Hello folks!
I'm certain that most of you have gotten a chance to play with the most recent release of DF2010. As many of you are aware, in this version there is a bug with military dwarves that can cause them to pick up multiple weapons in the same hand. I recently spent the better part of two hours trying to fix this in my fort, and I figured it would be a good idea to share how to work around this bug until we get the first major bugfix release.
The Cause of the Bug:
As far as I can tell, the cause of the bug is that when you (the player) tell a military dwarf to remove an item from their squad listing, they do not immediately drop it. For armor this is not a major issue, as that slot on a creatures body holds a set amount of items. Thus when new armor is assigned the old armor is removed when the new armor is put on.
Held items however, have a nasty little bug where there is no limit to the number of items you can hold in your grasp (this is a holdover from the very begging of the 3d days. You can recreate a similar bug in adventure mode and hold an almost infinite number of shields.
Additionally, military positions remember every last weapon that the dwarf in question held, even if the position changes dwarves. This has the effect of causing any replacements for that SLOT in the squad to pick up the same equipment bar clothing. Thus, if one dwarf in a squad had four axes, his successor will as well.
The Fix:
First, delete the squad with the bugged dwarf in question.
Second, create a new squad without any uniform. Set the uniform preferences to replace armor (This will cause your dwarves to strip down to nothing. Removing the offending weapons).
Third, assign a new uniform. Try to avoid changing your dwarves' uniform too much while doing this, and try to make it fairly specific. I find assigning a weapon/armor type with a material type gives the best results. Remember that you need to assign two Gauntlets and Boots if you want full coverage.
Fourth, station the squad with a (M)ove order. Move orders have less priority than equipment, resupply, or kill orders. Thus when your arsenal dwarf (you DO have one right?) finishes his manifest, your squad should equip properly.
Thats all, your military should be properly kitted out now. Good luck and happy hunting!
~Jamini
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