First off real thanks for elementary school physics, I passed it with flying colors as it happens.
It is not my intention to measure everything with a milimeter tape, especially considering how abstract the model is - no matter what gun freaks would want.
Obviously I didn't mean crossbow have flat trajectories - I was talking about their tactical role. Naturally every projectile follows a ballistic path. And obviously the engine doesn't allow to tweak it - you can either shoot artillery-like, or completely laser-flat. The latter was chosen for crossbows because of the aforementioned tactical role. Crossbows lacked sights for long-range sniping, and they were intended for use with non-elite personnel - they were usually used at ranges of up to about 30-40 metres. You can study the medieval art of fortification to learn more (towers spaced within crossbow's effective range, etc). In Piratez, it's obviously not really to scale; crossbow's limited utility at long range is represented by sharp long range acc penalties.
Having said that, bows top off at 80-ish lbs, while a crossbow can have 150, 200 or more - which naturally makes the trajectory more flat. But that's wholly beside the point. If we took the Asian aproach, then, indeed, a crossbow would fill the same tactical role as the bow and would follow a ballistic path - but where would be variety in that?
We aren't talking about "millimeter tape" or strict simulationism here, simply basic verisimilitude. Crossbows, which are nothing but bows turned sideways, should be treated the same as the vertical bows, not as firearms. Treating the X-bow as yet another flat-trajectory firearm doesn't increase variety and doesn't make sense.
Trajectory is determined by velocity. The poundage of the weapon is just one of several factors which determine the velocity of the projectile. Refer to the link I posted:
https://www.nycrossbowcoalition.com/myths-facts-presentations/. The 175# crossbow was nearly 100FPS slower than the 170# crossbow, and the 70# compound bows were all faster than the 175# crossbow. Despite higher poundages, crossbows are less efficient than vertical bows at imparting energy in the projectile. This is primarily because crossbows have a shorter powerstroke than vertical bows, giving them less time to accelerate the projectile. A quick google search for medieval crossbow velocities shows figures from WF Paterson putting the velocity of a 740# medieval crossbow shooting a 1.25oz arrow at only 138.7 fps. That is even slower than the 175fps 45# traditional bow figures given by the New York Crossbow Coalition link. That means that the 45# traditional bow's trajectory was
less curved than the 740# crossbow.
There is a lot of evidence that contradicts the interpretation that crossbows were not used at long range. William Wood in described an archery competition in 1661 where "Several of the Archers shot near Twenty score [400] yards within the compass of a Hat with their Crossbows; and many of them, to the amazement of the Spectators, hit the Mark." Raimond Fourquevaux wrote in his book
Instructions for the Warres, 1548, that archers and crossbowers, despite having a shorter range than harquebusiers, could still kill at 100 to 200 paces. These are just a couple of examples of crossbows being used at long range, and there are more in my notes that I don't' feel like pulling right now, but tbh how real-life historical people used the weapons doesn't seem particularly relevant to how bikini mutants from the future would use them.
Medieval crossbows may not have (usually) had sights, but does that mean the bikini mutant's crossbows in the 27th century would not? The sprite of the x-piratez X-Bow has a rifle stock and a long power stroke like a 21st century crossbow, which usually do have sights or a scope. If the performance of the weapons in the game is based on historical precedent then that standard is applied unevenly. A medieval archer had no sights either. A medieval archer could not have accurately shot arrows at long-range targets completely blocked from his sight by hills or buildings. In-game, Gals make long-range bow shots with completely blocked LOS easily. It is hard to justify a flat trajectory for the X-bow with the lack of sights on medieval crossbows when medieval vertical bows also lacked sights.
