Ranged ammunition, accuracy and wrong armour

If a Ranged animation repeats without useful progress, check equipped ammunition and the active loadout’s accuracy. A Steam player traced hours of ineffective attacks to equipment imposing a large Ranged penalty; another had equipped only one arrow from a larger bank stack.

Diagnose attacks before leaving combat unattended

1. Select the intended combat loadout. Inspect the weapon and equipment in that loadout.
2. Read the quantity in the equipped ammo slot. Equip the required stack rather than leaving it in the bank. RiverBanks reported discovering that only one arrow had been equipped.
3. Inspect armour penalties before buying more ammunition. The thread’s original poster, whitemirc, found a −150 Ranged penalty from their equipment at Ranged level 1. That number describes that loadout, not every armour piece.
4. Remove or replace unsuitable pieces and check the displayed accuracy and chance to hit against the selected enemy. Lackadaisy, TheDiaz and aaargh independently identify the loadout or armour as a cause to investigate.
5. Watch attacks land and confirm that XP changes before starting another long session. If hits land but inflict little damage, check the target’s armour and Ward.

Match the weapon and the ammo

A weapon requiring ammunition attacks only while the correct type is equipped. Every attack attempt spends one unit unless preservation saves it. Misses consume ammo too. A full bank stack does not help after a separately equipped single arrow is spent.

Inspect the ammo slot quantity, then inspect accuracy with the intended armour equipped. Metal melee armour can impose Ranged penalties. The item comparison and current hit chance are more useful than assuming the highest defensive tier is suitable for a bow.

Base recipe chain for 100 Copper Arrows

Stage	Materials and crafts
Arrow Shaft	5 Normal Logs, 5 crafts, 100 shafts
Headless Arrows	100 shafts + 10 Feathers, 10 crafts
Copper Arrows	100 Headless Arrows + 100 Copper Arrowtips, 25 crafts

This stops at the Arrowtip input: producing the tips is a separate Smithing stage. Before bonuses, the Fletching stages take 10 + 20 + 100 = 130 seconds. The calculation excludes gathering, tip production, failed combat attacks, doubling and preservation.

Use the batch planner for each stage. Do not treat 100 completed arrows as 100 successful hits; the target’s evasion and your loadout still determine whether attempts land.

A larger hit can solve a different problem

A slow, heavy Ranged weapon can matter against armour even when a faster weapon has a shorter attack interval. Compare the actual target, hit chance and post-defence damage. No one weapon interval establishes a universal Ranged ranking.

For the Murkwoods, weapon slots also matter: a two-handed bow leaves no Offhand slot for a lantern. The darkness setup compares a one-handed crossbow with bolt options and a Maple Boomerang alternative.