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In the book, they're even worse, especially what they do with their sister.
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In Fist of the North Star the apocalypse seems to have wiped out all the bullets but few of the guns, so the guns have naturally been retooled to shoot pointed.It's only seen to hold three, but anytime it's offscreen for an instant, it's fully reloaded when we see it again. When one arrow is fired, the next immediately slides into place. Pajiramon of Digimon Tamers wields one.Later in the series, Rickert invents a machinegun-sized repeating crossbow to protect his refugee group against monsters.
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His other ranged weapon is a steampunk gunpowder cannon built into the replacement for his left arm, which he uses to turn the tide against demons. In Berserk, Guts' primary ranged weapon is a wrist-mounted repeating crossbow operated by turning a crank, which he primarily uses against humans.It also comes with an underslung Grenade Launcher. A character in Afro Samurai has one of these.Compare with Multishot when one gets similar results with a regular bow. Subtrope of Bows and Errors and Fantastic Firearms. If it is the latter, the use of magically justified Bottomless Magazines might make the Automatic Crossbow even more powerful. Others might use Schizo Tech or magic to accomplish this purposes. The most realistic options use various types of hand-powered mechanical device to produce repeating bows that are similar to Real Life historical examples but dialed up to the max. There are several ways this might be accomplished. This is no fun, as you still want said automatic weapon.
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In a bow powered by elasticity, there is no such simple source of excess energy. Automatic firearms work by using excess energy from the detonation of the propellant to reload and recock the weapon. In real life, it is much more difficult to create such a weapon than many works assume. Not only do they add instant awesome, but they allow having More Dakka.
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So the obvious solution to this dilemma is to give crossbows the ability to shoot an entire magazine of ammunition without having to reload. Sometimes in a work, the urge to use some Guns and Gunplay Tropes is just too powerful. And to those who are used to modern sporting crossbows, which are much faster to reload but also much shorter-ranged and less powerful than the typical medieval version. However, crossbows take time to reload, which can be frustrating for people used to the rapid action of modern gunfights. This is especially true in the fantasy genre, where Fantasy Gun Control is the default. Many works of fiction are set in a time period when firearms are not available, and crossbows are the nearest equivalent. note Technically, most examples are semi-automatic crossbows (one bolt per pull of the trigger), while a fully-automatic one would fire several bolts per trigger-squeeze. Automatic Crossbows are crossbows that allow the user to shoot several times before having to reload, just like modern guns do.
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