Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[catten]

So... a pack of giant tortoises parked themselves on my map and promptly retracted into their shells after my dogs wandered too close. Months later they're still turtling in the same spot (apparently a bug), and it dawned on me that they might make really nice target practice for marksdwarves with wooden bolts (which don't seem to penetrate the shell very well). Unfortunately, I can't get Urist McMarksdwarf to cooperate.

Station order - nothing, tortoise isn't considered hostile (which seems true enough).

Kill order after pitting the tortoise behind fortifications - Urist idles with no valid reachable target.

Kill order in the open - parks himself on the same tile as the tortoise, then empties his quiver into the ground (100% miss rate), then bashes the poor beast with his crossbow until its shell breaks off and he can bonk it on the head. The miss rate is just fine (means the target lives longer), but the bashing instead of reloading is a deal-breaker. Once he's attacking, Urist won't stop even if I cancel the kill order, so even micromanagement wouldn't work.

Is there any other method I should try that I haven't thought of?

40.13, if that matters (not in a hurry to deal w/ new emotions till they get debugged a bit more).

[Neckbeard]

I suppose I haven't fiddled with it myself as I've been preoccupied with a making a giant artificial cavern so that I can observe tree farm mechanics.  But shouldn't your military just kill something if they've been told to do so?  What is their discipline skill at?

[PatrikLundell]

Marksdwarves do that. They fire their bolts and then do melee with their crossbow (alternatively sneak off, pick up new bolts, and then starts to fire those at an archery target). The fortification version, where you make sure there is no path for melee should be the correct way, but you've already tried that.

[Lightman]

There's not anything you can do.

As PatrikLundell pointed out, marksdwarves will attack head-on when they run out of ammo.  This often gets them killed.

Using the 'kill' order is messy.  If there's no path, they won't do anything, as you discovered.  If there is a path, they will move to the target and start firing but this exposes them to danger and the enemy will rush them.

It would be nice to see some fixes for marksdwarves.  I still can't get them to train properly.

[Badger Storm]

Heh, the giant tortoises are "turtling". 

Are any of them hunters?  Hunters tend to be homocidal lunatics and will go after anything on four legs.  Of course, getting them to go out and actually hunt is an ordeal in its own right.

[catten]

Heh, the giant tortoises are "turtling". 

Are any of them hunters?  Hunters tend to be homocidal lunatics and will go after anything on four legs.  Of course, getting them to go out and actually hunt is an ordeal in its own right.

No hunters, but my carpenter-marksdwarf will turn into a homicidal lunatic if I enable his hunting labor, right?

Honestly, at this point I think I'll just send my miner militia out. I don't think any other wildlife will spawn while those tortoises are camped out. I was just hoping I could get some good crossbow training out of the massacre.

[Bearskie]

For me, I usually try to split the herd into two before engaging one half, then letting my marksdwarves reload before engaging the second half.  It's far from being a dwarf-proof method, but I also have melee dwarves in close proximity in case the situation escalates into a flurry of bowhammering.

Wildlife are great marksdwarves exp though Even with metal bolts, they take *soooo* slow in killing off their prey that each 'wave' often ensures a rank upgrade for all my marksdwarves.