So... I've never played an archer build in Skyrim yet. I usually stick to mages, or spellswords. Anyway, today I decided on the wood elf archer, and I have to admit it is pretty fun.

I've noticed a problem though. I often find targets that are well within the range of my bow, but when I shoot at the the arrow passes clean through them. There seems to be some sort of maximum range on the hit detection system. I figured it would scale up with draw distance, but it doesn't seem to.

So anyway, I'm looking for a mod or an .ini fix or something that could be used to increase the hit range of my bows. I'm currently shooting at http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/542923341520099564/3045A8D4F42FE0571E488E6615834FD1A7172BD5/, and missing. They arent' that far away, clearly visible, and very easy to aim at. However, the arrows are going right through.

Seems a little silly.

Are you sure your just not missing them? Seriously. I've hit enemies that are way farther then that. I've had no problems

Yeah I've hit Targets really far away before
it's just really hard.
but i'm getting pretty good with archery, I turned Hud Opacity all the way down and curving my arrows when necessary

The best way to test it is, if you're on PC, open the console and type TFC. That will let you maneuver the camera so that you can see precisely where your arrow is going. I've been meaning to do this myself, because I too seem to not be able to "reach" characters at a relatively short distance away.

mammoths have some spots where u can't hit em, same with other animals, a youtube vid explains it as a "spectral arrow" where u clearly hit the thing but nothing happens, some glitch i assume since I can shoot from dragonsreach to near the front gates of whiterun

e/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmm4I0FT2M

Had this same problem on 360. I'm not missing them.
I played an archer in Oblivion and had NO trouble hitting anything in sight. Now in Skyrim arrows pass clean through anything that's not more or less with in an arms reach.

The whole archetype is broken IMO.

Near the release there was some talk about this, there was an ini setting that allows you to hit targets as far as you can see them. Can't remember what it was, but maybe search might turn up some of those old threads? If they still exist. Addditionally, the mod forums had a thread for ini tweaks, that might be another one to look for.

it's in the vid i posted

No good for people on consoles.
I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed by Bethesda. I mean, imagine the uproar if Sword play worked Morrowind style, similar to how Archery does at the moment..

I definitely agree with the OP. I love using bows, and I get a little irritated when I set up a shot that I know will hit.....and it goes through the target.

the arrow actually hits a smidgen above where you place the line. you just might be missing. anyways, congrats on becoming a bosmer archer. just work at it. i personally haven't experienced this.

There's that too, the arrow isn't launched at where you point the crosshair, but above it. This means that you need to compensate for the arrow drop only in very long range shots.

I think there is an arc when the arrow shoots. And depending on distance (and maybe the bow) the arc is different. I don't really know but I do notice sometimes I miss the shot and I thought it was because of something like this.

I just posed this yesterday, you need to add the fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist part to your INI. It will give your arrows a greater range. You can also try the other INI tweaks for more realistic arrow behavior.


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I've posted this a while back, the INI tweaks below will make the arrow behave more like in real life.
This also seems to get rid of the "auto-aim" (My guess would be the 'Magnetism' set to 0). I've been using these settings for several weeks now.
Oh, and also turn off the cross-hair for a more realistic gameplay.

Skyrim.ini:

[Combat]
fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0
fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0
f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

[Actor]
fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000

I got the idea from here:
http://zemalf.blogspot.com/2011/11/skyrim-archery-tweak.html
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Thanks! I was just having this problem last night too. I added the line to the .ini file and it seems to work great.