Assassin's Creed, or Leaping From Rooftop To Rooftop Murdering Guards All The Time

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Mr.Bookworm

This is a very, very common misconception, but no, silenced guns are pretty damn loud. Listen to this (random Youtube video, there are others). What silencers do is spread out the sound, making it a lot harder to identify where the bullet is coming from. Subsonic versus supersonic ammunition also doesn't make a huge difference.

Now compare to a crossbow (again, random Youtube video).

Youtube videos are not good sources of hearing the difference between sounds (in loudness). I shouldn't have to point this out, if only because it should be obvious if you spend any time on youtube that sometimes normal conversation is quiet as fuck and sometimes it is ear shatteringly loud requiring sometimes not just an adjustment of video volume but computer volume to put it at a reasonable level.

That said:

An unsilenced gun is about 160db, a silenced gun is about 120, a crossbow is about 90-100.

Note that decibels are an logarithmic scale and that a drop of 40db is actually a drop of about 99% of the sound. A drop of 20 is something like 60-80%.

A crossbow is, give or take, around 1/4 as loud as a silenced gun and a considerably louder than normal conversation (which is 65-75 decibels). Not quite twice as loud, but close. A silenced gun is about as loud as a quick shout (and harder to locate the source of). An unsilenced gun can shatter your ear drums if it is close to you and you have no protection.

Edit: To put it more succinctly a silenced gun is about as loud as a fraction of a second of the bass line at a rock concert. A crossbow is about as loud as a snowmobile motor for a little longer than a gun shot.

Also, I REALLY don't want to go into all the differences between bullets and crossbow bolts that make bullets considerably more deadly than crossbow bolts, because god damn wooooooords.

But I will say this: A crossbow can fire one round every 5-10 seconds depending on the skill of the user. A semi-automatic pistol can fire sixteen rounds in roughly two seconds, and can be reloaded in about the same time frame.

Every bullet is likely to be fatal so long as you hit central body mass.

It's hard to judge whether this would be the case in an assassin's creed game or not, but the shitty flintlock already does that.

Therefore, even IF the killing power of a single shot were the same, given that Ezio, Altair, and Desmond are usually up against 4 or more armed (and armored) guards when attempting to kill their targets a semi-automatic pistol, preferably high powered, would be a considerably more useful weapon than a crossbow.

If there were no guards, and no one suspecting them there'd be no reason to not just use the hidden blade.

Edit: On sound, there's also things like pitch and sound dispersal to take into account when figuring in the 'loudness' of weapons, both of which silencers change for guns to make the sound not travel as far and be harder to find the source of.

[Azisien]

But all this logic is pointless in the face of the entire silly premise of AC having a dude sit in a thingy to make you go back in time and learn things. So he'll probably use a crossbow!!

EDIT: Because none of this stops the devs from just adding a "super silent" crossbow that has nothing to do with real life. Just like silenced firearms in video games tend to have almost no sound whatsoever.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Azisien

But all this logic is pointless in the face of the entire silly premise of AC having a dude sit in a thingy to make you go back in time and learn things. So he'll probably use a crossbow!!

But neither of the guys he learned from used crossbows. One used throwing knives, and one used a (DUN DUN DUN) gun.

[Mr.Bookworm]

My point was that silencers aren't magic mute buttons, not that they don't work at all, but fair enough.

It's hard to judge whether this would be the case in an assassin's creed game or not, but the shitty flintlock already does that.

I have no idea what the deal with Ezio's gun is, because it's tiny and shouldn't be accurate past the distance you could stab a guy, yet you can practically snipe people with it. And it was invented like three centuries ago. I have no idea how you even aim that thing without the benefit of the magic computer drawing a white line.

But neither of the guys he learned from used crossbows. One used throwing knives, and one used a (DUN DUN DUN) gun.

You get a crossbow in Revelations. It's the single best weapon in the game, too, since you can do awesome counters with it and ammunition is everywhere.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Mr.Bookworm

I have no idea what the deal with Ezio's gun is, because it's tiny and shouldn't be accurate past the distance you could stab a guy, yet you can practically snipe people with it. And it was invented like three centuries ago. I have no idea how you even aim that thing without the benefit of the magic computer drawing a white line.

Alien technology!

It's a Space Flintlock from the Ultrafuture.

You get a crossbow in Revelations. It's the single best weapon in the game, too, since you can do awesome counters with it and ammunition is everywhere.

I'm guessing you mean Brotherhood? Or you're from the future!

But yeah I didn't really play Brotherhood. I might eventually but I don't really like the whole "Stretch a planned trilogy out into five games with one year development cycles and only minor gameplay changes" thing Ubisoft has decided to do as an obvious cash grab.

Edit: Also their other company decisions vis a vis DRM and stuff. I mean, sure I'd be getting them for consoles but still asshole company is asshole company is a place I don't want to give my money to.

[Geminex]

Decibel is a logarithmic scale, that's correct. But it's log 10.

That means a sound that's 10db higher on the scale is going to be 10 times as loud. A sound that's 20 bd higher is 100 times. 40 db would be 1000 times.

Mind you, perceived sound is always a bit wacky, but in terms of the sound's "power", that is to say, the energy behind the sound, that's about right.

Regardless, I kinda agree with Krylo here.

Yes, there are fringe applications for crossbows. Some chinese border control units use them against suicide bombers (bolts are less likely to set off the bomb). They are pretty silent, and their "payload" is a bit higher than that of a firearm, which allows the delivery of a greater variety of bolts. One that comes to mind would be the deployment of surveillance devices or small explosives, that sort of thing. Grappling hooks, ziplines. I'm sure militaries somewhere use them.

But for actually killing people? Nah. Krylo's already addressed the issue of rate of fire, and he's totally right. The crossbow, whatever other advantages it might have, is not a rapid fire weapon. In a firefight, you do not want to be the guy armed with a crossbow.

Admittedly, Infiltration is a bit of a different issue.

Your goal during infiltration is to eliminate enemies as precisely and quietly as possible, right? As such, you want a weapon that doesn't make much noise, is as accurate as possible at as long a range as possible, and has a high probablity of killing (or otherwise incapacitating) your target before they can respond to your assault. Hmm.

Both crossbow and pistol are short-range weapons, depending on make and ammo. Effective range of, say, 30 metres. Wiki says that's about right. I don't have numbers on accuracy, but, while the crossbow bolt is probably a lot less accurate in windy conditions and less effective against moving enemies (as the bolt travels at about 100 m/s), let's assume that they're both in about the same league. Those 30 metres effective range apply to shots at the centre of mass, though, which is what I'm assuming people are going to be aiming for. Headshots are a lot more lethal, of course, but are a lot harder to get consistently.

What about lethality? Even if you have a higher-caliber pistol (which would, accordingly, be louder and decrease your effective rate of fire), I think enemies wearing body armor have a good chance of surviving a first shot. But the pistol makes up for this with said rate of fire, allowing multiple shots against one enemy, before said enemy can react, probably enough for a kill.

Can the same be said of the crossbow? Don't know, honestly. The crossbow, with its heavier, slower bolt, is going to be a lot more capable of going through kevlar and ceramic (which, I believe, aren't made to stop crossbow bolts). Its first shot is bound to deal some damage, despite the much lower energy (about 120 joules, compared to the pistol's 500, less than a quarter) But is it enough to incapacitate an enemy? I don't think so. Unless you hit their heart, neck or head, they're gonna be hurt bad, but still capable of responding. Calling for help, at the very least. And since you only get one shot, that is bad.

Mind you, the crossbow does win on stealth. 90-100 db is one hell of a lot quieter than what a suppressed pistol can do, particularly if the pistol fires several times (which is necessary to guarantee a kill). Another point is that the advantage of suppressed weapons (Less noise overall, harder to pinpoint) is kinda nullified if you're operating in a confined structure. If you're in a hallway, that'll both amplify your noise and make it easier to pinpoint the noise's direction.

One final point is that the pistol is a lot lighter and easier to handle than the crossbow. Even with a suppressor, the pistol weighs, what, 2 kg? More, less, depending on the model. The crossbow is easily twice that (counting ammo), and, more importantly, it's a lot longer and wider. Not the kind of weapon you want to be holding while infiltrating an enemy compound. Sure, you can use a pistol crossbow (stockless), but that'll cut your accuracy, since you don't have a shoulder stock to stabilize the weapon, and it'll still be a lot harder to handle.
Hell, instead of a crossbow, you could be carrying a suppressed submachinegun, and then it's just no contest.

ANYWAY
Final verdict:
Crossbow: More stealthy while firing, but less likely to eliminate targets before they respond and alert others. Unwieldy. Capable of delivering other payloads.

Pistol: Less stealthy while firing, particularly in structures, but much more likely to eliminate a target. It's a fucking gun, people.

For my data I used the HK Mk.23 and the Barnett Jackal Crossbow.

Also, I'm aware that it wasn't strictly necessary to overanalyze this, but what the hell, it was fun.

[BitVyper]

All of this is assuming Desmond doesn't have a Hollywood silencer.

Anyway, as has been mentioned, crossbows are bad at being immediately fatal. I think what we're forgetting though, is how much of the action in AC games takes place in crowded cities. In such a situation, a suppressed pistol becomes pretty difficult to pinpoint, and may even be mistaken for something else. I mean, Ezio was able to walk away from shooting a guy with a flintlock if I recall correctly.

[Krylo]

I'm not sure if 'more stealthy while firing' is even really true, considering that perceived sound wise they're much closer than what you're saying (one is, as I said, the same decibels of a rock concert, and the other of a snowmobile motor), and the crossbow sound lasts a bit longer.

I mean, I guess at the end of the day the easiest thing to do is just say there's a reason that special forces are generally trained in fire arms instead of crossbows.

[Azisien]

I guess my point may have been missed entirely, which is, what weapons do in the real world isn't always the most important thing. It doesn't matter what decibel a real silenced handgun or a crossbow is, these things are always ridiculously silent in video games. It doesn't matter what the dimensions of a REAL compound crossbow are. Desmond might have a super-future hand-crossbow that's silent with the killing power of a shotgun to the face.

The main point of the series eventually transitioning to guns does make sense though. I would actually hope for some sniper rifle sequences in giant skyscraper areas, if we had to make the switch. Turning it into a cover-based action shooter with guns wasn't really in the same vein as the Assassin's Creed games, the ones I've played anyway (first, half of second, some BroCreed multiplayer). Other than that, keeping to sneaking around for silent knife kills and maybe planting bombs or something.

The final Assassin's Creed game will actually be Hitman: Absolution.

[Aldurin]

Guns being supersilent is meant to counterbalance the bullshit of guard telepathy, or having your cover blown to everybody because your only witness was the guy you killed the moment he saw you.