The glowing bolt in the crossbow - what the...?

Pi Mu Rho said:
Strangely enough, I have this aversion to being called a Jerk when I disagree with someone.
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jerk.....

/me runs away while crying that he was joking

anyway, a railcrossbow sounds interesting....
 
Helps with aerodynamics.

The bolt would roll b/c it's not in a cone shape, but the heat slices through air better--that's my theory. Then again, I goggled that and nothing came up... :(

Someone e-mail Valve!
 
Reginald said:
I did always wonder why it didn't set fire to wooden crates and the like... it would have been good to have some sort of weapon to easily burn through things.

EDIT: Grenade I guess.... Well, it still would have been a nice feature.
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its jus outwardly burned if there was an actual fire on it then giv it time to let it start and if u want fire bring out ur grav gunand look for flammable barrels theres always some
 
Intamin said:
Helps with aerodynamics.

The bolt would roll b/c it's not in a cone shape, but the heat slices through air better--that's my theory. Then again, I goggled that and nothing came up... :(

Someone e-mail Valve!
Click to expand...

You should have googled it :p
 
i dont think a very hot metal would hurt as much as a normal one, if it is hot, it would burn through, a clean cut. without the heat, it would of course cut through, and make cuts, and crap like that. but who cares? it looks cool
 
First Post, hey everyone.

A heated bolt, for many reasons is a very very stupid idea as a killing ammunition. Back in medieval times arrow heads were barbed, and often the only way to save a shot soldier's life was to snap the arrow as close to the wound as possible and push it through out the other side of the body.

Superheating a metal will mean that it cuts through flesh like a hot knife through butter (as above posted). This would mean that not only does it zing through a person so fast that even if it is radioactive, it wouldn't matter, it also instantly heals its own wound by the millenia old cauterization method. Therefore, a stupid idea for killing someone.

Now, if we go on a tangent and say that the metal is not in fact being heated, only electrified (there are a few elements which glow like they are super hot when a current is passed through them), and is fired at a person, it will do a few things. If you were to grasp a power cable so that it electrocutes you, the flow of electrons is so powerful that it sticks to your flesh and burns into you, until it reaches blood, and achieves a hugely conductive zap. This would mean that the electrified bolt hits the body, pierces the flesh, and stops inside the body. Due to the laws of physics, the bolt (with its intense speed) would continue and impart its own force on the body, meaning that the body travels with it. If that doesnt kill you, the huge current flowing through your body will.

Glad to clear that all up =p
 
The HL1, crossbow was an insta-kill (against humans), even with a leg shot, because the darts were loaded with animal tranquilizers.

In HL2, you'll notice that the bolts never go completely through an enemy. They might jut out a bit so that wall-pins are possible, but that's the extent of it.
So, I'd guess that the obviously large amount of heat applied to the rebar causes the target to pass out from the extreme amounts of pain generated by having a one-and-a-half feet of flaming rebar permanently lodged in your gut.
 
it would have been cooler IMO if they actually made a makeshift railgun with the same damage and abilities as the crossbow instead of the crossbow. It could have been bulky and covered in batteries and still shot pieces of rebar with impaling force

then have an actual crossbow with actual arrows. They wouldn't pin you to the wall, but they'd look cool jutting out of the targets.
 
Flyingdebris said:
it would have been cooler IMO if they actually made a makeshift railgun with the same damage and abilities as the crossbow instead of the crossbow. It could have been bulky and covered in batteries and still shot pieces of rebar with impaling force

then have an actual crossbow with actual arrows. They wouldn't pin you to the wall, but they'd look cool jutting out of the targets.
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They actually had something like that in raising the bar. Incidentedly that was the only weapon concepts they showed in there.
 
Sander said:
First Post, hey everyone.

A heated bolt, for many reasons is a very very stupid idea as a killing ammunition. Back in medieval times arrow heads were barbed, and often the only way to save a shot soldier's life was to snap the arrow as close to the wound as possible and push it through out the other side of the body.

Superheating a metal will mean that it cuts through flesh like a hot knife through butter (as above posted). This would mean that not only does it zing through a person so fast that even if it is radioactive, it wouldn't matter, it also instantly heals its own wound by the millenia old cauterization method. Therefore, a stupid idea for killing someone.

Now, if we go on a tangent and say that the metal is not in fact being heated, only electrified (there are a few elements which glow like they are super hot when a current is passed through them), and is fired at a person, it will do a few things. If you were to grasp a power cable so that it electrocutes you, the flow of electrons is so powerful that it sticks to your flesh and burns into you, until it reaches blood, and achieves a hugely conductive zap. This would mean that the electrified bolt hits the body, pierces the flesh, and stops inside the body. Due to the laws of physics, the bolt (with its intense speed) would continue and impart its own force on the body, meaning that the body travels with it. If that doesnt kill you, the huge current flowing through your body will.

Glad to clear that all up =p
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Unless the piece of rebar being used as a bolt is somehow a capacitor, the instant it leaves the crossbow, the voltage from the bow is gone. It'll still be hot (although if you inspect the bolts after they have hit the wall they have cooled to normal temperatures). I think they added the battery and heating feature to make the weapon more interesting. If the bolt is going to kill you, being cold or hot probably won't make a difference. If it's not going to kill you, being hot would cause considerably more pain.
 
Yes, it will hurt a lot more, but it will do less damage to your body. I know that I would rather get shot through with a red hot metal than a normal one, because I'd rather live =p

Well it could have capacitor potential, it isnt that far fetched. Isn't HL2 sci-fi? =p
 
DoctorWeeTodd said:
They actually had something like that in raising the bar. Incidentedly that was the only weapon concepts they showed in there.
Click to expand...
What page? I don't notice any weapons.
 
a piece of rebar as a capacitor would be far fetched, because its just a piece of rebar, nothing more nothing less
 
Has anyone noticed that against anything under a Antlion Guard, this thing deals one hit kills? Who fricken cares if the bar is electrified, it still gets the job done!
 
Flyingdebris said:
a piece of rebar as a capacitor would be far fetched, because its just a piece of rebar, nothing more nothing less
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I don't know about you, but I definatly don't want to get shot by a red-hot piece of rebar anywhere. And it would cool off enough while flying so that it wouldn't go through you, more or less, it would just flatten against you.
 
ríomhaire said:
What page? I don't notice any weapons.
Click to expand...

Go to page 270 my man...the unused alternative "crossbow" is shown there along with the one we have now. It looks something like a pneumatic drill.
 
Why over any analyze it? It is just another one of Valves strange and inexplicable weapon design choices.
 
"I don't know about you, but I definatly don't want to get shot by a red-hot piece of rebar anywhere. And it would cool off enough while flying so that it wouldn't go through you, more or less, it would just flatten against you."

i meant that it would require more mechanical parts and some electronics to be a capacitor, i didn't mean a piece of rebar isn't dangerous
 
There is a setting that make the bolt catch things on fire.
 
nope, its rebar. you see the ammo clear as day in the loading tray on the crossbow. If they changed the model and animation to something where the ammo is covered then the capacitor theory would be more plausible
 
It's obviously specialy designed seeing all bolts are identical.
 
All rebar is pretty much the same. The bolts look the same because they are cut from the same tree, so to speak.
 
Its called the Hot Rod Gun, not the crossbow. thats why the rod is hot :p
 
It will be steel bar.

Steel is notoriously bad at conducting electricity and has a high resistance, so it heats up quickly. We use the same principle when arc welding, only we heat the rod so much that the electrical charge transfers molten droplets across a gap.

Steel starts to glow orange/red at around 800-900 degrees celsius. It has a melting point of 1460 degrees celsius.

I'm a welder btw, could anyone guess?
 
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