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[Urist McCheeseMaker]

Bows and slings would still require a bit of strength: the sling in a direct way, the heavier the object the stronger you must be.. and the bow in an indirect way, they're simply made to resist x pounds of force and impart that on the arrow. You're right about the crossbows though.

And I'm not so sure about my suggestion anymore, since it would make the dwarves wimps for using the easy weapon.. and elves would suddenly be dwarfy for having ultra-strong archers.

[Hyndis]

One thing that bugs me is that once my crossbowdwarves have got in a crippling shot against one enemy they'll continue pumping bolts into his prone figure until he bleeds out or takes a lucky bolt to the brain. Changing squads' kill orders to make them focus on more urgent threats never seems to work for me...

It would be nice if dwarves using any type of weapon would change targets once their current target goes unconscious. Then if there are no more threats they can finish off the unconscious enemies.

[shadowclasper]

so marksdwarves finally got fixed? I've barely  had any time to play for a signifigant amount of time since the days when they were never grabbing cross bow bolts and never training at archery targets. If they're fixed I can go back to my ULTIMATE fortress of crossbow dwarves, catapults, enslaved dragon traps, and axe/hammer dwarves >> oh, and the elite "dwarven metal ninja brigade" of wrestlers <sage nod>

[Hyndis]

I haven't had any issues with marksdarves in 31.25. They slaughter things just fine at high skill levels and with good equipment. Even demons fall to them. At lower skill levels or using low quality equipment results aren't very impressive, but the same would be true with a recruit with a wooden sword. Both are equally ineffective until they get some training and better gear.

[Flying Dice]

Legendary crossbowdwarves are remarkably easy to train, and in proper battlements (or with sufficient numbers in the field) will completely outclass any opponent. I've had a squad of four Elite Marksdwarves slaughter more than half of a 120-strong force of mounted Sand Raiders, with their only injury in return being a single bruised arm. It sounds like you're doing something wrong with the setup of the military, but you weren't specific enough about the issue. Maybe they just didn't have any training? You can build archery targets with >[A], and then simply assign the direction of the range and what squads you want using it. Assuming the rest of the setup is right, they should start training automatically.

[Dynastia]

The amount of force imparted by a crossbow is based upon the pull of the crossbow, not the strength of the user.  In a winch crossbow, there isn't even a minimum amount of strength a user would need to be able to operate a heavy-pull crossbow, at that.

Agreed, but strength (or more likely endurance) could affect the reload time (if only there was one, my crossbowmen act more like light machinegunners). Your arms would get tired as hell working the winch/crannequin for any length of time.

Bows and slings would still require a bit of strength: the sling in a direct way, the heavier the object the stronger you must be.. and the bow in an indirect way, they're simply made to resist x pounds of force and impart that on the arrow. You're right about the crossbows though.

And I'm not so sure about my suggestion anymore, since it would make the dwarves wimps for using the easy weapon.. and elves would suddenly be dwarfy for having ultra-strong archers.

As for bows and slings, slings would require no strength at all. Strong slingsmen would be good for hurling a volley of bullets hundreds of yards into a massed enemy army, but for the little squad-battles in DF where you have to accurately hit your target, you'd never use anything near that kind of strength.

You're right about the bows, but I'd hardly call it undorfly to use crossbows. Dorfs are short little men, so they can only hold short little bows, which would be fine for hunting rabbits and the like, but pretty useless against a hydra. Using mechanical ingenuity to compensate for your short little stature is the most dorfishly thing ever.

[NW_Kohaku]

The amount of force imparted by a crossbow is based upon the pull of the crossbow, not the strength of the user.  In a winch crossbow, there isn't even a minimum amount of strength a user would need to be able to operate a heavy-pull crossbow, at that.

Agreed, but strength (or more likely endurance) could affect the reload time (if only there was one, my crossbowmen act more like light machinegunners). Your arms would get tired as hell working the winch/crannequin for any length of time.

Yes, stirrup crossbows worked by letting you use leg power (which is much better developed in a human for both strength and stamina) for just that purpose, although it cannot have the same pull as a winch crossbow will have.

Anyway, having reload times at all is part of the prerequisites for making that work, as you say, and that is slated to come eventually. 

For a basic crossbow and maybe a stirrup crossbow, I would say that the reload time should be fixed, but have a minimum strength (you either can pull the string back, or you can't), but it might be reasonable to make strength affect the reload speed of a winch crossbow.

[Hyndis]

Reload time is already determined by skill. A rookie marksdwarf will take forever to reload, while a legendary marksdwarf uses his crossbow almost like an assault rifle, able to launch a hail of highly accurate and very dangerous bolts. Downside of this is that the legendary will tend to use up his ammo in short order and then charge to club the survivors to death while the rookie still has his quiver mostly full, so the legendary will be rushing off to the melee by himself.

[NW_Kohaku]

That shouldn't be happening, though.

Reload times should go down with skill, but only to a minimum level.  (Plus the dwarves should know enough to go for more ammo instead of going off on berserker charges the instant they see an enemy, never stopping unless you manually force them to be civilians again.)

Legendaries in general have been broken with everything they do becoming instantaneous for a long time, now, and Toady really should fix that.

[Hyndis]

But if your military is all legendary marksdorfs, they will all deplete their ammo at about the same time and charge in together to club the survivors to death. 

[NW_Kohaku]

Also, there are tricks about that - if you build "marksdwarf towers", you can add "shutters" to them that stop the dwarves from seeing the enemy, and give them a chance to reload.  (Especially if you make your watchtowers have ammo stockpiles.)

If you're especially big on making sure your marksdwarves get as many kills as possible, then you can set up the entrance to your fort to wrap around back and forth around your marksdwarf tower and have the shutters close occasionally to get them to reload in between passes of goblins through your labyrinth.

[Dynastia]

Yes, stirrup crossbows worked by letting you use leg power (which is much better developed in a human for both strength and stamina) for just that purpose, although it cannot have the same pull as a winch crossbow will have.

There's also a belt/harness and hook method, the name of which I forget, where you hook the bowstring to your belt or harness while crouching, then simply stand up (with one foot in the stirrup). There's a couple of different winches too, the basic windlass and then the crannequin which (if I remember right) has notches to "save" your progress and keep the bow from springing back if you lose your grip or want a rest. Even the weakest dorf could handle the strongest steel-bow with that kind of help.

But for all this to be relevent, the reload speed would have to be fixed, and bow-making would need to be expanded on ; perhaps making the bow, stock and mechanism seperately, and then combining them, and giving combat stats based on the material of each composite part.

[blue sam3]

Maybe it was because i had mostly wood bolts. My woodcraftsdwarf works alot faster than my blacksmithdwarf. i still think it is completely underpowered because even with the starting two woodcutting battleaxes i can kill things much easier than years of crossbow industry development.

Woodcutting axes are usually iron or steel. Wooden bolts are the equivalent of chucking twigs at them.

[Hyndis]

Maybe it was because i had mostly wood bolts. My woodcraftsdwarf works alot faster than my blacksmithdwarf. i still think it is completely underpowered because even with the starting two woodcutting battleaxes i can kill things much easier than years of crossbow industry development.

Woodcutting axes are usually iron or steel. Wooden bolts are the equivalent of chucking twigs at them.

Yes, but a sufficient quantity of wooden splinters can kill.

[loose nut]

Well, ideally marksdwarves would shoot at 1/3 the current rate, but prefer shots to the torso/lower body more as their skill increases. (Bows might shoot at up to 1/2 or 2/3 current rate as skill increases, from a base of 1/4; crossbow ROF should be pretty flat.) I don't really favor complicating the task of crossbow-making, though, even though technically you'd need wood, a little bit of metal, and sinew/ fiber for the strings. It might be good to further distinguish between "light" crossbows which are pulled by hand (thus firing faster) and "heavy" crossbows which have a winch, have to be forged from metal, fire even slower, but are just murder against almost any contemporary armor.

Also it'd be cool to implement arc fire for bows and siege engines since that would also influence fortification design.

Currently, I just draft experienced hunters as marksdwarves and that's been enough to cover my forts, generally.