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[BlckKnght]

I've been struggling with a relatively minor issue regarding how the members of squads are placed.  If I order a squad of marksdwarves to defend my fortifications, often some of the members of the squad end up deploying outside of the fort.  Similarly, if I place my melee squad in a hallway between two fortified rooms, some of the squad members may choose to wait inside the rooms (even if the rooms do not have entrances nearby).

Here's what I've observed about the issue:

The squad leader always goes exactly where the squad is stationed.  The other dwarves in the squad are always within a few squares of him, but they completely disregard anything in the intervening space (walls, channels, etc).

Here's a screenshot of a two member squad, where a marksdwarf choose to position himself outside of the fortifications (and across the (currently) dry moat from the Mayor, his squad leader:

You can also see two members of the melee squad in the hallway below.  When the other two members of the squad show up, it is a good chance that at least one of them will stand behind the fortifications to the north or south (and while you can't see it, the entrance to the room to the south is a long walking distance from the hallway).  Melee troops there are entirely useless to the squad, which is placed where it is for the purpose of holding the hallway.

Edited to try to fix image... (x3)

[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: BlckKnght ]

[Draco18s]

Yeah, this has bugged the crap out of me.  So I started making the station point away from walls so that the "farthest" guy was still inside the room I wanted him in.

Patrol points will do the same thing.

[Derakon]

This is part of why I now exclusively use squads of one.

[MuonDecay]

Squads seem to try to fit their units into a circle around the station without standing on the same square as one another, so if you set the station adjacent to, or too close to, a wall or something, part of that circle is on the wrong side.

With marksdwarves I counter this by having multiple, small squads. This is useful for other reasons anyhow. With melee squads, well... I keep them a slight distance away to avoid the frustration.

However, that "circle" definitely needs to respect the Z-level of where the dwarves are stationed, yes. It gets annoying quite easily.

Likely this fits into the numerous military-dwarf improvements that need to be done as part of the army arc to make controlling them less unwieldy and more reliable, or at least predictable.

[Draco18s]

I think it respects the Z-level, I've never found a dwarf standing above his leader.

Dwarves also "path" to the other side of walls when their leader is resting/eating.  I have my barracks and my catacombs separated by a wall and my sleeping leader would be joined by squadmates in the catacombs.

[umiman]

That's a nice fortress by the way.

[C0nscript]

Would be cool if the "station squad" thing was like designating areas. So, you could designate a long 1x21 line along a wall as the "station area".