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[Evil the Cat]

So, my fortress is fairly young and I don't have the metalworking infrastructure yet to get decent weapons, so in the meantime I want to use my miners as a temporary militia.

However, when I set up a uniform for them with a pick (incidentally, is there a reason picks show up as a foreign weapon?) they use their picks fine in combat, but seem to just drop them on the floor when off duty and won't pick them up to mine with, resulting in miners sitting around with 'no job'. Is there a reason for this, and is there a way to get dwarves to use their civilian tools as weapons?

For now I can just set them to use individual choice of weapons, but later on I'll probably want to ensure the militia reserves are using steel picks instead of copper, so is there a way to set up the uniform and have it carry over into a dwarf's civilian life?

[Lectorog]

They think they should use different picks for military and civilian duty. They don't understand they can keep the same pick, and they're all the same.

I can't remember the best solution to this. Making more picks is one solution.

And I think they're foreign weapons because you can't make them as weapons. For dwarves, they're tools.

[NecroRebel]

Using miners, woodcutters, and hunters as temporary militia is bugged. Those three jobs assign invisible pseudo-uniforms that include the weapon for the appropriate job, and it conflicts with military uniforms. What happens is that when they are put on-duty, they look for appropriate equipment for their military assignment, but don't consider the pick that they're carrying to be appropriate, probably because someone is already carrying it. They thus drop that weapon and pick up a different one of the same type if that's what's assigned. When they go off-duty again, they, again, look for appropriate equipment for their assignment, but don't consider the one they're holding to be appropriate. So, basically, to have miner-soldiers, you need 2 picks for every one, one that they'll use off-duty and one that they'll use on-duty.

Due to the pseudo-uniforms that the mining job assigns, it isn't possible to force a dwarf to use the same high-quality pick both on-duty and off.

[Evil the Cat]

Oh, I see..

Well, I guess it's not so bad. For now they're fine using whatever comes to hand, and by the time they need (and have access) to better weapon they'll probably need some armour as well, so I guess I'll just use them like regular soldiers.

On a similar note, since the wiki says that picks use the mining skill in combat, does this mean there's no risk of miner-soldiers becoming heroes and thus getting pissy about being taken off duty? Or will all the biting and scratching they do in combat ultimately turn them into wrestlers?

[Quatch]

 They'll probably get the fighter skill, and dodging. You'll have to check the wiki to see if these can cause champion-ness

[Lectorog]

Oh, I see..

Well, I guess it's not so bad. For now they're fine using whatever comes to hand, and by the time they need (and have access) to better weapon they'll probably need some armour as well, so I guess I'll just use them like regular soldiers.

On a similar note, since the wiki says that picks use the mining skill in combat, does this mean there's no risk of miner-soldiers becoming heroes and thus getting pissy about being taken off duty? Or will all the biting and scratching they do in combat ultimately turn them into wrestlers?

You should be safe, since mining isn't a combat skill. There's actually been discussion of using danger rooms to train miners. The other skills won't cause issues.

Except for the equipment bugs, mining squads are basically the perfect multi-function dwarves.

[AutomataKittay]

Short answer: Nope

Long answer: Above poster about bugged jobs got it right, those three are bugged with invisible  uniforms. You can get around it with deactivating the mining duty before enabling the militia, to an extent. Picks reputately makes for pretty good melee weapons, though I've no experience with using it as such myself. You can set the 'material' of the pick, I forget the specific selection but it should be in the uniform setting. Alternatively, just churn out steel for everyone, use copper to train up smiths.

As for risk of them becoming heroes, that's related to military skills, which I don't think mining counts toward. Shield and armor training is suggested, they'll train up wrestling on their own. Wrestlers can be heroes, so...

[Fredd]

Evil, you could put a dwarf in a squad, that has no mining skill(assigned a pick), and his mining skill will start improving, through weapon practice/sparring/dangerroom. And their civilian assigned job will not disappear, when they reach a high level, as other weapon elite users do

[Evil the Cat]

Thanks everyone.

I've decided to hold off on the miner militia as I currently don't have any serious armour and losing legendary miners is annoying, but when I get round to it I'll ensure the sappers have separate combat picks. Appreciate the advice.

[Satarus]

Heroes are bugged anyway.  They loose hero status at the end of the month when their schedule changes and they go off duty.