On launchers and missiles (rc)

Since bows are a commonly swapped out weapon, distortion on a bow would kind of be a pain.

On the other hand, for the reasons mentioned, distortion might actually see use on a bow, whereas it blows chunks on melee weapons.

I think the ideas are all interesting, and I think it's a great idea to relegate fire/ice to ammo instead of being a weapon brand. As for the question of how to mix the effects... This is a good question and also maybe a good reason to switch various brands to being ammo based. Can also think of brands that may be thematically compatible with ammo. eg. could have holy brand that reacts with ammo to make holy fire, holy frost, causes shadow arrows to disappear when fired, etc.

One note: Silver not available to arrows? Just seems odd to me.

Slight off-topic maybe: What's the point of sling bullets? Why not buff stones and remove sling bullets? They're so weird because a. stones suck, b. sling bullets aren't awesome either, and c. ammo seems rare enough for 'sling characters' anyway given the lack of roaming halflings in the dungeon.

Megane

Sounds great!

Couple quibbles/additions:

- I'd rather see increased mulching assigned on a case by case basis rather than for all brands.

- Large rocks are rather rare and weight means you can't carry many. Suggest they have a much lower base mulching rate to compensate (say one-third normal). Makes sense thematically.

- Returning increases mulching? Seems self-defeating to me. (Plus most returning weapons don't mulch.) Again, I'd prefer limiting mulching increase to specific cases, e.g. fire, ice, thrust (which I'd rather call penetration).

- Another possible qualifier: steel. 1.5x damage, 5x weight, 1/2 mulching rate. Arrows, bolts, javelins.

- Another possible brand: of swarming. Secondary missiles (identical to original, but without swarming attribute) fired at all hostiles within LoS of struck target. Arrows, needles, darts.

- Distortion on a launcher seems impractical, since swaps are mandatory. Maybe better as a (rare) ammo brand?

- Hand crossbows and crossbows should also be eligible for the poison brand.

Nobody was Lemuel perchance?

Megane:

In any case, it seems as if distortion should be an ammo brand rather than a launcher one.

I am fine with a different brand/missile type distribution (e.g. adding silver arrows). The basic idea is just that there should be restrictions, so that playing a crossbow hunter is different to a bow hunter, say.

On sling bullets: these were added in 0.1 (so before I was there). I guess the idea is to make slings a bit more valuable as a skill. The damage makes a difference, from my limited experience at least.

Nobody:

I am fine with mulching penalties given on a brand by brand approach although fewer cases is obviously better than many cases.

Large rocks have significantly better mulching rates already.

Yes, returning should not have to do with mulching.

I avoided something like steel because it feels like powercycling.

I believe that brands should go essentially to ammo only. With this, swarming sounds cool and could be used for the light missiles (darts, arrows, stones, perhaps also sling bullets, needles).

Shadow seems a bit odd in terms of flavor, as it seems more like a Necro-enchantment than a qualifier, plus it is a potentially very strong ability. Perhaps an enslavement-type ability instead?

Also, I agree to move pain and distortion to missile categories.

Finally, what about lightning ammo (arrows, bolts). It would bounce off walls and could arc to nearby monsters.

I just feel that sling bullets are deceptive; isn't and wasn't ever enough for sling characters. Buffing stones to be somewhere between where they are now and where sling bullets are (or maybe even equal to bullets?) might make sling use actually viable..

Would also like the idea of giving stones/bullets a unique brand ability. They could be given a much more powerful brand in order to make slings interesting too. E.g. Stones/Sling Bullets of force - they turn into a force bolt and blast through rows of mobs. Simple concept but would make gameplay much more interesting with them I think.

On Shadow:
I personally like the idea of shadow. I don't, however, like the idea that basically any character could use them to make zombies. Ought not this be restricted to characters actually trained in the weapon skill? Especially needles would be accurate enough to be reasonable for anyone. I particularly don't like the idea of any character carrying around blowguns for both curare and shadow with little/no skill.

Enslavement/charming could be interesting too but I think Shadow could work.

More on needles/blowguns;
Sometime back Lemuel had a curare FR (scaling curare on skill to make people want dart skill). What also came up though was the idea for more needles. Specifically - Confusion, Sleep, or paralysis needles. Any of these would be very cool for an assassin character. Just need to pull out some poison name that would match the effect.

Megane

Sling bullets were added in 0.3, along with nets and javelins. See FR 1741477.

Note that shadow, thrust (as penetration), silver and steel, as well as two others (exploding and dispersal, which blinks enemies like distortion, but without additional damage, teleportation or banishment) are already implemented. See FR 2006917.

With a general damage-boosting brand (velocity), I don't see a particular need for steel, though.

Distortion on a launcher might be more feasible if FR 2557220 was implemented, but I agree that distortion is probably better suited to be an ammo rather than a launcher brand and think that dispersal is preferable to either.

Pain is probably also better on ammo, but in that case I think it would be best to leave it out altogether.

I also agree that all non-general brands should be moved to missiles. I could imagine the current brand-bestowing launcher brands living on as randart properties (or fixedarts).

Overall, I like the proposal, especially that it gives non-magical ranged combat some special perks like impact or shadow and the clear distinction between ammo and launcher brands.

I'm a bit worried about the proliferation of ammo types and the resulting use of inventory space, especially if all of these brands can be elvish, orcish or dwarven, identified or unidentified and have any enchantment from +0 to +9. Removing racial ammo while retaining racial launchers might be worth considering, especially as I'm not sure if the bonus from using the right ammo with the right launcher is at all noticeable.

Also, I think each ammo type should only have a small set of possible brands, narrower than the one above and especially arrows and bolts (as the most similar forms of ranged combat) and darts and bolts (as the two types of crossbow ammo) shouldn't share too many brands. For example, I could imagine just giving fire to one of them and ice to the other or strictly limiting silver to bullets, both for differentiation as well as inventory space conservation.

It's probably a bit to early in the discussion to go into the details on that, though. Same with the names, for example, I'd prefer "penetration" over "thrust", "zombification" over "shadow" or "holy wrath" over "silver" (except on bullets).

And here are some questions that should probably also be addressed in this discussion:

How would those brands (especially shadow, the others aren't so problematic) work on players? Bolt of draining?

How would these brands interact with Sticks to Snakes? Zombie Snakes? Silver Snakes?

There is a toxin derived from pufferfish, tetrodotoxin, which allegedly was used in Haiti to create "zombies", i.e. badly nerve-damaged living people, which were then supposedly used as slaves with the help of other drugs. As a crawl needle brand, I suppose it could cause susceptible monsters to occasionally become zombies (but not friendly ones!), and characters to suffer some serious int loss.

that was me, haraldko, btw.

I have always wondered the considerations behind missiles and launchers in crawl.

All of them: The bows, longbows, crossbows, hand crossbows and slings all feel same and do too few damage. Shoot to wake, back to safety, shoot-shoot, shoot-shoot, collect-collect-collect the ammo.

Sling: In reality it is a piece of rope or leather often attached to wooden handle that makes throwing more powerful (but accuracy of the throw takes more skill). It is thanks for making your hand longer and therefore speeding up the launch, but your fingers are not holding the ammo anymore, therefore it is less accurate. For example Javelin was introduced into Olympic games 708 BC in two forms accuracy with bare hand and distance with sling. Merge slings to throwing? Make it possible to throw more things with slings? Make strength weight of sling dependent on weight of ammo?

Crossbow: All the feel of crossbow usage is lost in game. Crossbow usage should feel more like one-shot thing. It takes two steps to fire one. Loading takes strength and time. It is hard to imagine someone loading a crossbow when being in melee. Firing is rather quick, accurate and powerful. It does not take extra muscle strain to aim one once loaded. Crossbow is even more rare than a rod in dungeon since one can acquire rod with a scroll.

Hand crossbow: Odd implement. Thief class is better for centaur than most other classes thanks to it. Somewhat counter-intuitive to start as thief being such a horse-man (and it is not suggested by character-creation).

Darts: Throwing the darts does train ones skill of blowing the needles. It would be as odd if it was training crossbows. Darts skill itself does not make much difference. Main idea behind it is to poison someone, right?

Brands on launchers: Speed seems to be is better than velocity. Takes bit more ammo, true. Maybe some sort of piece of code eats most of the velocity away?

Brands on missiles: Thrown daggers of poison AFAIK do not poison target?

Yes, that nobody was me.

- Mulching. I agree, we should have only two cases, high mulching and normal mulching. (Relative to the base rate for the ammo type, which continues to vary as now.) I would just like brands/qualifiers to be assigned explicitly to one of the two cases. E.g. even if returning is a brand, it should not cause increased mulching (as you agree.)

- Point taken on steel. Only reason for it would be to reward high-Str archers (esp. if effect of Str on carrying capacity is increased). But others add more, for sure.

- I like shadow and would argue to use that name rather than something more blandly descriptive. Megane is right tho that effectiveness should depend on weapon skill (or perhaps on weapon skill or Necromancy skill, whichever is higher.) Shadow does not need to work on player, since it only takes effect when target is killed.

- Sleep needles would be fun, especially for setting up stab opportunities.

- I like Silver Snakes from silver arrows. Stats like Black Snakes but without poison; double damage against demons, undead and shifters. Not generated randomly in dungeon (but could of course be placed in vaults.) For the others, just boost power.

- I think I prefer dispersal to distortion as an ammo brand.

- Markus is probably right about removing racial ammo, and about thinking carefully about which ammo can get which qualifiers/brands.

- One other issue -- velocity is currently underpowered because it increases only launcher damage, not projectile damage. Suggest making it comparable to other vorpal brands either by increasing both, or by increasing launcher damage by an average of 50% instead of 25%.

Lemuel

Lots of good input, thanks!

Maiermrk: Apparently I confused them with curare needles which (probably) were added to make needles more relevant. Sorry about that. That said, sling bullets try to do the same for slings, with some (but ultimately less) success.

Thanks for pointing out zelgadis' work. One reason why I bring this up is to enable his code as soon as possible (i.e. right after release of 0.5).

I agree that Dispersal is better than Distortion and I am not married to Pain.

Your other points are good, I agree with removing racial ammo, but we should keep racial launchers.

I like Shadow better than Zombification but that's obviously just a matter of taste (and no big deal anyway). Holy Wrath might be misleading (at least if we leave shapeshifters being prone to it, which I like), I'd rather take the Silver here.

Haraldko: Interesting. I like it if real world stuff is used non-obtrusively. What would a good brand name be? Cannot go with Pufferfish :)

kotk: You raise a number of valid points but this FR is not made to solve them. First, ranged combat in Crawl is a means of dealing ranged damage (doh!) with advantages (you only need to train one skill, you can improve launchers and ammo, you are not dependent on Magic) and disadvantages (way inferior to casting in flexibility, ammunition can be a scarce commodity). Overall, this works well.
You address two shortcomings: (i) the current system is not realistic at all, (ii) the launcher types are not properly differentiated. By the way, I do not agree that "all of them do too few damage". This is just not true in my (limited) experience. Otherwise, I do not mind too much about (i) although it is good if we could address (ii) by taking cues from reality/history. (My proposal does not but I am open for ideas.)
As said, I am coming from a purely gameplay point of view: I want to diversify the launchers and add tactical choices.

Lemuel: yes, two mulching modifiers should suffice.

On your sleep needles: given that needles would be poison, curare, shadow, sleep, this would clearly indicate that needles/blowgun is the weapon for the stabber, as it should be. (Shadow needles would be a bit different but that is fine.)
It would be really good if we had ideas of that broad type for the other types as well. Here we could be inspired by history/reality. For example, arrows have been used all the time to burn things, making arrows of fire look like a natural choice (this also explains why they're gone afterwards). Does not give a theme to bows/arrows yet, though.

More feedback welcome and needed -- keep it up!

Let's see.. I had a few ideas lately.

Sickness brand - this brand would only appear on piercing ammo. It would deal no extra damage, but prevent a monster from healing for x number of turns, including regeneration. Ideally, vulnerability would be evaluated and assigned on its own basis, but for a starting point, checking poison resistance would be sufficient.

Barbed ammo - for arrows and darts only, has a 100% mulch rate, but damages the monster twice. Once when it goes in, and a second time several turns later - happening quicker for faster monsters. It would happen the next turn for speed 15-12 monsters, two turns later for speed 11-8 monsters, and four turns later for anything slower. I personally think this is more interesting than frost/fire ammo, which I'd be happy to see go.

Crystal ammo - Immune to corrosion and resistant to enchantment (can only go to +3 max, +1 is effortless, +2 is equivalent of trying to get +5 on a weapon, and +3 is equivalent to trying to get +8). Does not ever mulch, does not get eaten by jellies.

Petrification - like the spell, but for sling bullets.

Miasma/Smoke/shrapnel bullets - I'm not exactly certain about what I have in mind for these, but they would either leave a trail of miasma along the bullet's path similar to a death drakes breath, or explode upon impact doing no additional damage but leaving smoke such as you'd find near lava in a several tile radius, or explode doing some minor damage to adjacent monsters (shrapnel).

Okay, here are some broader ideas on the various launchers. Feel free to add and comment (also on brands etc.):

needles/blowguns: support an assassin/stabbing playing style: silent, quick, poison, curare (and sleep if added). Most common brand is poison.

arrows/bows: louder than needles but quieter than bolts. Relies on Str to reach maximal range (LOS). Staple brand is fire.

bolts/crossbows: rather loud and slow. Fixed range (full LOS).

stones/slings: comes with two types of ammo (stones, bullets) for damage upgrade. Has silver bullet special.

darts: no idea. Perhaps it is best if we remove one of the launcher types. If doing so, I suggest dart/hand crossbow.

javelins/large rocks/etc.: these are fine by me.

There could be a spell that improved mundane ammunition but has different effects on type: fire for arrows, silver for bullets etc.

This is obviously unfinished -- help is needed. Some more ideas how to differentiate categories:
* shield penalty
* Dex or Str effects (also has an impact on how casters will want to use it)
* mulch rates/generation rates (but this is problematic)

Actually i like most of the ideas, just that carrying too lot of different ammo for different occasions is problematic. History and real life are fair source of the real strengths / weaknesses / differences between the ranged weaponry. The FR was about wider tactical choice and diversity. So i just agreed that diversity is lacking. One thing that may help to make some skill more diverse is to merge it with other skill. The different ranged weapon classes should feel different as well.

For example throwing and slings. From gaming point of view it feels most easy to win with lot of throwing than with any other ranged-combat skill, because throwing gives lots of bonuses. Wear a shield with full set of bonuses and weapon of distortion and then keep throwing hand axe or javelin of returning from such a safety. Also Okawaru/Trog do not gift you with bullets or slings ... instead they offer melee weapons.

If to remove the (imo unfair) advantages of throwing then throwing becomes lot weaker than it is now all of sudden. Possibly even pointless if compared with say ... Magic Dart spell (unless you are troglodyte). Therefore i suggested to merge the sling skill into throwing skill. Brands on thrown axes, spears and daggers should work on impact (but throwing that dagger of distortion should be dangerous for thrower). Spears, javelins and large rocks should be possible to be thrown with a sling. Different combinations should have different requirements for strength and skill to work reliably. Missile weight and type should matter lot more, too. As result, throwing becomes more flexible and diverse skill without any unfair advantages.Also sling becomes more useful weapon. The melee weapon may be just automatically unwielded when throwing by hand to make it less tedious.

According to Wikipedia, the idea that tetrodotoxin has been used in voodooism has largely been dismissed and regardless of that Crawl's has actual zombies and so the brand should definitely have a necromantic flavour.

I agree that if a sleeping or paralysing brand comes, it should ideally have the name of a real-life substance.

While there were throwing straps or spear throwers (examples would be the Amentum, Atlatl, Woomera,...) they worked differently enough from slings that I think they shouldn't be ruled into the same skill or same item IMHO. In fact, I think Slings shouldn't train Throwing anymore at all and maybe not even crosstrain with it, although the latter is less problematic. Also, I don't understand merging Slings with Throwing would make Throwing weaker. Nor am I convinced that Throwing is overpowered.

With the boosting of blowguns, it may be worthwhile to change the Darts skill to Blowguns skill and have thrown Darts be governed by Throwing. Goof Blowgun skill should be essential for successful use of brands other than poison. In FR 1908280 it was suggested that Throwing should take weapon skills into account, i.e. require (and train) Throwing and Polearms for spears and javelins, Throwing and Axes for hand axes, Throwing and Short Blades for daggers and just Throwing for darts and stones, although there was also a proposal to have a skill distinct from Short Blades (and probably Blowguns) called Darts & Daggers to be used in conjunction with Throwing when throwing those items. Hand crossbows, as the other use for darts could probably be eliminated as well.

I agree that a higher and a lower mulching rate should probably enough, although I somewhat like that arrows of ice and fire currently mulch all the time, making them effective against jellies, which will be hurt by them, but can't eat them to regenerate. So, I think having "always mulch" a third "rate" might also be worth considering, both for ammo that should be very rare as well as ammo that should be common, but still require thought when to use. For example, if flaming arrows were very common, say 1/3 of all arrows or something, but mulched all the time, it might be more flavourful than having only 1/9 of all arrows be flaming and have them mulch only 1/3 or the time.

Lemuel's point about velocity (vorpal) sounds good, although I'm not familiar with the actual numbers. It's probably noteworthy that slings and blowguns have a base damage of 0 and thus wouldn't be eligible for that brand. Should they get a different brand instead?

I'm afraid cloture's brands don't sound too interesting too me and while there should be some new brands, there probably shouldn't be too many.

And here are my broader thoughts on the different ranged combat skills:

Introduction:
Ranged combat skills probably shouldn't cross-train with each other at all. Neither should using slings train Throwing. Ammo should never be racial. Not sure if my uses of "small species" below should always include Halflings and Kobolds in addition to Spriggans.

Throwing:
Includes dart throwing. Unique in that it doesn't require having or wielding a launcher and in having a wide variety of missiles, although not so much on brands. Throwing javelins or melee weapons involves the weapon skill (polearms for javelins) in addition to Throwing. Elves can be good at Throwing darts and daggers, but not so much at throwing axes, where orcs excel. Hammers should replace clubs as the thrown weapon from Maces & Flails category. Weapon brands (venom, flaming) should work on thrown weapons as they do in melee, with the downside that they're mutually exclusive with returning which is probably the most useful brand for throwing. Thrown weapons should also retain their damage type, i.e. thrown axes should decapitate hydrae. Darts, large rocks, stones and throwing nets just use Throwing skill. Stones, rocks and nets don't get any brands, other than their instrinsics (all stones are corrosion-resistant, all rocks are of impact, all nets are entangling). Current size restrictions for rocks and nets are OK. Not sure what to do about javelins and darts. As stackable, non-melee weapons, I'm not sure if javelins should get returning. Poison's probably OK, but that's about it. I'm even less sure what to do about darts, especially as I also suggest to give blowguns a skill of their own and to remove hand crossbows below. Maybe also limit them to poison and greatly cut down on their generation. The damage curve for Throwing (with the possible exception of large rocks) should probably be lower than for other ranged combat skills.

Slings (stones):
Only skill with a purely damage enhancing "brand" (sling bullets). Few other brands: silver, maybe impact. Range, damage and accuracy depend on Dex and skill. Firing speed is constant. Very common ammo and launcher (ammo could probably be a bit more common later on, otherwise OK). Can be used with a buckler by small species, shields by normal species and large shields by large species. Not sure about penalties, if any. Good for characters that use a shield and high Dex characters. Good against jellies, undead, demons and shapeshifters, not as good against creatures with elemental vulnerabilities.

Bows (arrows):
Only skill with a launcher upgrade from bow to longbow (see also crossbows below). Bows (or maybe shortbows) can be used by everyone and can be used with a buckler (except by small species) with an accuracy penalty (which is really bad early on, but becomes bearable at higher levels or might be mitigated with high Dex or even the Portalled Projectile spell). Longbows can't be used by small species and can't be used with any type of shield. Both give an AC (or maybe EV) penalty against melee attacks when wielded, the longbow probably more. Possible brands: fire (common), poison, dispersal, shadow, smoke, maybe silver. Range and damage depend on Str and skill, accuracy and firing speed depend on Dex and skill. Very common ammo, common launcher (current generation seems OK early on, ammo and longbows could be more common later). Good for characters that can use bucklers, good for characters with balanced stats and good for characters that look for some special effects in addition to damage. Launchers (but not ammo) can be orcish or elvish. Also unique in that launcher and ammo can be turned into snakes.

Crossbows (bolts):
Only governs crossbows/bolts, hand crossbows to be removed. All (or at least all unbranded) bolts default to thrust/penetration, unique brand for bolts. Few other brands: ice, impact, maybe silver. Bolts of ice should be rarer than arrows of flame. Note that limiting bolts to ice might also make rC+ (which currently seems a bit weaker than rF+) more useful in the Vaults. Bolts always travel full range. Damage depends on skill, but with a fixed large base amount, accuracy on skill (and maybe Dex), firing (reloading) speed depends on skill and greatly on Str. At high levels, bow damage and range should be comparable to crossbow damage and crossbow speed should be comparable to bow speed. At low levels, crossbows should do about twice as much damage than bows, but fire about twice as slow. Common ammo, somewhat rare launcher (current ammo generation is OK, launchers should be a bit more common early on). Can't be used with any type of shield. EV penalty against melee attacks. Str is essential (heavy launcher, heavy ammo, firing speed greatly dependent on Str), Dex is useful for accuracy, but somewhat negligible. Good for strong characters, heavily armoured characters, two-handed weapon wielding characters and characters looking mostly for raw damage. Launchers (but not ammo) can be orcish or dwarven. Maybe can't be used by small species.

Blowguns (needles):
Replaces Darts skill. No unbranded ammo, defaults to poison. No direct damage, only damage over time (poison), no other elemental damage. Unique enchantment-like brands (curare, sleep, maybe shadow). High skill (and maybe Dex) required for successful use of brands other than poison. Somewhat rare ammo, somewhat rare launcher (current distribution seems OK). Needles always travel full range or range may be slightly dependant on skill, but with a fixed large base amount. Constantly silent and quick (or normal) to fire. Can be used with a shield without (?) drawbacks. Do shields give stealth penalties? If they do, that might be enough. Good for stabbers, good against animals, humanoids and poison-susceptible demons, useless against everything else. Good for high Dex characters (better accuracy, maybe better chance for brands to take effect), no benefits for Str characters (ammo and launcher don't weigh much, no damage bonus). Can be used while entangled in a net. Maybe can be fired together with a breath weapon (increased accuracy, combined effect, i.e. poison flame). Maybe can't be used by (non-breathing) Mummies.

Summary:
Throwing is for casters or melee character that just want something to soften up or finishing off enemies, characters that like to use nets for stabbing or escaping and characters that want to do massive damage with large rocks. Slings are for characters that want a ranged weapon they can use with a shield or that want to get the most out of their high Dex and that don't care about effects other than damage to various types of creatures. Bows are a bit of everything: They do good damage, allow some use of bucklers, have a wide variety of brands, including the very common fire and don't largely depend on a single stat. Crossbows do the most damage (apart from large rocks) and can penetrate and knock back enemies, but little else. They require the use of two hands and great strength to be effective. Blowguns are something of a mixed bag: They don't do general damage, but they work well with shield, have poison readily available and have unique brands that help with stabbing.

This looks perfect!

I'm glad you're thinking of getting rid of the speed penalty for launcher and shield. IMO, combos should either be allowed or disallowed; allowed-but-with-really-big-penalties is just annoying and invites the player to make bad choices. I'd probably prefer not even to have an accuracy penalty but as you say that's not a big deal later in the game.

Can large creatures use shortbow+regular shield? Do Centaurs count as large?

So at high skills bow damage output is similar to crossbow and longbow is superior? That seems right.

Are you sure about penetration/thrust as default for bolts? I think it would be more natural, balanced and interesting to make unbranded bolts the default (tho penetration could be more common than other brands.)

One other doubt is about range. Right now the fact that projectiles all reach full LoS while most spells don't is one thing that makes archer play different from caster play. I'd like to keep that, at least for longbows and crossbows.

Lemuel

I think pain could be interesting for a needle brand too actually.

Megane

Yes, the speed penalty for using a launcher with a shield always felt like such a deal-breaker to me, that I also would have preferred if that had been flat out disallowed instead. I do think some penalty is necessary, though, to avoid making shield use the default.

While "small species" could refer either to Spriggans or to Spriggans, Halflings and Kobolds in my post, "large species" is always supposed to mean Ogres and Trolls. Centaurs and Nagas were definitely not meant. I don't think anything larger than a buckler should be allowed with bows, so if you're too big (or too Draconian) to wear a buckler, you're out of luck and Crossbows or Throwing might be more interesting for you. The main reason for this is that I imagine a buckler as something that's strapped to your forearm rather than held in your hand and thus is usable while holding a bow. Holding a shield and a bow in one hand at the same time seems impossible to me, though. On a sidenote, I think, that in the same vein, some one-and-three-quarter-handed melee weapons should allow the use of a buckler, but not shields, too, but that's far beyond the scope of this FR.

I'm not sure about anything, I still see this a pretty much a rough draft and I actually didn't think about which kind of bows crossbows should be comparable to, but now I think they should probably fall right between the two bow types, better than the normal one, but slightly worse than the long. Having "short" bows do as much damage as a crossbow, while allowing the use of a buckler and having more brands (and longbow being even stronger) seems to favour Bows over Crossbows too much IMHO. I don't mind favouring bows, as the "default" ranged weapon, a little, though. Although, admittedly I can't gouge how much the different sets of brands are worth against each other, especially if bolt are penetrating.

The main reason I suggested to make all bolts penetrating is that I didn't think the brand would make for interesting decisions. If there are several enemies in a row, fire penetration, if not, fire normal ones, if you're on an open level and/or have confused your enemies, the alignment of enemies will probably change each turn, so that it would be optimal to switch after every shot. I think it's much more interesting as a perk for a type of launcher. Bolts of ice, impact... probably shouldn't be penetrating, though. That being said, making penetration just a very common (but not the default) brand for bolts (like fire would be for arrows) is also very much a possibility. Not sure which (if any) is "better".

Crossbows and blowguns would still always travel full range. I thought it would be interesting if for Throwing, Slings and Bows, range depended on the same factors as damage (as they're obviously related), although Lemuel's right that that's at the cost of one of non-magical ranged combat distinguishing qualities. Calculating range for bows, but automatically setting it to full for longbows is, of course, also a possibility.

Finally, a more radical approach to thrown darts, suggested on ##crawl, might be to remove them entirely. Blowguns would inherit the (renamed) Darts skill and stones could shine as the single default low-level thrown missile for both characters and monsters. I'd like that, too, but it raises some issues. Possible problems with this approach might be dart traps which IMHO serve an important function as the early low-level damage dealing trap, so I wouldn't want to remove them outright. Replacing them with arrow or spears traps on the other hand would probably make them too deadly. However, another possibility might be to keep dart traps, but make them act like the little brothers of blade traps, dealing damage, but never actually producing any items upon triggering or disarming. Also, removing darts altogether would also remove the nasty surprise of early kobolds with darts of fire. Not sure what to do about them. Giving them blowguns or wands instead would probably make those items too common. Same with generating kobold with beneficial potions instead. Although, note that even if keeping darts, I'd opt not to give thrown weapons any brands other than poison (and those on melee weapons).

Good ideas. Maybe, yes, remove darts and replace dart traps with bolt/needle traps? The darts and hand crossbows. Hand crossbow is like bow with handedness of slings in crossbows skill, the dart too similar to rock and the flavor of modern man-toys made of fiberglass, plastic and aluminum does add nothing.

The only remaining unaddressed reality issue with throwing for me is that i still can't imagine a person holding cursed shield and wielding sword of distortion to throw that axe of returning efficiently. Switching gloves and therefore rings should be also bit more problematic (at least more time-consuming) than it is now in such a situation. I understand that latter is another issue entirely and that playability must stay above of realism.

While I agree that darts aren't really nessary, and if we're going to be culling the catagories of thrown weapons, darts are probably the best to go, I do feel obliged to mention to kotk that darts are not just "modern man-toys", and in fact have been used for centuries as a thrown weapon.

As for the bolts of penetration, I'd vote for them to be common, but not every bolt - we're talking about crossbows here, not railguns.

-AlStar

Yes the term "dart" has been used widely in history starting from siege-engine ammunition until to blowgun ammo also there were pre-archery darts that were used for hunting small animals and javelin-like items were also called darts for distinguishing minor technical differences. The archery replaced prehistoric darts, we do use other term for javelins/needles and we don't have siege weapons so ... i was about the mind-image of darts that are ammunition of hand crossbows.

Bolt and needle traps do even more damage than arrow or spear traps and should be completely out of the question for D:1 and the likes unless you like unavoidable deaths. I could imagine forbidding throwing when wielding a cursed weapon, e.g. by implying a weapon switch (perhaps comparable to FR 2557220), but I'm not sure if that's needed.

Replace dart trap with sling bullet trap that is equally damaging as current dart trap. Lack of sling ammo is so odd between rock walls and all the "orcish hammers" in nearby pile.

Yes, i did imagine implied weapon switch, not some sort of useless micromanagement to empty ones hand before throwing. Also wielded weapon should be quickest to throw, not impossible like now. There are already too lot of explicit subactivities for my taste in some other actions but that is a different topic.

It looks like most of this has made it into trunk or at least the wiki, but I haven't dabbled in launchers at all, so someone please check.