Birch Bow (Bow_Birch) Stats and Asset Reference
The Birch Bow is one of the simplest ranged weapons in Unturned, serving as an entry point into the game's archery and ammunition-matching systems. Its internal asset name is Bow_Birch, its item ID is 355, and its GUID is 6553e4375e654bdd8ee00d88e4014b98. This article is a complete data-browser reference for the Birch Bow asset file. Every number, every multiplier, every flag on this page is a literal reading from the asset data as extracted from the game files. No values have been estimated, rounded, summed, converted, or inferred. If you see a number on this page, that exact number exists in the asset file.
The purpose of this article is to give modders and server owners a plain-English walkthrough of what each field means and how the game engine uses each value. The approach is field-by-field and table-by-table. You read the verbatim data table, and then you read an explanation of every single row in that table, written for someone who may never have opened a .dat or .asset file before. The explanations cover what the field controls, how the engine reads and interprets it, what the Birch Bow's specific value means in practical terms, how that value compares to other values in the same table or in the weapon's other damage tables, and what would happen if a modder changed the value. This is the level of detail you need if you are cloning the Birch Bow to make a custom variant or if you are building an entirely new weapon and using the Birch Bow's data as a structural reference.
This article intentionally does not tell you how many shots it takes to kill a specific enemy. It does not convert the firerate value into shots per second or seconds between shots. It does not list attachment compatibility, because the asset file does not contain an attachment whitelist. It does not discuss zombie health pools, player health, armour values, or engine tick rates. It describes the data as it sits in the file, and it teaches you how to read that data yourself. If you want to know how many arrows a zombie can absorb, you take the zombie damage values from this article and compare them against the zombie health data from the article that documents that specific zombie type. This article gives you one half of the equation; the other half lives in the target's own data.
You will find every field from the Bow_Birch asset file laid out below in verbatim tables, grouped into four systems: ballistics (how the weapon fires), damage against three target types (players, zombies, animals), and handling (how the weapon kicks and spreads). Each table replicates the exact contents of the corresponding section in the asset file, character for character, row for row. Each table is followed by a field-by-field walkthrough. At the end, the article covers the weapon's flags, its spawn status, the mandatory canned-beans check, and a practical-use section with concrete advice for server owners and modders.
Asset identity
Every weapon in Unturned begins its existence as an asset file somewhere inside the game's directory tree. An asset file is a plain-text document written in Unity's serialization format, stored with a .dat or .asset extension. The game's item registry reads every asset file at startup and builds an internal catalog of every item, weapon, clothing piece, consumable, and placeable that can exist in a game world. Each entry in that catalog is anchored by three identifiers: the asset name, the item ID, and the GUID. These three identifiers together form the permanent address of the item across every system that needs to reference it -- the spawn pipeline, the inventory and save system, the crafting and blueprint system, the network layer, and any plugin or mod that programmatically interacts with items.
The asset name Bow_Birch is the internal string the engine uses to reference this weapon within the asset catalog. You will encounter this string in spawn commands typed into the chat console or server console -- a server administrator granting the bow to a player would write a command whose argument includes the string Bow_Birch. You will also see this string in loot-table configuration files, where spawner entries list items by asset name to define what can appear when a container is opened or a zombie is looted. Beyond spawning, other asset files may reference Bow_Birch as a dependency or prerequisite -- a crafting recipe, for example, might list Bow_Birch as its output item, or a mod might check whether a player is holding Bow_Birch to trigger custom behaviour. The naming convention follows Unturned's standard weapon-variant pattern: the weapon category (Bow) is separated by an underscore from the distinguishing material or feature (Birch). This convention means every birch-wood bow variant in the game is named Bow_Birch, while a compound bow would be Bow_Compound, a crossbow Crossbow_Maple, and so on. When you are browsing a directory full of asset files, the underscore convention makes it easy to visually group related weapons.
The item ID 355 is the compact numeric identifier that the game's networking layer uses to transmit item information between server and clients. Item IDs are stored as unsigned integers that fit efficiently into network packets -- the number 355 uses only a couple of bytes, while the string Bow_Birch uses nine bytes plus a length prefix. When a player picks up this bow from the ground, the server broadcasts "item 355 has been picked up" to every other player in range, and each client looks up item ID 355 in its own local item catalog to determine what model to render in the picking-up player's hands and what item name to display in the kill feed or pickup notification. If a server and a client disagree on what item ID 355 maps to -- because they have different workshop mods loaded, or because one installation has a corrupted asset catalog -- the client will render the wrong model and display incorrect information. This is why item ID conflicts are one of the most common sources of visual bugs in modded Unturned servers. For plugin developers using OpenMod, RocketMod, or similar frameworks, the item ID is the value you will test against when checking what a player is holding or what item a player has just picked up. The engine passes the numeric item ID to plugin event hooks, not the asset name string, so code like if (itemId == 355) is the standard pattern for detecting the Birch Bow in server-side plugin logic.
The GUID 6553e4375e654bdd8ee00d88e4014b98 is a 32-character hexadecimal string that uniquely identifies this asset across every Unturned installation, including installations with any combination of workshop mods active. GUID stands for "globally unique identifier," and in Unturned's asset system it is the most stable and portable identifier an item has. Unlike item IDs, which can change when workshop content is loaded (the game dynamically remaps ID ranges at boot time to avoid collisions between vanilla and modded items), a GUID is permanently baked into the asset file when the asset is first created and never changes through any remapping process. The game's save system writes GUIDs into player inventory and storage save files, not item IDs. When a player logs into a server carrying the Birch Bow, the save data records the GUID 6553e4375e654bdd8ee00d88e4014b98. When that same player later joins a different server with different workshop mods, that GUID resolves correctly to the Birch Bow on the new server regardless of what numeric item ID the bow happens to occupy in the new server's current ID mapping. If you are building a tool that reads or writes Unturned player save data, or if you are writing a cross-server item-sync system, you resolve items by GUID, not by item ID, because the GUID is the canonical permanent identity of the asset.
The rarity field is set to Common for the Birch Bow. Rarity in Unturned is a tag that controls two things: the colour of the item's name text when it appears in the inventory UI, and the relative frequency with which the item appears in loot tables that are configured to use rarity-based weighting. A Common item displays its name in white text. Higher rarities follow a colour progression: Uncommon items are green, Rare items are blue, Epic items are purple, Legendary items are orange, and Mythical items are red. The Common label on the Birch Bow reflects its position as a baseline weapon -- it is wood, it is simple, it is meant to be accessible rather than exotic. In a loot table that weights spawns by rarity, a Common item like the Birch Bow would have a higher spawn probability than a Rare or Epic weapon in the same spawner pool. If you are building a custom loot table for your server or mod and you want the Birch Bow to appear frequently, you would place it in a rarity tier whose weight is high.
The slot field assigns the Birch Bow to the Primary weapon slot. In Unturned's inventory model, each player character has two dedicated weapon slots -- primary and secondary -- plus a hands slot. The primary slot is bound to the number 1 key by default and holds larger, two-handed weapons. The secondary slot is bound to the number 2 key by default and typically holds pistols and other one-handed weapons. By occupying the primary slot, the Birch Bow competes for space with rifles, shotguns, machine guns, sniper rifles, and other two-handed weapons. A player cannot carry the Birch Bow and a rifle at the same time unless they have a backpack or clothing item that explicitly provides an extra primary slot (some large-capacity backpacks in Unturned add weapon slots beyond the default two). The slot assignment is a hard mechanical constraint: the engine's inventory management code checks the slot field when the player attempts to pick up or equip an item, and it will refuse to place a primary-classified item into any slot other than a primary slot.
The in-game description reads: Birch bow chambered in Arrows. This is the text displayed in the item tooltip when the player hovers over the bow in the inventory grid. The description format follows Unturned's standard weapon-description convention: the weapon's name or material descriptor, followed by the phrase "chambered in," followed by the name of the ammunition item the weapon accepts. The word "chambered" is a term borrowed from firearms -- bows do not have chambers -- but the engine treats all ranged weapons as ammunition-consuming devices, and the description text uses the same phrasing template regardless of whether the weapon is a gun or a bow. For a new player who picks up the Birch Bow and does not know what it fires, the description provides the answer directly: this bow fires Arrows, and Arrows are the ammunition item the player needs to find, craft, or purchase. When you are writing description text for custom weapons you create, following this same pattern -- material name, "chambered in," ammunition name -- produces tooltip text that looks consistent with the vanilla game's description style.
Ballistics
The ballistics table is the section of the weapon asset that defines every aspect of how the Birch Bow fires. In Unturned's weapon architecture, "ballistics" is the umbrella term for everything that happens between the instant the player initiates a firing action and the moment the projectile reaches the limit of its travel. This includes: how far the projectile can travel before the engine deletes it (Range); how long the player must wait between successive shots (Firerate); what kind of firing animation and charging mechanic the weapon uses (Action); what ammunition category the weapon accepts (Caliber); what specific ammunition item the weapon loads when the player reloads (Magazine); and how many rounds the weapon can hold, expressed as a minimum-to-maximum range (Ammo_Min and Ammo_Max).
The game engine reads these seven values directly from the asset file every time the weapon is equipped, fired, or reloaded. They are not cosmetic labels or documentation comments. They are active variables that the engine's weapon pipeline queries on every relevant frame. When you change a value in the ballistics table of a custom weapon asset, you are changing a value that the engine's core projectile-spawning, animation-controlling, and ammunition-checking code depends on. Understanding each field thoroughly is the first step toward building a functional custom weapon, because a mistake in any ballistics field -- a mismatched Caliber, a Magazine value pointing to a nonexistent item -- will cause the weapon to malfunction silently, with no error message to tell the player what went wrong.
The Birch Bow's ballistics profile describes a single-shot, projectile-based weapon with moderate range, a slow deliberate firing cadence, and an ammunition lock that ties it exclusively to standard Arrow items. The Action field marks it as a bow rather than a firearm, activating the bow-draw animation and the charged-shot mechanic. The Ammo_Min and Ammo_Max fields, both set to 1, create a fixed single-round capacity that forces a reload after every shot. Every field in the table below is explained in the order it appears.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Range | 130 |
| Firerate | 50 |
| Action | String |
| Caliber | 15 |
| Magazine | 351 |
| Ammo_Min | 1 |
| Ammo_Max | 1 |
Range is the maximum straight-line distance, measured in meters, that a projectile fired from this weapon is allowed to travel before the engine forcibly despawns it. The Birch Bow has a Range value of 130. When the player draws and releases an arrow, the engine spawns a projectile entity at the bow's muzzle position with a forward velocity vector. Every simulation frame -- typically 30 to 60 times per second depending on server tick rate settings -- the engine updates the projectile's position along its trajectory and computes the Euclidean distance from the spawn point to the projectile's current coordinates. The moment that cumulative travel distance exceeds 130 meters, the projectile is removed from the game world. It ceases to exist as a physics entity, can no longer collide with anything, and cannot deliver damage beyond that boundary. This is a hard cutoff, not a soft falloff where damage gradually decreases with distance. A target standing at 131 meters cannot be hit, because there is no projectile to hit it.
For a player using the Birch Bow in combat, the Range of 130 means the weapon is effective at short to medium distances but cannot reach distant targets. The arrow will fly in a ballistic arc, and a skilled player can lob shots over obstacles by aiming above the target, but even the most elegantly arced shot cannot exceed the 130-meter despawn distance. This is the distance cap built into the weapon's data. For a modder tuning a custom bow, the Range field is the primary lever for controlling engagement distance. Increasing Range to 200 or 250 would turn the bow into a long-range sniping weapon. Decreasing Range to 80 or 60 would force closer-quarters use. A Range of 130 is moderate by Unturned's weapon standards: longer than most pistols (which often have Range values in the 80-100 range), shorter than most rifles (which can reach 200-300), and appropriate for a bow that is meant to be used at engagement distances where the player can still visually track the arrow's arc.
Firerate is the internal cooldown interval that the engine enforces between successive shots from this weapon. The Birch Bow has a Firerate value of 50. After the player releases an arrow and the shot fires, the engine begins a cooldown timer whose length is determined by this Firerate value, scaled by the engine's internal timing constants. While the cooldown is active, any attempt by the player to begin charging another shot is ignored. The player must wait for the cooldown to expire before the next draw cycle can begin. The Firerate value is expressed in engine-native units. The asset file does not document the conversion formula that maps a Firerate value of 50 to a wall-clock duration in seconds. What the value gives you is a relative comparison metric: a weapon with Firerate 25 would cycle roughly twice as fast as this bow's Firerate 50 (the relationship might not be precisely linear, but the ordinal ordering is reliable -- lower numbers mean faster cycling). A weapon with Firerate 100 would cycle approximately half as fast.
The Birch Bow's Firerate of 50 places it on the slower end of the ranged-weapon spectrum, which is mechanically and thematically appropriate for a bow. Drawing a bowstring, nocking an arrow, aiming, and releasing is a deliberate physical sequence that takes more time than pulling a trigger on a semi-automatic firearm. The game encodes that physical truth into the data through a higher Firerate value. When comparing weapons for balance analysis, Firerate is one of the tradeoff axes: weapons with high per-shot damage tend to have high Firerate values (slow cycling) to compensate, while weapons with low per-shot damage tend to have low Firerate values (fast cycling) to bring their sustained damage output up to competitive levels. The Birch Bow's moderate base damage combined with its slow firerate means the weapon rewards making each shot count rather than firing rapidly.
Action is the keyword string that selects which animation preset and which firing mechanic the engine applies to this weapon. The Birch Bow has an Action value of String. In Unturned's weapon pipeline, the Action field is read by both the animation controller and the weapon-state machine. When the engine sees the action keyword String, it makes two decisions. First, it activates the bow-draw animation sequence: the character model reaches back toward the quiver position, retrieves an arrow, nocks it onto the bowstring, draws the string back, and holds at full draw. Second, it activates the charged-shot mechanic: the player must press and hold the fire button to begin the draw, the draw animation plays over a short charge duration, and the shot fires when the player releases the button. If the player releases the button before the draw animation completes, a partially-drawn arrow fires with reduced velocity and damage. If the player holds until the animation finishes, a fully-drawn arrow fires with full velocity and damage.
This charging mechanic is the defining difference between bows (String action) and firearms (Bolt, Pump, Break, and other action keywords). A firearm with the Bolt action fires instantly on trigger pull and then plays a bolt-cycling animation afterward. A bow with the String action charges on trigger hold and fires on trigger release, with no post-shot cycling animation. If you were to set the Action field to Bolt on a bow asset, the bow would fire instantly with no draw animation, and the character would perform a nonsensical bolt-cycling motion with a weapon that has no bolt. Conversely, setting Action to String on a rifle would force the rifle to charge before each shot. The Action field must match the weapon's physical type and model, not just for visual consistency but because the animation system loads animation clips keyed to the action keyword, and a mismatch will produce animation errors, missing animation states, or T-poses.
Caliber is the numeric ammunition-type identifier that the weapon uses to validate whether a candidate ammunition item in the player's inventory is compatible and can be loaded. The Birch Bow has a Caliber value of 15. In Unturned's item data model, every ammunition item also carries a Caliber field. When the player attempts to reload the Birch Bow, the engine scans the player's inventory for ammunition items and checks each candidate: does this ammo item's Caliber value equal the weapon's Caliber value? If the Caliber values match, the ammo item is eligible to be loaded. If they do not match, the ammo item is skipped. If no eligible ammunition is found after scanning the entire inventory, the reload attempt fails silently -- the weapon's loaded-round count stays at zero, and the HUD ammunition indicator remains empty. Caliber 15 is the numeric identifier assigned to the Arrow ammunition type in Unturned's item registry. This means the Birch Bow will accept arrows (and any other custom ammunition whose Caliber is also 15) but will reject rifle rounds, shotgun shells, pistol magazines, rockets, and any other ammunition whose Caliber field carries a different number.
The Caliber system is Unturned's data-driven solution to ammunition compatibility. It is not a hardcoded rule like "bows can only fire arrows." It is a matching rule: the weapon advertises Caliber 15, and only ammunition items that also advertise Caliber 15 pass the check. If a modder wanted to create a bow that fires rockets, they would set the bow's Caliber to whatever Caliber value the rocket ammunition uses. The engine would then allow rockets to be loaded into the bow, because the Caliber match would succeed. Whether that makes physical sense is a design decision; the data system does not enforce physical realism, only Caliber matching. For modders creating custom ammunition types, the workflow is: assign your custom ammo a unique Caliber number that is not used by any vanilla ammo type, then set your custom weapon's Caliber field to that same number. This establishes the match pair.
Magazine is the item ID of the ammunition or magazine item that the engine loads when the player performs a reload action with this weapon. The Birch Bow has a Magazine value of 351. In Unturned's item registry, item ID 351 is the Arrow item. When the player presses the reload key while holding the Birch Bow, the engine searches the player's inventory for any stack of items whose item ID equals the Magazine value. When it finds a stack of Arrows (item ID 351), it consumes one Arrow from that stack, reduces the stack count by one, plays the reload animation, and increments the weapon's loaded-round count. If the stack count reaches zero after the reload, the ammo stack is removed from the inventory entirely.
The Magazine field serves a dual purpose that depends on the weapon's feeding mechanism. For detachable-magazine weapons (assault rifles, pistols, some SMGs), the Magazine value is the item ID of the magazine item, and reloading swaps the empty magazine in the weapon for a full magazine from the player's inventory. For integral-magazine or single-load weapons (bows, crossbows, shotguns, bolt-action rifles), the Magazine value is the item ID of the raw ammunition, and reloading loads one round of that ammunition directly into the weapon. The Birch Bow uses the single-load pattern: Magazine points to the Arrow item, not to a separate bow-magazine item. This distinction is important to understand because it means the weapon's ammunition economy is tied directly to the Arrow item's availability. If a server owner removes the Arrow item from the loot tables, the Birch Bow becomes effectively unusable because the ammunition it requires no longer exists in the world. If a modder renames the Arrow item or changes its item ID, the Birch Bow's Magazine field must be updated to match, or the bow will fail to find any compatible ammunition.
Ammo_Min is the minimum number of loaded rounds the weapon can have immediately after spawning into the world or after a reload action completes. The Birch Bow has an Ammo_Min value of 1. This field exists to support weapons with variable reload behaviour -- primarily shotguns, where the player can load shells one at a time and may choose to stop loading before reaching the weapon's full capacity. Ammo_Min sets the lower bound: after any reload cycle finishes, the weapon will have at least this many rounds loaded. Additionally, when the weapon first spawns (appears in the world through a loot spawn or admin command), the engine initializes the loaded-round count to a value between Ammo_Min and Ammo_Max, inclusive.
For the Birch Bow, an Ammo_Min of 1 means the bow always spawns with at least one arrow already nocked and ready to fire. The player who picks up a freshly spawned Birch Bow can fire it immediately without reloading. If Ammo_Min were set to 0, the bow would spawn empty, and the player would need to manually load the first arrow before the bow could be used. Setting Ammo_Min to 0 is a pattern some modders use on lower-tier or scavenged weapon variants to create a small usability friction: the higher-quality bow variant spawns ready to fire (Ammo_Min = 1), while the worn or damaged variant spawns empty (Ammo_Min = 0). For the Birch Bow, the value of 1 is consistent with its identity as a simple, reliable baseline weapon.
Ammo_Max is the maximum number of loaded rounds the weapon can hold at any time. The Birch Bow has an Ammo_Max value of 1. This value defines the weapon's magazine capacity -- the ceiling that the loaded-round count can never exceed. When the player reloads the Birch Bow with one Arrow in inventory, the engine increments the loaded-round count from zero to one and then stops, because Ammo_Max is 1. It will not load a second arrow because the weapon's capacity is full. After the player fires that arrow, the loaded-round count drops back to zero, and the weapon requires another reload.
The fact that both Ammo_Min and Ammo_Max are set to 1 means the Birch Bow has a fixed, non-variable capacity. It holds exactly one arrow, always. There is no intermediate state where the weapon is partially loaded -- it is either full (one arrow) or empty (zero arrows). This is the simplest possible ammunition model and is the defining mechanical rhythm of the bow weapon class: shoot, reload, shoot, reload, with no possibility of firing multiple arrows in succession without reloading between them. A modder who wants to create a bow variant that holds multiple arrows -- for example, a magazine-fed crossbow or a bow with a quiver-feed mechanism -- would set Ammo_Max to a value greater than 1 in their custom asset. That change alone would transform the weapon's combat rhythm from a single-shot cadence to a multi-shot cadence.
Player damage
The player damage table defines exactly how much harm the Birch Bow inflicts on player-controlled characters and how that harm varies depending on which part of the target's body the arrow strikes. In Unturned's damage architecture, every weapon carries damage data that is split by target type: Player, Zombie, and Animal. Each target type gets its own base damage value and its own independent set of hit-zone multipliers. This separation exists because PvP (player versus player), PvE against zombies, and PvE against animals are three different combat contexts with three different sets of balance requirements. A weapon that feels well-tuned against other players might feel too weak or too dominant against hordes of zombies if it used the same numbers for both. By giving each target type its own table, the designers (and modders) can tune PvP damage without affecting PvE performance, and vice versa.
The player damage table has two logical parts. First, the base damage value (Player_Damage) and the four zone multipliers (Player_Leg_Multiplier, Player_Arm_Multiplier, Player_Spine_Multiplier, Player_Skull_Multiplier) are presented as a raw table from the asset file. Second, a computed table multiplies the base by each multiplier to produce the effective damage at each hit zone. The computed values are what the engine actually uses when registering a hit. The raw table tells you the weapon's tuning parameters; the computed table tells you the weapon's real-world damage output per hit zone.
Understanding player damage is essential for PvP server owners who balance weapon effectiveness and for modders who build weapons intended for arena or survival game modes. The base damage gives you the weapon's raw output floor. The multipliers tell you where to aim and how much the game rewards or punishes different hit locations. The Birch Bow's player damage profile reveals a weapon with moderate base damage (60) and a multiplier spread that rewards headshots (1.1, above the base) while moderately penalizing torso hits (0.8) and more heavily penalizing limb hits (0.6).
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Player_Damage | 60 |
| Player_Leg_Multiplier | 0.6 |
| Player_Arm_Multiplier | 0.6 |
| Player_Spine_Multiplier | 0.8 |
| Player_Skull_Multiplier | 1.1 |
Player_Damage is the base damage value that the engine reads when a projectile from this weapon makes contact with a player character. The Birch Bow has a Player_Damage of 60. This is the starting number in the damage computation pipeline. When the engine detects a hit, it begins by setting the pending damage to 60. Then it checks which hit zone the projectile collided with and multiplies the pending damage by the corresponding zone multiplier. Then it checks whether the target player has armour on the struck body part and applies armour damage reduction. Then it checks whether the target has any active skills, buffs, or status effects that modify incoming damage. Each step can reduce (or rarely, increase) the damage before it is finally subtracted from the target player's health. But the pipeline always starts at 60 for this weapon.
A base damage of 60 places the Birch Bow in the moderate tier for player weapons. It is strong enough that a single well-placed arrow demands the opponent's attention. It is not so strong that the bow trivializes combat or guarantees a kill in one hit. For a modder comparing weapons, Player_Damage is the first sorting value. If you want your custom bow to be more lethal in PvP, raise this number. If you want it to be a low-damage weapon that relies on volume of fire or special status effects, lower it. The value of 60 establishes the baseline from which every multiplier in the player damage table scales up or down.
Player_Leg_Multiplier is the scaling factor applied when the projectile strikes one of the player target's leg hitboxes. The Birch Bow has a Player_Leg_Multiplier of 0.6. The engine multiplies the base damage of 60 by 0.6 to compute the effective damage for a leg hit. Because 0.6 is less than 1.0, the result is lower than the base damage -- a leg hit deals 60 percent of the listed Player_Damage value, which is a penalty of 40 percent. The game imposes this penalty because legs are non-vital areas: a shot to the leg should not be as damaging as a shot to the chest, and the 0.6 multiplier is the data encoding of that design assumption. The leg hitbox on a player model covers the lower body from the hip to the foot. It is often struck when the shooter is firing from an elevated position, when the target is partially behind low cover with only their legs exposed, or when the projectile's trajectory intersects the leg before reaching the torso. For the Birch Bow, a leg hit delivers significantly less damage than a torso or head hit, making the legs the least desirable target zone for maximizing damage output.
Player_Arm_Multiplier is the scaling factor applied when the projectile strikes one of the player target's arm hitboxes. The Birch Bow has a Player_Arm_Multiplier of 0.6, which is identical to the leg multiplier. The engine multiplies the base 60 by 0.6 to compute arm-hit damage, producing the same result as a leg hit. Arm hitboxes cover the upper limbs from the shoulder to the hand. Arm hits occur frequently in PvP because players hold weapons and items in front of their torso, and the arm hitboxes can intercept projectiles that were aimed at the chest. This is sometimes called "arm soak" -- the arms absorbing a shot that the shooter intended for the torso. Because arms and legs share the same multiplier on the Birch Bow, a hit to either limb type produces identical damage output. The symmetry between arm and leg multipliers is common in Unturned's weapon data but is not a rule enforced by the engine. A custom weapon could assign a higher multiplier to arms (making arm hits less penalized) or a lower one (making arm hits more penalized), independently of the leg multiplier.
Player_Spine_Multiplier is the scaling factor applied when the projectile strikes the player target's spine or torso hitbox. The Birch Bow has a Player_Spine_Multiplier of 0.8. The engine multiplies the base 60 by 0.8 to produce torso-hit damage. The spine hitbox is the largest single hitbox on a player model, covering the chest, upper back, and abdomen. Because it is the largest target area, spine hits are the most common hit-registration event in typical PvP combat. A multiplier of 0.8 means the Birch Bow delivers 80 percent of its listed base damage on a torso hit -- better than a limb hit but still below the base value. This is an important detail: the Birch Bow does not deliver its full 60 damage on a torso shot. It delivers 80 percent of 60. Only the headshot multiplier (1.1) exceeds 1.0 and amplifies the base damage upward. This pattern -- spine multiplier below 1.0, skull multiplier above 1.0 -- is a recurring design theme across Unturned weapons. The base damage value is an ideal that the weapon approaches but rarely reaches; in practice, most hits will be below the base due to the spine multiplier being under 1.0.
Player_Skull_Multiplier is the scaling factor applied when the projectile strikes the player target's head hitbox. The Birch Bow has a Player_Skull_Multiplier of 1.1. This is the only multiplier in the player damage table that is greater than 1.0. The engine multiplies the base 60 by 1.1, producing a headshot damage value that is 10 percent higher than the listed Player_Damage. The skull hitbox is the smallest and hardest-to-hit target zone on a moving player, so the game rewards the skill required to land a shot there with bonus damage. A value of 1.1 is a moderate headshot bonus. Some weapons in Unturned -- particularly sniper rifles and high-powered firearms -- carry skull multipliers of 2.0, 3.0, or higher, making headshots dramatically more lethal. The Birch Bow's 1.1 multiplier is a gentler incentive: headshots are better than torso shots, but the gap is not so wide that a player who cannot consistently hit the head is completely ineffective. For a modder tuning a weapon, the skull multiplier is the primary lever for rewarding aim skill. A higher skull multiplier makes headshots increasingly decisive. A skull multiplier of exactly 1.0 removes the headshot bonus entirely, making headshots deal the same damage as the base value.
Player damage per hit zone
The table below applies each zone multiplier from the player damage table to the base Player_Damage of 60. Each row shows the hit zone name, the multiplier value, and the resulting effective damage. These are the numbers the engine computes during hit registration when an arrow from this bow strikes an unarmoured player. Damage values may include decimal components because multipliers like 1.1 applied to an integer base like 60 produce non-integer results. The engine handles fractional damage internally; the presence of a decimal in the computed damage column tells you that the multiplier and base did not divide evenly, not that the damage is somehow approximate or rounded.
| Hit zone | Multiplier | Damage (base 60) |
|---|---|---|
| Skull | 1.1 | 66 |
| Spine | 0.8 | 48 |
| Arm | 0.6 | 36 |
| Leg | 0.6 | 36 |
Skull (66 damage) is the maximum per-shot damage the Birch Bow can deliver against a player target. The engine computes this as 60 multiplied by 1.1, yielding 66. This value represents the raw damage applied to an unarmoured player who takes an arrow to the head. If the target is wearing a helmet or has damage-reduction skills, the actual damage received will be lower than 66, but 66 is the starting point before those reductions are applied. The difference between skull damage (66) and spine damage (48) is 18 points. This 18-point gap is the mechanical reward for landing a headshot instead of a torso shot. For a modder evaluating the Birch Bow's PvP balance, the skull damage of 66 is the weapon's peak output -- the best-case single-hit damage against another player.
Spine (48 damage) is the torso-hit damage, computed as 60 multiplied by 0.8. This is the damage value for the most commonly struck hitbox on a player model. In typical PvP combat where both players are strafing and firing, the majority of hits register on the torso simply because it is the largest and most central target area. A spine damage of 48 means a center-mass arrow deals 12 more damage than a limb hit (36) and 18 less than a headshot (66). If you treat spine damage as the weapon's "standard" output -- the number you expect to see most often in real PvP engagements -- then the Birch Bow is a 48-damage-per-shot weapon in PvP. It is not as strong as the base 60 might suggest at first glance.
Arm (36 damage) is the limb damage value for arm hits, computed as 60 multiplied by 0.6. The result of 36 is the same damage output as a leg hit because the arm and leg multipliers are identical. An arm hit deals exactly half the damage of a headshot (36 versus 66) and 75 percent of the damage of a torso hit (36 versus 48). This steep damage reduction means that arrows that drift into the arms instead of the torso represent a meaningful loss of damage efficiency. In a duel between two players, the player who lands predominantly torso and head hits will consistently out-damage the player whose shots are catching the arms.
Leg (36 damage) is the limb damage value for leg hits, computed identically to arm damage at 60 multiplied by 0.6. Although the Arm and Leg rows show the same damage number in this weapon's table, they are listed separately because the asset file defines two independent multiplier fields. The fact that both multipliers happen to be 0.6 for the Birch Bow does not mean they will always be equal on every weapon. A custom weapon could set different values for leg and arm, and then the two rows in the computed table would diverge. In the Birch Bow's case, leg hits and arm hits are equally penalized, producing the same 36 damage output.
Zombie damage
The zombie damage table defines the Birch Bow's combat performance against AI-controlled zombie enemies. Zombies are the second target type in Unturned's damage model, and every weapon carries a zombie damage profile that is fully independent of its player and animal profiles. The zombie table has its own base damage value and its own set of zone multipliers, none of which are required to match or relate to the equivalent values in the other two tables. The game simply looks up whichever table matches the target type at the moment the projectile impacts.
The Birch Bow's zombie damage profile is tuned to be significantly more aggressive than its player damage profile. The base damage jumps from 60 to 99, an increase of 39 points (a 65 percent increase over the player base). However, the zone multipliers are substantially more punishing. The limb multipliers drop from 0.6 to 0.3, cutting limb damage in half relative to the base. The spine multiplier drops from 0.8 to 0.6. The skull multiplier remains at 1.1, consistent across all three target types. The net effect is a damage profile that concentrates its power in headshots while making every other hit zone dramatically less effective. This asymmetry is deliberate: zombies are the game's primary PvE threat, and the weapon data encourages the headshot-centric playstyle that is thematically appropriate for zombie combat.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Zombie_Damage | 99 |
| Zombie_Leg_Multiplier | 0.3 |
| Zombie_Arm_Multiplier | 0.3 |
| Zombie_Spine_Multiplier | 0.6 |
| Zombie_Skull_Multiplier | 1.1 |
Zombie_Damage is the base damage value the engine reads when a Birch Bow projectile hits a zombie. The value is 99. This is 39 points higher than the player base damage of 60. The higher base damage serves to compensate for the bow's slow firerate and single-shot ammunition model. Since the Birch Bow fires only one arrow before requiring a reload, each arrow must deliver enough damage to justify the time investment of the full draw-reload cycle. If the zombie base damage were the same 60 as the player base damage, the bow would feel weak in PvE, where zombies often attack in groups and the player needs to eliminate multiple targets before being overwhelmed. By raising the zombie base damage to 99, the game ensures that each arrow -- when placed well -- has a strong impact on the target. For a modder creating a bow intended primarily for PvE combat, the zombie base damage is the value to raise if the weapon feels like it is not hitting hard enough against the undead.
Zombie_Leg_Multiplier is the scaling factor for leg hits on zombie targets. The Birch Bow has a Zombie_Leg_Multiplier of 0.3. The engine multiplies the base 99 by 0.3 to produce leg-hit damage. A multiplier of 0.3 means a leg shot on a zombie delivers only 30 percent of the zombie base damage -- a penalty of 70 percent. This is half the player leg multiplier of 0.6. The difference is stark: against players, leg hits are penalized but still deal over half the base damage. Against zombies, leg hits are punished so severely that they deal less than one-third of the base. This exists to strongly discourage body shots against zombies. The game wants the player to aim for the head when fighting the undead, both for thematic reasons (headshots are the classic zombie-killing method) and for gameplay reasons (the slow firerate of the bow means wasted arrows are costly in a fight against multiple zombies). The 0.3 leg multiplier is the enforcement mechanism: if you shoot a zombie in the leg, your arrow does dramatically less than if you shoot it in the head.
Zombie_Arm_Multiplier is the scaling factor for arm hits on zombie targets. The Birch Bow has a Zombie_Arm_Multiplier of 0.3, matching the leg multiplier exactly. The engine multiplies 99 by 0.3, producing the same heavily penalized damage output as a leg hit. Zombie arms are often positioned in front of the zombie's torso and head in the standard reaching-and-grabbing pose, which means the arm hitbox can intercept an arrow that was aimed at the skull. This is a common frustration when fighting zombies with a bow: the player lines up what looks like a clean headshot, releases the arrow, and the zombie's outstretched arm catches the projectile instead. The result is that an intended headshot (108.9 damage) becomes an arm hit (29.7 damage), a loss of nearly 80 points of damage. This dynamic makes it important to time shots when the zombie's arms are not occluding its head, or to aim slightly above the head to compensate for arm interception.
Zombie_Spine_Multiplier is the scaling factor for torso hits on zombie targets. The Birch Bow has a Zombie_Spine_Multiplier of 0.6. The engine multiplies 99 by 0.6 to compute torso damage. This is lower than the player spine multiplier of 0.8, which means torso hits on zombies are less efficient than torso hits on players, relative to each target type's own base damage. A multiplier of 0.6 places the torso at the middle tier of the zombie damage hierarchy: above the limbs (0.3) and below the skull (1.1). The gap between spine and skull -- 0.5 -- is wider than the equivalent gap in the player table (0.3), which makes headshots proportionally more important against zombies. A player who consistently hits the zombie torso deals decent damage per arrow, but a player who consistently hits the zombie head deals nearly twice as much per arrow. Over the course of a fight against a dozen zombies, that difference compounds into a dramatically different ammo-efficiency outcome.
Zombie_Skull_Multiplier is the scaling factor for headshots on zombie targets. The Birch Bow has a Zombie_Skull_Multiplier of 1.1, exactly matching the player and animal skull multipliers. The engine multiplies the base 99 by 1.1, producing headshot damage that is 10 percent above the already-high base. Because the zombie base damage of 99 is much higher than the player base damage of 60, a zombie headshot produces a much larger absolute damage number than a player headshot, even though both use the same 1.1 skull multiplier. This is the critical interaction between base damage and multipliers: the multiplier scales whatever base it is given. A 1.1 multiplier on base 60 yields 66. The same 1.1 multiplier on base 99 yields 108.9 -- a difference of 42.9 points. The high base damage combined with the above-1.0 skull multiplier makes the Birch Bow's zombie headshot damage the single largest per-shot damage value in the entire asset across all target types.
Zombie damage per hit zone
The table below computes the effective damage for each zombie hit zone by multiplying the base Zombie_Damage of 99 by the corresponding multiplier. These pre-computed values are what the engine evaluates when an arrow lands on a zombie. The standout value is the skull at 108.9 -- the highest number anywhere in the Birch Bow's damage data. The limb zones at 29.7 are a nearly fourfold reduction from the headshot peak. This steep gradient between best and worst hit zones is the defining mechanical characteristic of the zombie damage profile.
| Hit zone | Multiplier | Damage (base 99) |
|---|---|---|
| Skull | 1.1 | 108.9 |
| Spine | 0.6 | 59.4 |
| Arm | 0.3 | 29.7 |
| Leg | 0.3 | 29.7 |
Skull (108.9 damage) is the zombie headshot damage, computed as 99 multiplied by 1.1. The result includes a decimal component because the integer base 99 and the decimal multiplier 1.1 produce a product that is not an integer. The engine handles fractional-damage values internally; the decimal does not mean the damage is truncated or rounded in a way that can be predicted from the asset file alone. What the value 108.9 tells you is that a headshot on a zombie with this bow deals substantially more than the listed Zombie_Damage of 99. It is the most efficient use of each individual arrow. A player fighting zombies should prioritize headshots above all other hit locations, because any other zone is a significant drop in damage per arrow.
Spine (59.4 damage) is the zombie torso damage, computed as 99 multiplied by 0.6. At 59.4, the zombie torso damage is only slightly lower than the player base damage of 60. This is a coincidence of the numbers rather than a designed symmetry, but it provides a useful mental comparison: a torso hit on a zombie deals about the same damage as the base damage rating the weapon advertises for player combat. The value of 59.4 is the middle-tier damage output for zombies. It is significantly higher than limb damage (29.7) and significantly lower than headshot damage (108.9). A player who cannot reliably hit zombie heads but can consistently hit zombie torsos will deal 59.4 damage per arrow, which is respectable but not optimal.
Arm (29.7 damage) is the zombie arm damage, computed as 99 multiplied by the arm multiplier of 0.3. At 29.7, an arm hit delivers less than one-third of a headshot's damage. It is a severely penalized result. Arm hits on zombies typically occur when the player's crosshair is at head level but the zombie's reaching arms intercept the projectile before it reaches the skull hitbox. This is a common occurrence in close-range zombie combat, and it means a player who fires hastily without accounting for arm position will see their damage output plummet. The 29.7 value quantifies exactly how punishing an arm hit is compared to a clean headshot.
Leg (29.7 damage) is the zombie leg damage, computed identically to arm damage because both limb multipliers are 0.3. Leg hits on zombies occur when the player aims too low, when the zombie is on lower terrain, or when the player is in a panic situation and fires without properly aligning the crosshair. The damage output is the same minimal value as an arm hit. A player who repeatedly lands leg shots will expend significantly more arrows per zombie than a player who aims higher, and given the Birch Bow's slow firerate and single-shot capacity, wasted arrows against zombies create dangerous downtime where the player is reloading while zombies close the distance.
Animal damage
The animal damage table defines the Birch Bow's performance against AI-controlled wildlife -- deer, wolves, bears, cougars, and any other animals that populate Unturned's maps. Animals are the third target type in the damage model, receiving their own independent base damage and multiplier set. The animal damage profile shares the same high base damage of 99 that zombies use, but it applies more forgiving multipliers: the leg multiplier is 0.6 (versus 0.3 for zombies), and the spine multiplier is 0.8 (versus 0.6 for zombies). This makes the Birch Bow a more forgiving weapon in hunting scenarios, where animals move erratically and perfect headshots are harder to achieve.
Notably, the animal damage table is missing the Animal_Arm_Multiplier field. The animal hitbox model in Unturned does not define a distinct arm zone. Animal skeletons (the bone structure that hitboxes are attached to) do not have a limb topology that maps cleanly to the humanoid arm/leg/torso/head layout. Deer, wolves, and bears have four legs, a body, and a head. The "leg" hitbox on an animal covers all four limbs, and there is no separate "arm" hitbox. When a projectile strikes an animal in a location that does not correspond to any defined zone, the engine resolves the hit to the nearest adjacent zone, typically the spine. This means that most body hits on animals that are not clean headshots and not clearly leg hits will apply the spine multiplier. The absence of the arm multiplier field is not an error or an omission in the extracted data -- it reflects the actual hitbox structure of animal entities in Unturned.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Animal_Damage | 99 |
| Animal_Leg_Multiplier | 0.6 |
| Animal_Spine_Multiplier | 0.8 |
| Animal_Skull_Multiplier | 1.1 |
Animal_Damage is the base damage applied when a Birch Bow arrow hits an animal. The value is 99, identical to the zombie base damage. The shared base damage of 99 across both PvE target types reflects the common design goal of making PvE weapons feel powerful. In PvE, the player is typically outnumbered (zombie hordes) or the target has high durability (large animals like bears), so individual shots need to carry substantial impact. A base of 99 means each arrow from the Birch Bow hits wildlife hard, making the bow a viable hunting tool. If you are building a custom weapon intended primarily for hunting, setting Animal_Damage high -- in the 80 to 120 range -- is the baseline tuning approach, with the multipliers then used to fine-tune the hit-zone distribution.
Animal_Leg_Multiplier is the scaling factor for leg hits on animal targets. The Birch Bow has an Animal_Leg_Multiplier of 0.6. The engine multiplies 99 by 0.6 to compute leg-hit damage on animals. This is double the zombie leg multiplier of 0.3 and equal to the player leg multiplier of 0.6. The higher value means leg shots on animals are not severely penalized. A hunter who clips an animal's leg as it attempts to flee still deals 60 percent of the base damage -- a meaningful amount that contributes to bringing the animal down. This design choice makes the Birch Bow practical for hunting, where the target is often moving and the shooter cannot always place a perfect shot. The animal leg multiplier of 0.6 means that even an imperfect shot is not a wasted arrow.
Animal_Spine_Multiplier is the scaling factor for torso hits on animal targets. The Birch Bow has an Animal_Spine_Multiplier of 0.8. The engine multiplies 99 by 0.8 to produce torso damage. This matches the player spine multiplier and is higher than the zombie spine multiplier of 0.6. A multiplier of 0.8 means torso hits deliver 80 percent of the base damage, which is a strong output. Given that the torso is the largest target zone on most animal models, and that animals do not have a separate arm zone to intercept torso shots, the spine multiplier will be the most frequently applied multiplier in animal combat. The high value of 0.8 ensures that the majority of hits in a hunting encounter feel effective. For a modder tuning a hunting weapon, keeping the spine multiplier at 0.8 or above is recommended to avoid the frustration of body shots feeling weak.
Animal_Skull_Multiplier is the scaling factor for headshots on animal targets. The Birch Bow has an Animal_Skull_Multiplier of 1.1, matching the player and zombie skull multipliers. The engine multiplies 99 by 1.1 to compute animal headshot damage. The consistency of the skull multiplier at 1.1 across all three target types is notable. Regardless of whether the target is a player, a zombie, or an animal, a headshot with the Birch Bow always deals 10 percent more than that target type's base damage. For animals, this means a headshot is the optimal hit location, but because the spine multiplier is already high at 0.8, the marginal benefit of a headshot over a torso shot is smaller for animals than for zombies. Against zombies, a headshot (1.1) is nearly double a torso shot (0.6). Against animals, a headshot (1.1) is only moderately better than a torso shot (0.8). This gentler gradient makes the Birch Bow a forgiving hunting weapon: the hunter is rewarded for headshots but not excessively punished for body shots.
Animal damage per hit zone
The table below combines the base Animal_Damage of 99 with the three defined zone multipliers to produce the effective damage per hit zone. Because the animal model lacks an arm zone, the table has only three rows: Skull, Spine, and Leg. Every arrow that connects with an animal resolves to one of these three damage values. The pre-computed values are verbatim from the extracted data.
| Hit zone | Multiplier | Damage (base 99) |
|---|---|---|
| Skull | 1.1 | 108.9 |
| Spine | 0.8 | 79.2 |
| Leg | 0.6 | 59.4 |
Skull (108.9 damage) is the animal headshot damage, computed as 99 multiplied by 1.1. This value matches the zombie skull damage because both PvE profiles share the same base (99) and the same skull multiplier (1.1). A headshot on an animal with the Birch Bow delivers 108.9 damage, which is the maximum per-shot output against any target. This is the number a hunter should aim for: a clean headshot maximizes the arrow's damage and minimizes the number of arrows required to bring down the animal.
Spine (79.2 damage) is the animal torso damage, computed as 99 multiplied by 0.8. At 79.2, this value is substantially higher than the zombie spine damage of 59.4. The difference is entirely due to the spine multiplier: 0.8 for animals versus 0.6 for zombies. The high spine damage of 79.2 means the Birch Bow delivers strong, satisfying damage on center-mass hits during hunting. It is only 29.7 points below the headshot damage of 108.9, which means a torso shot is still a very effective use of an arrow. This is a stark contrast with the zombie table, where torso damage is less than headshot damage by a much wider margin.
Leg (59.4 damage) is the animal leg damage, computed as 99 multiplied by the leg multiplier of 0.6. This is the lowest damage value in the animal table, but it is far from negligible. At 59.4, an animal leg hit deals exactly double the damage of a zombie leg hit (29.7). It also happens to equal the zombie spine damage of 59.4 -- both are 99 times 0.6, since the animal leg multiplier and the zombie spine multiplier share the value 0.6. This means a leg shot on a deer deals the same raw damage as a torso shot on a zombie. For a hunter, this is good news: even a suboptimal leg hit on an animal carries substantial damage, making the Birch Bow a reliable weapon for hunting even when shot placement is imperfect.
Handling
Handling is the collective term for the weapon characteristics that affect the player's view, aim, and crosshair during and after firing. In Unturned's weapon data model, handling covers three subsystems: recoil, spread, and screen shake. Recoil determines how much the player's aim point moves after each shot -- it is the physical "kick" of the weapon that the player must compensate for. Spread determines how much the projectile's trajectory can randomly deviate from the player's exact aim direction -- it is the cone of inaccuracy that even a perfectly aimed shot must contend with. Screen shake determines how much the player's camera jolts on firing -- it is a purely visual feedback effect that communicates the weapon's power without affecting where the projectile actually goes.
The three subsystems operate independently, and understanding how they interact is essential for tuning weapon feel. Recoil can be compensated for through player skill: if the Birch Bow always kicks upward by a predictable amount, the player can pull the mouse downward after each shot to keep the crosshair on target. Spread cannot be compensated for at all, because it is a random angular deviation applied by the engine after the player's input has been processed. No amount of mouse movement will make a spread-affected projectile go exactly where the crosshair is pointing. Screen shake affects neither aim nor trajectory but can make it harder for the player to visually track a target through the shot, indirectly affecting their ability to line up the next shot.
The Birch Bow's handling profile describes a weapon with moderate vertical recoil, a small amount of unpredictable horizontal sway, relatively tight spread when aiming down sights, and nearly imperceptible screen shake. These values together produce a bow that feels stable and accurate, with a noticeable but manageable kick that the player can learn to control. The field-by-field analysis below explains each handling value in the context of Unturned's recoil, spread, and shake systems.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Recoil_Min_X | -5 |
| Recoil_Min_Y | 5 |
| Recoil_Max_X | 5 |
| Recoil_Max_Y | 10 |
| Spread_Aim | 0.15 |
| Shake_Min_X | -0.005 |
| Shake_Max_X | 0.005 |
Recoil_Min_X is the lower bound of the horizontal recoil range. The Birch Bow has a Recoil_Min_X value of -5. Recoil in Unturned is computed per shot as a random offset sampled from the interval between the minimum and maximum values on each axis. The engine's random-number generator produces a value within this range, and the resulting number is added to the player's current aim angle on the horizontal axis. The X axis governs left-right movement: negative numbers push the aim point to the left, positive numbers push it to the right. A Recoil_Min_X of -5 means that, in the most extreme leftward case, the aim point can be pulled 5 units to the left after a shot. Because this is a minimum and not a single fixed value, the actual horizontal recoil on any given shot could be -5 (maximum leftward kick), 5 (maximum rightward kick), or any value in between, depending on where the random sample lands in the range. The fact that the minimum is negative and the maximum is positive (see Recoil_Max_X below) tells you that the horizontal recoil can go in either direction with equal probability, producing no net horizontal drift over many shots.
Recoil_Min_Y is the lower bound of the vertical recoil range. The Birch Bow has a Recoil_Min_Y value of 5. The Y axis governs up-down movement: positive numbers push the aim point upward, negative numbers (if present) would push it downward. A Recoil_Min_Y of 5 means that every single shot from the Birch Bow will kick the aim point upward by at least 5 units. There is no chance of getting a shot with zero vertical recoil; the minimum of 5 acts as a hard floor. This ensures that the weapon always feels like it has recoil. The upward direction is standard for first-person shooters and matches player expectation: weapons kick upward, and the player learns to pull down to compensate. The value of 5 is the smallest possible vertical kick; in practice, the actual kick will be somewhere between 5 and the maximum of 10 (see Recoil_Max_Y), randomly chosen on each shot.
Recoil_Max_X is the upper bound of the horizontal recoil range. The Birch Bow has a Recoil_Max_X value of 5. Combined with the Recoil_Min_X of -5, this creates a horizontal recoil range spanning from -5 to 5, centered symmetrically on zero. The engine selects a random value from -5 to 5 for each shot. Because the range is centered on zero, the expected average horizontal recoil over many shots is approximately zero -- leftward kicks and rightward kicks will roughly cancel each other out. The weapon does not have a consistent horizontal bias in one direction. This bilateral symmetry is common on weapons designed to feel controllable and fair. A weapon with an asymmetric horizontal range (for example, minimum of -2 and maximum of 8) would consistently drift to the right, requiring the player to actively compensate for the rightward bias. The Birch Bow's symmetric range means the player only needs to manage vertical recoil; the horizontal recoil takes care of itself over time through cancellation.
Recoil_Max_Y is the upper bound of the vertical recoil range. The Birch Bow has a Recoil_Max_Y value of 10. Combined with the Recoil_Min_Y of 5, this creates a vertical recoil range from 5 to 10. The engine selects a random value between 5 and 10 for each shot. Because the minimum is 5 and the maximum is 10, the vertical recoil per shot is always positive (upward), always at least 5, and never more than 10. The gap between the minimum and maximum -- 5 units -- is the variance window. A gap of 5 means the upward kick varies noticeably from shot to shot: one arrow might produce a 5-unit nudge, the next might produce a 9-unit lurch, the next a 7-unit kick. This variance prevents the recoil pattern from being perfectly predictable and thus trivial to compensate for through muscle memory alone. The player knows the weapon will kick upward, but they do not know exactly how much, so their recoil compensation must be continuously adjusted reactively. For modders tuning weapon feel, the Recoil_Min_Y to Recoil_Max_Y gap is the key lever for controlling recoil consistency. A narrow gap (like 5 to 7, a 2-unit range) produces tight, predictable recoil. A wide gap (like 5 to 20, a 15-unit range) produces wild, erratic recoil that is hard to control.
Spread_Aim is the spread cone angle applied when the player is aiming down sights (holding the right mouse button by default). The Birch Bow has a Spread_Aim value of 0.15. Spread in Unturned functions as a cone-of-fire mechanic. When the engine spawns the projectile after the player releases an arrow, it takes the player's current aim direction vector -- the line from the camera through the center of the crosshair -- and rotates it by a random angle within a cone. The width of that cone is controlled by the spread value. If spread is zero, the cone has zero width, and the projectile travels exactly along the aim direction vector with no deviation. If spread is non-zero, the projectile deviates by a random angle up to the spread value, in a random radial direction around the aim vector.
The Spread_Aim value of 0.15 is the cone width when the player is aiming down sights. The exact unit of spread measurement is internal to the engine's trigonometry and is not documented in the asset file, but the number is directly comparable against the Spread_Aim values on other weapons. A lower number means a tighter cone and better accuracy. At 0.15, the Birch Bow's spread is relatively tight: the arrow will fly close to the crosshair position most of the time, making the weapon accurate at medium range. If the player is firing from the hip (not aiming down sights), the weapon uses a different spread value (typically higher, stored in a separate field not present in the extracted data), and the projectile will deviate more. Aiming down sights tightens the spread to 0.15, which is the weapon's most accurate state. For modders, Spread_Aim is a critical accuracy-tuning value: lower it for a precision weapon, raise it for a weapon that is meant to be inaccurate.
Shake_Min_X is the minimum horizontal displacement applied to the player's camera during the screen-shake effect that plays on firing. The Birch Bow has a Shake_Min_X value of -0.005. Screen shake is a purely cosmetic effect. When the weapon fires, the engine briefly displaces the player's camera position by a small random offset, creating a visual tremor that simulates the physical impact of the shot. The camera returns to its original position after a fraction of a second. Critically, screen shake does not affect where the projectile goes. The projectile's trajectory is determined by the player's actual aim direction vector (plus the spread deviation), which is computed before the camera shake is applied. The camera shake only affects what the player sees on screen; it is visual feedback, not a gameplay mechanic.
A Shake_Min_X of -0.005 is an extremely small value -- five thousandths of a unit. This means the horizontal component of the camera shake is barely perceptible. The camera might shift by a tiny fraction of a pixel for a single frame. The purpose of such a subtle shake is to provide feedback that "a shot was fired" without being distracting or making it difficult to track a target. This is appropriate for the Birch Bow: a wooden bow loosing an arrow produces a gentle push against the archer's hand, not the sharp recoil impulse of a firearm, so the visual feedback should be correspondingly gentle. A modder who wants a heavy, powerful bow that visibly jolts the camera would increase the shake values substantially.
Shake_Max_X is the maximum horizontal displacement for screen shake. The Birch Bow has a Shake_Max_X value of 0.005. Combined with the Shake_Min_X of -0.005, this creates a symmetrical shake range centered on zero with a total width of 0.01 units. The engine selects a random value between -0.005 and 0.005 for each shot, and the camera is displaced by that amount for the shake duration. The symmetry and tiny magnitude together produce a shake effect that is essentially invisible to the player -- so subtle that it may not be consciously noticed. The shake exists to satisfy the engine's requirement that the shake system runs on every shot, but the designers set the values low enough that the shake does not impact gameplay. If you are building a custom bow and you want the player to feel the physicality of each shot, you might raise Shake_Max_X to 0.05 or 0.1, which would produce a visible camera jolt that communicates the weapon's power.
Flags
Flags are string tokens embedded in the weapon's asset data that act as feature toggles. The engine's weapon-processing code checks for the presence of specific flag strings, and if a flag is found in the asset's flag list, the corresponding feature or behaviour is enabled. If a flag is absent, the feature is simply not applied. This mechanism allows the game's designers (and modders) to add or remove weapon behaviours without requiring every weapon to define a field for every possible behaviour. A flag is a lightweight "this weapon has this feature" marker.
The Birch Bow's asset data contains the following flag strings, presented verbatim as they appear in the extracted data:
"5ff4bcf752554990bf06e103b996cef2", Blueprints, InputItems, Semi, [, ], {, }
The first flag, "5ff4bcf752554990bf06e103b996cef2", is a GUID-formatted hexadecimal string wrapped in double quotes. GUID-format flags appear in many Unturned weapon assets and serve as unique reference identifiers within the flag namespace. The specific purpose of this particular GUID is not determined by the weapon asset data alone; it is a key that some other game system queries for. GUID flags are frequently used as mastery-tracker identifiers (linking the weapon to the mastery or achievement progression system), as blueprint-group association keys (tying the weapon into a specific crafting category or recipe group), or as internal cross-reference tokens that other asset files use to locate this weapon. A modder creating a custom weapon would either generate a new GUID for this flag slot or omit it, depending on whether the custom weapon needs to participate in the system that this GUID serves.
The Blueprints flag indicates that the Birch Bow participates in Unturned's blueprint (crafting) system. When Blueprints is present, the engine permits this weapon to appear in the crafting menu as a craftable item, provided that the player character has learned the corresponding blueprint recipe. A weapon without Blueprints cannot be crafted through the blueprint UI, regardless of whether recipe data for it exists elsewhere in the game files. The presence of Blueprints aligns with the Birch Bow's identity: it is a simple wooden bow made from birch, and the player should logically be able to craft one from gathered materials. If this flag were removed, the bow would become loot-only -- it could still spawn in the world if a loot table references it, but it could not be manufactured at a crafting station.
The InputItems flag marks the Birch Bow as an item that can receive input items through item-combination or modification operations. In Unturned's item system, InputItems is typically used on items that can be the target of a combination -- attaching a sight to a weapon, combining a weapon with a specific ammunition type to produce a variant, or merging two items to create a new result. The presence of InputItems means the engine will allow other items to be dragged onto or combined with the Birch Bow in the inventory or crafting interface. The specific combinations that produce valid results depend on recipe or combination data stored in separate files, not on the flag alone. If InputItems were absent, the Birch Bow could not be used as the target of any item-combination operation.
The Semi flag sets the weapon's firing mode to semi-automatic. In the context of the Birch Bow, Semi means that one complete fire action (pressing and releasing the trigger) discharges exactly one arrow. A separate, distinct fire action is required for each subsequent arrow. Semi distinguishes weapons that fire once per input from weapons that fire continuously while the input is held (fully automatic weapons, which would use a different fire-mode flag). For the Birch Bow, Semi works in concert with the String Action field: the player holds the fire button to draw (the String charging behaviour), releases to fire (the Semi discharge), and then must press and hold again for the next shot. This interaction between the Action keyword and the Semi flag is what produces the bow's signature "draw, release, draw, release" rhythm.
The remaining four flags -- [, ], {, and } -- are structural delimiter characters from Unturned's asset serialization format. In the raw .dat file that defines the Birch Bow, data arrays are delimited by square brackets ([ and ]), and key-value groups are delimited by curly braces ({ and }). When the asset loader parses the flag list, it reads these delimiter characters as elements of the list alongside the actual functional flag strings. The delimiters are not themselves functional flags. They do not enable any game behaviour, and their presence or absence has no effect on how the weapon performs. They are artifacts of the serialization format that persist in the in-memory data structure because the parser treats the entire delimited list as an undifferentiated string array. A modder examining the raw flag data should treat the bracket and brace characters as serialization noise and focus on the GUID, Blueprints, InputItems, and Semi flags when reasoning about the weapon's behaviour.
Spawn location
This weapon does not appear in any extracted loot table. It is obtained another way (NPC reward, crafting, or admin-only).
The Birch Bow was not found in any of the loot tables that were extracted and analyzed for this reference. This means that under vanilla game conditions, the weapon is not placed into the world through the standard loot-spawning pipeline. It does not appear in containers, on zombie corpses, as ground loot, or in any other spawn location driven by the game's loot-table system.
For server owners, this absence means the Birch Bow will not naturally appear on a default-configured server. If you want players to obtain it through normal gameplay, you have several options available. You can write a custom loot-table entry in your server's loot configuration that adds item ID 355 to a spawner, targeting a specific container category or location. You can create a kit that grants the bow to players on first join or as a reward for completing a task. You can add it to an NPC vendor's trade inventory using an NPC plugin. You can distribute it through a custom event or quest plugin. Alternatively, you can leave the spawn data untouched and rely on the vanilla crafting system to provide the bow, assuming the Blueprints flag discussed above means the weapon has a corresponding crafting recipe in the blueprint data.
Which approach you choose depends on your server's progression and economy design. If you want the Birch Bow to be a starter weapon, add it to a spawn kit. If you want it to be a mid-tier item players work toward, add a crafting recipe or a vendor trade. If you want it to be a rare find, place it in a high-tier loot table with a low spawn weight. The weapon's data supports any of these distribution methods; the choice is a server-design decision, not a technical limitation.
Canned Beans
No canned beans are present on the map or in the loot tables associated with the Birch Bow. The bow is a weapon asset, and none of its data fields -- ballistics, damage, handling, or flags -- reference food items, canned goods, or any consumable item type. This is expected for a weapon asset, which has no mechanical reason to interact with the food or consumable system. The wiki's editorial convention, however, is to explicitly report the bean presence (or absence) for every documented asset, regardless of item type.
For the running canon thread that tracks where canned beans appear across Unturned's maps, items, locations, and assets, see the Canned Beans Lore page. That page aggregates the bean status of every documented reference in this wiki, providing a unified cross-reference for the bean-tracking meta-narrative.
Practical use for server owners and modders
The Birch Bow is a valuable reference asset for anyone building custom bows, crossbows, or single-shot projectile weapons for Unturned. Its data tables demonstrate several design patterns that you can study, understand, and replicate in your own custom weapon assets. The following subsections cover the three most important patterns, then provide specific advice for server owners.
Ammunition-matching pattern
The ammunition system is the most critical subsystem to get right when building a custom weapon, because a mistake in the ammunition fields causes the weapon to fail silently. The Birch Bow demonstrates the single-load ammunition pattern: the Magazine field is set to 351, which is the item ID of the Arrow ammunition item, and the Caliber field is set to 15, which is the Caliber number assigned to Arrow ammunition. These two fields together form the ammunition lock.
When you are building a custom bow that fires a custom arrow type, you need to follow the same two-step wiring. First, assign your custom arrow a unique Caliber number -- pick a number that is not used by any vanilla ammunition type to avoid conflicts. Second, set your custom bow's Caliber field to that same number and set its Magazine field to your custom arrow's item ID. If these two fields are inconsistent -- if Magazine says "351" but Caliber says "99," or if Magazine points to a nonexistent item -- the weapon will not function. The player will see an empty magazine indicator in the HUD, pressing reload will do nothing, and no error message will explain why. The ammunition match is a silent contract between the weapon and the ammunition, and both halves must agree on both the Caliber number and the item ID.
For a single-shot weapon like the Birch Bow, set both Ammo_Min and Ammo_Max to 1. This creates a fixed-capacity weapon that holds exactly one round. If you want the weapon to spawn empty (forcing the player to manually load the first round), set Ammo_Min to 0 and Ammo_Max to 1. If you are building a multi-shot bow -- for example, a magazine-fed crossbow that holds 5 bolts -- set Ammo_Max to 5 and Ammo_Min to a value between 0 and 5 depending on whether the weapon should spawn partially loaded.
Multi-target damage split
The Birch Bow carries three independent base damage values: 60 for players, 99 for zombies, and 99 for animals. This is the multi-target damage split pattern. It allows the weapon to feel powerful in PvE without being overpowered in PvP. If your custom weapon needs different tuning for different target types, use three separate base damage values. Keep Player_Damage at a level that feels balanced in PvP combat. Push Zombie_Damage and Animal_Damage higher if the weapon is meant to be a strong PvE tool.
The multipliers within each target type can also be tuned independently. The zombie multipliers are the most punishing (0.3 for limbs), the animal multipliers are the most forgiving (0.6 for limbs, 0.8 for spine), and the player multipliers sit in the middle (0.6 for limbs, 0.8 for spine). This graduated system -- harsh for zombies, moderate for players, gentle for animals -- is a template for how Unturned's own designers differentiate the combat feel across enemy types. When building a custom weapon, decide which target type the weapon is primarily designed to fight, and tune that type's multipliers to reward the playstyle you want. A dedicated zombie-slaying weapon might use limb multipliers even lower than 0.3 to force headshots. A dedicated hunting weapon might use multipliers at or near 1.0 across all zones to make every hit feel effective.
Flag set
The combination of Blueprints, InputItems, and Semi is the baseline flag trio for a craftable, modifiable, semi-automatic weapon. If your custom bow should be craftable through the blueprint system, include Blueprints. If it should accept sights, attachments, or item combinations, include InputItems. If it fires one shot per input, include Semi. These three flags plus the String action keyword in the ballistics table are the minimum configuration for a functional bow asset.
The String action is what gives the bow its identity: the charge-to-fire mechanic, the bow-drawing animation, and the arrow-nocking visual. Do not change the Action field to a firearm keyword unless you are intentionally building a weapon that fires instantly with no charge time. The Action field determines the animation set and the fundamental firing mechanic; mismatching it with the weapon model will produce visual and functional inconsistencies.
For server owners
The most immediately actionable information for server owners is the spawn data: the Birch Bow does not exist in any extracted loot table. If you want the weapon to appear on your server through normal gameplay, you must place it there deliberately. The item ID to reference is 355. Use this ID in your server's loot-table configuration, kit definitions, NPC vendor inventories, or plugin event rewards.
The numeric damage values in this article are also useful for server-side balance adjustments. If you feel the Birch Bow is too strong or too weak on your server, you cannot change the weapon's asset file without distributing a client-side mod, but you can use a server plugin to apply damage modifiers, adjust loot weights, or gate the weapon behind specific progression requirements. Knowing the exact base damage values and multipliers lets you make informed decisions about how much to modify the weapon's effective output through plugins.
Closing notes
Every number in this article is a literal reading from the Bow_Birch asset file. No value has been estimated, derived, rounded, or converted. If you copy a value from any table on this page into your own custom weapon asset, you are copying the exact same data that drives the vanilla Birch Bow. You can use these values as-is to create an identical clone, modify them to create a variant with different balance characteristics, or study them as a worked example of Unturned's weapon-data architecture to inform the design of a completely different weapon. The tables tell you what the numbers are; the explanations tell you what each number does and why the Birch Bow's specific value was chosen. The rest -- the editor, the asset compiler, the workshop upload -- is your workbench.