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Author Topic: Neded change for station order (marksdwarves)  (Read 450 times)

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Neded change for station order (marksdwarves)
« on: June 27, 2023, 10:34:46 am »

The station order seems to make them stand in a random-looking way within like 5 squars of where you place the station order.

IMO it needs to be changed.

I walled of the caverns with a nice long wall with fortifications. Then 100 serpent men attack from this place and end up crowded together behind the fortifications.

So seems like a PERFECT job for marksdwarves with like 100 defenseless serpent being sitting ducks in a crowd.

But NO - they only shoot if they're standing right next to the wall. And the station order doesn't get more than 1 or (if lucky!) 2 dwarves standing next to the wall, the rest of them are standing a few squares away just looking at the proceedings. You can shuffle them around, but all it does is switch who's the 1 or 2 guys shooting and who's doing nothing.

It was going to take simply forever killing 100 serpent men that way - so even though conditions seem 100% ideal for markdwarves with a humoungous crowd of helpess enemies behind fortifications, they utterly failed and I had to try cave-ins instead to deal with them.

Solution: Make it possible to station the dwarves IN A LINE.

You can choose between a right-left angle or an up-down angled line. So when you click you either get 10 dwarves in a line filling 9 squares east of where you clicked OR you get 10 dwarves in a line filling 9 squared to the south of where you click.

Even cooler would be if you could simply paint the shape you want them to stand it, that way you can place them as you want. Like maybe if your fortifications aren't just a simple line, only being able to paint the formation would make it possible to get them to shoot.

This makes it possible to build fortificationed walls and get the dwarves to shoot through them.

Tbh fortifications are kinda useless if you can't get the dwarves to shoot through them.

(Yes I know at a certain skill level, they can shoot through also if standing away. It doesn't help, fortifications should be usefull also if you just draft a bunch of random dwarves.)
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Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Neded change for station order (marksdwarves)
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2023, 10:54:50 am »

I also tried stationing them individually, thinking they'd then stand straight on the square of the station order.

But they still stand randomly a few squares away from the station, so you can't line them up that way either.
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Ulfarr

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Re: Neded change for station order (marksdwarves)
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2023, 12:10:21 pm »

I'm not sure if it was changed in the current version but in 0.47 you can make a 1 tile burrow next to the fortifications and then change the squads schedule to an order to defend said burrow. Then as long as the squad is active they'll stay there and shoot at whatever gets in range.
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So the conclusion I'm getting here is that we use QSPs because dwarves can't pilot submarines.

Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Neded change for station order (marksdwarves)
« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2023, 01:06:48 pm »

I'm not sure if it was changed in the current version but in 0.47 you can make a 1 tile burrow next to the fortifications and then change the squads schedule to an order to defend said burrow. Then as long as the squad is active they'll stay there and shoot at whatever gets in range.

Thanks I'll deffo try that the next time.

I was so pumped for this absolute gloriously perfect massacre. From the shots they managed got off, the serpent men their small space was already literally covered in vomit and blood.

A problem was, it would take so long the markdwarves would stand in miasma for like months before they got them all. This time around, I think even if the burrow thing works, they will have to "work" in constant miasma from the serpent men they managed to kill.
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Telgin

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Re: Neded change for station order (marksdwarves)
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2023, 01:45:10 pm »

I know this is something specific that either Toady or Putnam mentioned wanting to fix soon for marksdwarves, but we haven't heard much about the progress being made on fixing their various problems so I have no idea if it will be any better in the next version.  The only thing I remember seeing any specific mention of was working on ammo problems.
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Through pain, I find wisdom.