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[Immortal-D]

I've got a lovely Archery range designated as a training area, the squad has bows & bolts.  I gave them a year-round training schedule at 2 minimum, and set their alert to Active/Training.  Yet the little buggers refuse to practice shooting   I tried creating a normal barracks from a armor stand and having it overlap, that just caused them to punch each other, still ignoring their crossbows   I definitely need them practicing more than I need their Craftdwarfship, but I still hate to lose my most talented Smith and Fisher.

[Baffler]

Marksdwarves don't always consider multiple archery targets as part of the range, just the one you designated it from. Other than that I don't really have anything for you. I have great difficulty getting them to do stuff myself.

[C27]

I just saw another thread asking about this. Marksdwarves are currently odd because in order for them to use archery ranges instead of individual combat drills, the squad needs to be inactive and not scheduled to train.

[tussock]

The training bolts may not be getting picked up if you've given them separate Training and Combat lots. Let them use everything for Combat and Training both to break them out of that. It may be that you have exactly two of them, as that does lead to more sparring. They have actually picked up the crossbows and ammo, into inventory, not just claimed them under the uniform screen?

I can't get mine to stop shooting at targets until I disable training ammo. They won't do anything else, even with no orders. They have a barracks to train at and store their gear, plenty of overlapping archery ranges to train at in it, plenty of bolts, and they train until I prevent them wasting all the ammo, and then they often do Crossbow demonstrations if Training is on.

And I just checked, and mine totally use the targets both when Training and without orders, quite happily breaking off what they're doing to go shoot some bolts at a rock. People must have different settings somewhere.

[Thisfox]

I just saw another thread asking about this. Marksdwarves are currently odd because in order for them to use archery ranges instead of individual combat drills, the squad needs to be inactive and not scheduled to train.

...well, that explains my mistakes then.

Similar to the indoor/outdoor bug then.

[Findulidas]

I just saw another thread asking about this. Marksdwarves are currently odd because in order for them to use archery ranges instead of individual combat drills, the squad needs to be inactive and not scheduled to train.

Shit, that explains a lot.

[Staalo]

Really? I remember having some problems in .34.11 but I assumed this was already a fixed issue in .40.xx.

My marksdwarf squads are always active & scheduled to train and they're spending most of their time at the range. I keep running out of practice ammo.

[C27]

Huh, this was fixed? I had no idea as I'd been leaving my marksdwarf squads with empty schedules.

[Henour]

In my last fort they used the range while the squad was active.

I had only set 6 out of 10 to train though. So not sure if the active or the inactive ones trained ....

So at least in the recent versions it should work with the squad being active. If it depends on the orders, which one, or not at all I can't say for sure.


Title also confused me a bit not sure if any non-tool jobs matter at all for an active squad that has orders.

[GhostDwemer]

I've never had a problem, in any version, getting marksdwarves to train at archery ranges. I've never had to leave them inactive, either.

My checklist:
1.) Create squad of any size, assign the stock "archer" uniform.
2.) Make a normal barracks, assign it to the squad.
3.) Make one target per marksdwarf. Set the firing direction correctly!
4.) Make enough bolts. They hold the bolts in reserve rather than training if you don't have enough.
5.) Set up a bolt stockpile near the range.
6.) Set squad to active/training.
7.) Wait for them to finish "orientation." They will do demonstrations and other relatively useless things until they get to a certain minimum experience level.
8.) Keep churning out bolts and Watch as they go through thousands, reaching master levels in a couple years.

[Darkweave]

Huh, this was fixed? I had no idea as I'd been leaving my marksdwarf squads with empty schedules.

It wasn't even the case in 34.11. I did a huge series of tests and active marksdwarves ALWAYS come out substantially ahead in terms of experience even when they were allowed to spend time training other skills in the barracks too. The military is tricky enough to figure out as it is, don't spread misinformation.

OP

Let them use the same bolts for combat and training
Check the shooting direction on your archery targets
Make sure they actually have crossbows, quivers and bolts equipped
Set each archery target as its own archery range and enable training
Try having multiple 'Train 1 minimum' orders

You'll need a hell of a lot of bolts - 2400 from zero skill to legendary IIRC. Shooting live targets works far better as it gives four times the experience per shot. Try to find a sponge to shoot at.

[paldin]

That misinformation was pretty common knowledge. Most people really believed it to be true and it worked often enough that nobody ever called out the discrepancy.