows. I can see the advantages, but I just can't wrap my head around the expense. ^_^

 

[SpitefulFox]

First big thing: Do NOT use metal parts on your bow. You'll end up with a bow way too inflexible and slow to reasonably use. Best part I've seen so far is green slime for bows.

Whether to use String or Enchanted Cloth for your bowstring is kind of a toss up for me. Enchanted gives you an extra modifier slot to play with, but has less power than a regular string. Not so sure having more modifiers is that important for a bow. Anything related to damage or attack effects has to go on the arrows themselves, so the only thing that seems useful is Redstone for draw speed, which seems to cap or hit a plateau very quickly, or things like Diamonds or Reinforced for increasing durability.

Do those of you using these arrows obsess about retrieving them? That's what made me completely ignore this part of the mod, the expense of arrows. I can see the advantages, but I just can't wrap my head around the expense. ^_^

So far, yeah. I obsess a lot about retrieving the arrows. Kinda turns me off of using the bows often because of how precious arrows can be. It'd be nice if the arrows could be created in batches larger than 4 and had a larger collection radius.

 

[Lohengrin]

I would sort of agree with you, RedBoss. One of the things holding me back a little. But really though, at a certain point resources aren't like a huge deal and if you do retrieve 90% of them after a fight or don't constantly shoot wildly at everything that moves, I could see a stack lasting a while. Would definately make you pick your shots. Definately have a spare normal bow/arrow stack for gunning down ghasts. One solid pin prick takes those windbags down, but I would shed a tear if my jumped up nether star arrow went with him in the firey drink.

 

[RedBoss]

It's true about the resources. At some point, even in vanilla, you tend to have far more resources than you'll ever need. It's just my hold up on using TiCo arrows. I'm also kind of partial to my Rod of the 9 Hells for projectile combat. Just thought I'd see if anyone felt the pain. It's nice to see another improvement on a vanilla item either way.

 

[Antice]

the TiCo bow is good enough compared to vanilla bows, that even flint/cactus tipped arrows is worthwhile if you are worried about resources. bringing cactus arrows into the nether is brilliant imho. if you feel rich, but not rich enough to waste the really high tier stuff, then steel is a cheap substitute that give very good bang for the buck even when fighting in the nether where you are likely to only get one shot per arrow before they are lost.

tbh. cactus is a brilliant material for most TiCo tools and weapons. it's a decent attack power/mining speed while still being a fully renewable, easily farmable resource. one that you can auto farm even early game with an old vanilla style farm without much work. so if you are a stingy bastard like me, then do the cactus arrow thing. it might not shine for PVP or fighting bosses, but for normal run of the mill mob murdering it's awesome.

 

[draeath]

Standard wood and string for the bow, leaves, wood, and an iron head for the arrow. Does well enough for me - quick draw (1s) and pops ghasts in one or two hits.

I made a bow out of alumite and string, and while it takes longer (2.5s) to draw, it does 4x the damage (0.5 heart base to 2 heart base). The arrows also seem to fly a bit faster. I'm using the same arrows, excepting that I am using feathers instead of the leaves now.

 

[Eunomiac]

Bow — Green Slime/Green Slime/Enchanted String. Modifiers: Moss + 200 Redstone (inc. Diamond/Gold upgrade) + Piston OR 50 Redstone (with Nether Star upgrade)

As far as I can tell, there are three potential "top pick" materials for the Tool Rods, depending on what's most important to you:

• Slime — Blue Slime (and everyone should have barrels of those damnable things) will give you 576 Durability, and Draw Speed and Arrow Speeds of 1.20 (String) or 1.08 (Enchanted String). Green Slime gives the same speed stats, but triples the Durability, to 1536.
• Wood — 384 Durability, significantly less than Green Slime. Quicker draw speed than slime, but slower arrow speed---1.00 (String)/0.89 (Enchanted String) for both.
• Paper — Takes everything to the extreme: a terrible (TERRIBLE) 48 Durability and Arrow Speed (0.50/0.44), but insanely fast draw speed (0.62/0.56). An extra modifier for Moss could help the durability, but for me, the awful Arrow Speed sinks it.

So I use Green Slime/Green Slime/Enchanted String, then Moss + 200 Redstone (5 modifiers: 3 base, +1 from Enchanted String, +1 from Diamond/Gold Block --- haven't added a Nether Star, but if I do, it'll either be Pistons for meager knockback or another 50 Redstone).

Arrows — Alumite Head/Cactus Rod/Feather Fletching. Modifiers: 216 Quartz

Two of the components are, in my opinion, fairly straight-forward for your general-purpose arrow: Alumite Head and Feather Fletching. Alumite is very cheap (what else are you using your Aluminum for?), and it's the lightest material that does 3 hearts of damage (Flint does 2.5). Manyullyn (say it with me: "mah-NEE-ah-lin" or, tomato-tomato, "MEH-nee-ah-lin") will take you up to 3.5 hearts, but at the cost of nearly doubling the weight of your arrow (crippling its range) while costing you the Cobalt and Ardite you were saving for your Wither-Skeleton-beheading Cleaver. As for the fletching, I don't have data on other materials, but feathers are easy-enough to come by (Tinkers Construct --> Twilight Forest Hollow Hill --> oodles of Lapis --> Looting 3 Longsword --> FEATHERS!) and I haven't heard anyone suggest that other materials are actually better than Feather.

The tool rod is where I'm baffled—but it's between Wood Slime (edit: thanks, ShneekeyTheLost) or Cactus. Looking at the stats alone, Wood Slime is the clear standout: Same stats as Cactus, but with a much lower weight (thus longer range). However, when this was noticed in a recent episode by Direwolf20 (who I worship, praise be to His name), he still went with the heavier Cactus by claiming he'd "heard" that Cactus was better. The only possible explanation is that Cactus' "Jagged" ability (which increases damage as durability goes down) affects Arrows in some way, enough to justify the added weight... even though arrows have no durability, meaning this makes no sense whatsoever. I have no reason other than Direwolf20 (praise be to His name) to believe this... and so my arrows are Alumite/Cactus/Feather

Regardless, with all the Quartz I throw on 'em, they one-shot pretty much everything while being cheap enough that I can waste 'em on Ghasts without crying hard enough to feel unmanly. And that's really all I could ask for in an arrow

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Using a Slime Rod instead of a Wood Rod reduces the weight of the arrow from 1.67 (with Alumite head and feather fletching) to 1.4. Doing so with an Obsidian head has a damage of 2.5, but a weight of only 0.94 (which is less even than a flint head for the same damage, and it's not like lava and water are difficult to come by).

Therefore, if you want disposable arrows:

Obsidian head, slime rod, feather fletching arrows are an early-game alternative which do not require a smeltery to produce. All of the resources are renewable, so you won't hurt yourself by losing a few.

Using a Paper Rod gives you an additional enhancement slot, but at the cost of a good bit of weight AND a hit in accuracy. However, if you are wanting to avoid needing a smeltry to make good arrows, and you've got the Nether Quartz to dump into them, you could hit 10+ damage a hit easily enough with Obsidian/Paper/Feather and maxed out nether quartz.

Alumite gives an additional .5 heart damage output at the cost of some weight.

However, a surprising discovery is Cactus as a head drops the weight all the way down to .62 when used with Slime Rod and Feather Fletching. It also still has the 'jagged' property. Sure, base damage is only 2.5, but it is the lightest weight 2.5 damage arrowhead, with the mysterious jagged property.

As far as the bow goes, don't forget that you can mix n match. Having one slime rod and one paper rod with a regular bowstring (didn't have Thaumcraft 3 in the test world) returned a Durability of 792, draw speed of 0.93, and Arrow Speed of 0.85 and 4 modifiers. It's not a bad compromise bow. However, the 1.2/1.2 is very compelling for the slime rods.

Ardite, Cobalt, and Mhanamhana aren't worth it as bow materials, slime has the same speed multiplier at half the draw speed.

 

[Symmetryc]

Why does nobody use lapis on their bows?

 

[Antice]

Why does nobody use lapis on their bows?

because it doesn't do anything unless you smack mobs over the head with the bow. mob affecting modifiers have to go on the arrows. making it a somewhat expensive proposition. guess it would make sense if you find creeper hunting to be annoyingly hard i guess. they do tend to blow up a lot unless you have practiced it.

 

[Symmetryc]

because it doesn't do anything unless you smack mobs over the head with the bow. mob affecting modifiers have to go on the arrows. making it a somewhat expensive proposition. guess it would make sense if you find creeper hunting to be annoyingly hard i guess. they do tend to blow up a lot unless you have practiced it.

Yes it does, mDiyo said so himself on one of his Twitch streams.

 

[Eunomiac]

because it doesn't do anything unless you smack mobs over the head with the bow. mob affecting modifiers have to go on the arrows.

I think the only useful modifiers on bows are:

• Redstone (Draw Speed --- probably the most useful, and with the dearth of other useful bow modifiers, stacking it several times is likely the best)
• Moss (Auto-Repair --- the only modifier I use other than stacked Redstone)
• Obsidian Plate (Reinforced --- semi-pointless with a Slime bow and Moss)
• Piston (Knockback --- apparently the only exception to "mob-affecting mods go on arrows", except I've heard the knockback effect is minimal; I might test it with a cheap bow before deciding if it's better than a fifth helping of Redstone)
• ... plus the Durability mods (Emerald, Diamond) and the modifier-adding mods (Gold+Diamond, Nether Star)

I'm still really interested in finding out why Direwolf20 goes with Cactus Tool Rods for his Arrows, over Green Slime or Wood (which, by stats alone, appear strictly better). The Jagged property shouldn't have any affect on arrows, since they have no durability to lose (... unless Jagged on arrows refers back to the bow's durability to determine its benefit...?)

 

[PeggleFrank]

I'm still really interested in finding out why Direwolf20 goes with Cactus Tool Rods for his Arrows, over Green Slime or Wood (which, by stats alone, appear strictly better). The Jagged property shouldn't have any affect on arrows, since they have no durability to lose (... unless Jagged on arrows refers back to the bow's durability to determine its benefit...?)

Last time I tried you can put durability-affecting modifiers on the arrows and it'll give them durability. The book says that they can be used as melee weapons, so that might be the only way to reduce the durability.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You can also use Cactus on the arrowhead, for lower weight than Flint or Obsidian for the same damage (2.5) and get the Jagged ability. Then you can use slime rods and arrow fletching.

 

[Antice]

I went into creative and did quite a bit of testing how the material properties affect arrow weight, damage and accuracy.
I found that rods and fletching are only weight/accuracy modifiers, and that slime comes out on top for rods with feather being the superior fletching material in all instances. (we all knew this already didn't we?)

you can group the arrowheads into 5 groups with increasing damage

Slime,wood and paper arrowheads are very light, with slime coming in at only 0,55 and paper being the heaviest at 0,68 with an extra modifier added, however i doubt that this is actually worth it considering the dinky base damage of 1,5.

bone,stone and netherrack all give a base damage of 2. with bone being the lightest at 0,6. so early game you are better off using bone if you don't have flint or cactus. (not a likely scenario tbh) stay away from stone and netherrack. they are fairly heavy at 0,96 and 1,16 respectively, and they do not give any sort of functional advantage despite being stonebound.

the biggest group is the 2,5 base damage group. this is where you find steel, flint,cactus,thaumium,bronze,copper and iron.
Cactus is the lightest arrowhead in this class, and combined with a slime rod and feather fletching it gives an arrow of mass 0,62
the main thing here, is that you can make these without first getting the smeltery up and running.
The outlier is the thaumium arrowhead, since it gives you an extra modifier at the cost of increasing the weight to 0,82
Obsidian is the third best material, but it requires the smeltery, making flint the second best material overall for arrowheads early game prior to smeltery.

Ardite,alumite,steel and cobalt give a base damage of 3, but are very heavy, with alumite being the best with 1,4 and cobalt being the worst at 2,25

The real heavy hitter is manyullyn, and heavy is the keyword. the weight is 2,59, and the base damage is 3,5.

A special note on the thaumium paper feather based arrow. it gives 2 extra modifier slots at the cost of increasing weight to 1,5 and reducing accuracy to 62,66%. When using this arrow it is possible to get a base damage of 10,5 even before you add on the modifier adding diamond/netherstar thing by just adding a LOT of netherquarts.
So as far as maxing out damage is concerned, this is the arrow to go to if you feel ultra rich. it should one shot most anything this side of the dragon and wither.

The following modifiers are confirmed to not be available for modifying arrows: Lapis,redstone,silky,piston.

Then there is some modifiers that require some more testing:
Lava crystal - does this actually do anything for arrows? it does not auto cook meat, and it does not seem to add any damage.
moss - likewise, is there any point at all?
wither bone - can anyone else confirm life steal working with arrows? my testing is indicative of this working, and is therefore a pretty good modifier to use when available.
obsidian + ender pearl - beheading - unconfirmed, but very good if it does. wither skellies are a pita due to the wither effect. being able to cheeze them off at a distance would be really nice.

these I am certain do work:
consecrated soil (smite)
Fermented eye (arthropods bane)
Nether quarts (extra damage)
blaze powder - burn baby burn- the pyromaniacs favorite. it also cooks dinner. one of the best things to add imho.

Bow modifiers:
Lapis - I havent tested enough to confirm
piston - knockback works, but is weak unless you add all 10 pistons to fill up the modifier slot. it then becomes about as good as an unmodified hammer.
redstone - we all know what this does.
emerald/diamond - more durability
moss - durability regen (my fav modifier for bows. they never break with this on)
obsidian plate - adds reinforced
consecrated soil - smite - unverified
fermented spider eye - arthropods bane - unverified
nether quarts - does nothing - confirmed in testing.
lava crystal - no effect - needs independent verification tho.

cant be added:
blaze powder
obsidian + ender pearl


sorry if this wall'o'text passed someone elses replies. it took a while to write and verify it.

 

[PeggleFrank]

Lava crystal - does this actually do anything for arrows? it does not auto cook meat, and it does not seem to add any damage.

It acts like a more expensive coating of blaze powder, lighting things on fire. If it doesn't light fires to mobs then it's bugged.


Also, you need to add the durability-affecting modifiers to your untested list. Diamond and emerald will give the arrows durability.

 

[Antice]

It acts like a more expensive coating of blaze powder, lighting things on fire. If it doesn't light fires to mobs then it's bugged.


Also, you need to add the durability-affecting modifiers to your untested list. Diamond and emerald will give the arrows durability.

Lava crystal is bugged then, cuz i ain't seeing no fire when trying it out.
I didn't add the durability items to the list, because durability is not a stat that has any meaning for arrows. if they are to be tested at all, then it is alongside testing of special material modifiers like stonebound and jagged. my list ignores those types of effects except for the extra modifier material effect, because that is going further into the mechanics of the TiCo bow mechanics than i intended. the post became large enough as it is.
Feel free to test it out and report back to us tho. if these modifiers have any effect at all, then it is most likely bound to the bow's durability, and not the arrows.