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[Defensive kobra]

so the pick is both the tool used for mining and a weapon that uses the mining skill to fight instead of the other weapon skills, and so i think it might make sense to have them be one and the same, to have all of my military or at least one squad consist only of miners and equip picks as the weapons they use. Combat and mining are both things that while done often are not done constantly, so it might reduce the time my miners are idle and give them a bit more to do, and since they both train mining time spent digging will improve their combat skills and time spend bashing in the heads of our enemies improves the rate that they can dig at, and the underground is also a dangerous place so it also means i dont have to dispatch my military to protect my miners against threats because my miners are the military, they are meant to be the first line of defense against threats anyways right?
Do you all think this is a good idea? is there a flaw in my thinking? can my militant miners dig while they are dispatched on a mission, and can they use the same pickaxe for slaughtering kobolds as the one they use to slaughter malachite?

[TheyreAllGullyDorfs]

There are some bugs with professional uniforms clashing with military uniforms.  I've gotten my woodcutting axemen to behave properly if you have lots of axes for them to choose from and you activate/deactivate them a few times they seem to figure it out alright, I bet the same tricks will work for pickmen (Which will probably show up as wrestlers on your military screen?).

Your miners won't mine while they are activated as military.  And as far as I can tell picks are amazing weapons VS armored targets/human sized enemies, but against larger enemies they start to underperform.  Goblins sometimes have gold picks, which are peak pick material once you pry them from their cold, dead hands.

[Ulfarr]

I’ve toyed with the idea of using a “pick” squad in a modded game and I was quite pleased with the results. My soldiers were quite effective even with picks made of bone but going from bone to metal was even more impressive since they would regularly just chop their targets heads or arms within a couple of strikes.

I had a separate team for mining so I didn’t have to deal with the uniform issues but I think letting the soldiers wear their civilian cloths while off duty and manually assign specific picks for their on duty uniforms should help with that.

[PatrikLundell]

Gold is not a weapons/tools grade metal, and I've never seen goblins wielding picks (let a lone gold ones). Others have already commented on the uniform issue.

[anewaname]

The way mining jobs are assigned is important and the way a uniform's weapons are carried is important.

You may have noticed that miners always carry their pick in hand, and that military units either carry their weapons in hand or on their belt. If there is a mining job that needs to be done, a dwarf with the mining labor will not be assigned if there is no pick in their hands. The military dwarfs only carry their weapons in hand when they are performing individual combat drills or when they are on active duty (training, sparring, patrolling, etc). So, if you have a dwarf with mining enabled but who is wearing their military uniform, they will only mine if they are doing an individual combat drill, because it is the only interruptible job a military dwarf takes that involves carrying their weapon in hand.

This information is from a short experiment in this thread. I have not tested it yet as a long experiment and others mentioned problems.

My previous method of involving miners in the military is to put highly-skilled miners in the military, but disable their mining labor.

[martinuzz]

Yeah, I only turn on mining and woodcutting labours if there is actual digging or chopping to be done. If not, my miners and woodcutters can train their military skills.

[goddamnright]

The way mining jobs are assigned is important and the way a uniform's weapons are carried is important.

You may have noticed that miners always carry their pick in hand, and that military units either carry their weapons in hand or on their belt. If there is a mining job that needs to be done, a dwarf with the mining labor will not be assigned if there is no pick in their hands. The military dwarfs only carry their weapons in hand when they are performing individual combat drills or when they are on active duty (training, sparring, patrolling, etc). So, if you have a dwarf with mining enabled but who is wearing their military uniform, they will only mine if they are doing an individual combat drill, because it is the only interruptible job a military dwarf takes that involves carrying their weapon in hand.

This information is from a short experiment wow essay. I have not tested it yet as a long experiment and others mentioned problems.

My previous method of involving miners in the military is to put highly-skilled miners in the military, but disable their mining labor.

Your previous method was good. And it's still good. I guess they can also be just skilled not only highly-skilled

[knutor]

Mining tends to increase spatial awareness and toughness(time spent on hospital bed, from cave-ins). Two very good abilities, for a fighter. I  prefer edged weapons to pick axes. So this is what I do, as I progress and accumulate too many miners, I move the high str miners into axe squads and high agi miners in crossbow squads, forever retiring them from mine work.

I never, turn woodcutters into soldiers. They do my fishing, also. As its a great complimenet to woodcutting. Fishing increases mobility, or did, in older versions, by boosting agility. In this way, woodcutter can flee, very nicely, if he gets ambushed in the wilds, outside the fort walls. Only drawback, is ordering chop jobs, when its fishing season.

[Fleeting Frames]

Pick is quite competitive edged weapon; there's no need to retrain second weapon skill from ground up (as a side note, gold is pretty terrible material to make cutting weapons from).

[fanniebyrns]

I’ve toyed with the idea of using a “pick” squad in a modded game and I was quite pleased with the results. My soldiers were quite effective even with picks made of bone but going from bone to metal was even more impressive since they would regularly just chop their targets heads or arms within a couple of strikes.

I had a separate team for mining so I didn’t have to deal with the uniform issues but I think letting the soldiers wear their civilian cloths while off duty and manually assign specific picks for their on duty uniforms should help with that.

Nice idea to allocate resources in a such way. You shouldnt waste uniforms and money for heros who don't need it actually.

[FantasticDorf]

They're ideal for dual armed crossbowmen since any opponent who can substantially 'tank' crossbow bolts under considerable armor can be cracked open in close quarters like a tin-can by a good quality or masterful quality steel pick if they end up close, which is a more effective than a hammer-sidearm solely for gouging and slicing fleshy or tough to get bits like FB's made of rock that might crumble under blunt hits but can't break or be killed by them. Though you may want to train hammer much less so they know how to effectively blunt a opponent in the face with a crossbow if they dont switch hands.

Taking light armor or high armor-skill particularly letting them store weapons on the belt -some of my best skilled dwarves can manage to kite and fight pretty well.

[Starver]

As this thread is active again, I'll just question the premise of "any time miners are idle" (I've never run out of things needing digging out, usually quite the opposite) and also the apparent inevitability of cave-ins, as mentioned later. This is, of course, a matter entirely of how I do my overseering.


I do appreciate a miner's occasional requirement to deal with a hostile situation she may have provoked by breaking into somewhere. And I suppose an 'odd-job filler mining crew/pickaxe-squad' might have its advantages.

[Salmeuk]

Yeah, echoing Starver's questioning of the premise here. Just add all your miners into an inactive military squad. When needed bring them online and send them in. At vanilla skill gain, even legendary miners are not tough to replace, assuming there is no other attachment to the character, and I've found that even without messing about assigning pickaxes to the dwarves, they will often still engage with their already held pickaxes.

I think crosstraining mining has been proven effective at toughening your soldiers, though I'm not sure it's necessarily better than simply sparring.

Trying to have simultaneous soldier-miner squads sounds like a headache with no real advantage to the player.

[Alastar]

I find switching roles too much of a hassle. Legendary miners retire from whacking rocks and mine goblinite from then on.