Archaic Projectile Weapons

Anyone can fire a gun, and it's easy to be a sniper when you're shooting someone from over a kilometer away with a silenced rifle. Archaic weapons help add some flavor (and some advantage) to a typical mission.

Bows: Bows have a distinct advantage over guns: they are silent. In many cases they can be built out of non-metallic materials (not always) and thus be hidden from metallic anomaly scanners. However, their bulk can often compensate for this. Bows cannot benefit from lasers, scopes, or smartlinks.

Firing a bow is a complex action that includes drawing the arrow, and pulling the string. It uses impact armor instead of ballistic armor to determine damage.

Bows do (S+2)M damage base, though some specially designed bows or arrows may increase this (EX ammo is avail for arrows, but it does eliminate the silence benefit). Bows have pistol range.

Crossbows: Crossbows are the fine line between bows and guns. They take a complex action to load, a simple action to shoot, and do flat damage. (Usually 6M, but can be modified by specially made crossbows or bolts). Like bows they can be easily made of non-metallic materials and unlike bows they can be folded up to make the more concealable. They are also silent. Crossbows can benefit from sights and scopes but not smartlinks. Crossbows have pistol range. They also use impact armor instead of ballistic.

While the range is more limited, the ability to work in complete silence can grant a huge advantage to the users of bows and crossbows, and such items are more easily considered "hunting" gear and are thus more available and less likely to draw questions from athority figures, even if you're walking down the street with them (but not drawn and strung of course).

Slingshots: Slingshots are small, easily concealable (8), and can pack a whollop. They do (Str)M damage, and special ammo models can increase this. They are very often made of non-metallic materials, rarely are people questioned for having this (except in termos of curiousity- why does an adult have a kid's toy?) and they are silent. They are also cheap. Their range is as a holdout pistol, and it's a complex action to fire. These cannot benefit from attachments (smartlink, etc)

Blowgun: A small dart is inserted into the blowgun and administered by blowing into the tube very quickly. They are extermely concealable (10), and the darts are often coated with poisons or drugs. The blowgun deals 6L(stun) damage, and this is never scaled up from successes, the extra successes only negate the ability to scale it down. Armor generally blocks these if it has impact ratings above 1, but a called shot can avoid armor rating with these. A wound generally must be taken to administer the poison, but not always if the poison is contact. These cannot benefit from attachments.

Launcher: Takes three people to use, this is a bit of rubber or elastic, each end held by two people while the third pulls back on the string and launches a missile (such as a grenade, molotov cocktail, water balloon, etc) a long distance with complete silence. Each "holder" must make a strength check TN 4 to keep steady while the launcher can fire at grenade launcher ranges. The impact does no damage, but typically the explosive detonates on impact (cooking during flight). If fired directly at a target at point blank range it is resisted with impact armor and does (Str+4)L(stun) damage. These are cheap and ultra-concealable (12).

Weapons above use the Projectile Weapon (quickness) active skill, which is grouped with thrown weapons.