Shortbow / Bowstring / Crafting

[Diveyoc]

Is crafting bows worth it?

I've been away for a while. I took a break from playing right when the last beta was being tested, and before Bowstrings were added.

The last I remember is that I started crafting bows to boost my carpentry skill and it was working out fairly decent. I continued my last saved game. Now I see that to craft a bow it requires (60 ft.) of string or thin cordage.

This seems awfully expensive if I'm going to used my leather cords or even the purchased strings from trading villages. I'll be very limited on the number of bows I can craft.

Maybe the balance is all good, I don't know. Just looking for player feedback.

[Stafford's Bees]

You can unstring the bow when you're done. They still sell ok with no string, too.

[Diveyoc]

Originally posted by Stafford's Bees:

You can unstring the bow when you're done. They still sell ok with no string, too.

Ah ok, that's cool.

[Diveyoc]

How do you remove a bowstring?

[Stafford's Bees]

'a'pply it

[Diveyoc]

Originally posted by Stafford's Bees:

'a'pply it

Ok thanks, I thought I had tried all the basic commands but I guess not.

[g0815krieger]

You can make a bowstring from a 10ft leather cord, which is dirt cheap to craft.

The string has not to be of outstanding good quality to get a decent bow, I made decent shortbow with inferior bow string, while the board used should be of good quality as it has the higher impact on the resulting item.

With growing skills it becomes fairly easy to make fine bows.

I never would use yarn to make a bowstring, as 60 ft yarn make 60 arrows which have much higher value than the bows or the bow strings :D

On the other side, you can buy 150ft yarn for just 2 rough arrows, so its dirt cheap aswell.

[Diveyoc]

Originally posted by g0815krieger:

You can make a bowstring from a 10ft leather cord, which is dirt cheap to craft.

The string has not to be of outstanding good quality to get a decent bow, I made decent shortbow with inferior bow string, while the board used should be of good quality as it has the higher impact on the resulting item.

With growing skills it becomes fairly easy to make fine bows.

I never would use yarn to make a bowstring, as 60 ft yarn make 60 arrows which have much higher value than the bows or the bow strings :D

On the other side, you can buy 150ft yarn for just 2 rough arrows, so its dirt cheap aswell.

It was confusing because even when I selected leather cord, it still said 50 ft. or 60 ft. required. But if you read in the text log lower right, it says 10 ft.

So ya, 10 ft. of cord is not bad. I have masterwork tools and carpentry skill is now 54%. I'm making fine bows about 80% of the time now.

Is there such a thing as a "fine" bowstring?

[g0815krieger]

Originally posted by Diveyoc:

Is there such a thing as a "fine" bowstring?

Haven´t managed to get that yet, but I am fairly sure it is there, just a matter of skill and quality materials.

[Stafford's Bees]

Only guessing, but it seems like I get a fair number of crude and poor ones, so it's maybe based on textile skill. I imagine that if it used the skill-less crafting stat I'd mostly see decent ones and nothing else.

[Diveyoc]

Originally posted by Stafford's Bees:

Only guessing, but it seems like I get a fair number of crude and poor ones, so it's maybe based on textile skill. I imagine that if it used the skill-less crafting stat I'd mostly see decent ones and nothing else.

I crafted quite a few hoping to see which skill got boosted but didn't happen. You might be right about it being textile skill, mine is pretty low and I was crafting crude and rough bowstrings. Although previously I made some decent ones with fine leather cord.

I found a little trick which might be a glitch. I joined a 5 ft. piece of leather cord with a 5 ft. piece of "fine" leather cord, and got a 10 ft. piece of fine leather cord every time. I'll have to try this with a longer length and see what happens.

[g0815krieger]

I have noticed, when using leather cord I get only crude and rough so far, even when using fine leather cords.
When I used some yarn, I got decent bowstrings, although my textile craft skill is a lot lower than leatherworking, and the yarn quality was just decent.

Maybe with good textile craft skill and some fine or better yarn, you may get better than decent bowstrings.

[Diveyoc]

Originally posted by g0815krieger:

I have noticed, when using leather cord I get only crude and rough so far, even when using fine leather cords.
When I used some yarn, I got decent bowstrings, although my textile craft skill is a lot lower than leatherworking, and the yarn quality was just decent.

Maybe with good textile craft skill and some fine or better yarn, you may get better than decent bowstrings.

Now that you mention it, the first few bowstrings I made I was using yarn, and I think those are the only ones that I made which came out as decent.