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[Iren]

I usually build a "William Tell the Goblin" room by the archery ranges, where an open prision is built with a bridge and pit separing it from the dwarves, and two levers to raise the bridge and open goblin cages. As the cage opens, the dwarves rain bolts over the prisioner, and level up faster than using the achery ranges.

[Greader]

I got a question: Will dwarves change what they are carrying in their quivers if they are told to use another type of bolt in combat and training, or will they keep the bolts in the quiver no matter what? Basicaly I am wondering if there is a way to micromanage the whole issue with clever use of assigning, forbidding and unforbidding bolts.

[Kon]

As Quietust said above, if their quivers are filled with combat-only ammo, they will not practice.

I've been micromanaging bolts lately. When I want them to practice, I assign them only practice ammo. When I want them to fight, I assign them only combat ammo. When I want them to switch from one to the other, I remove one bolt assignment, force them to drop their quivers and bolts, then assign them the new bolt assignment.

When I want them to drop their current bolts or when I want them to just work on dodging, shields, etc, I remove their bolt assignments and remove crossbows from their equipment lists. Part of the problem seems to be that quivers in bins often have ammo in them that, apparently, is ignored. So, I have one stockpile for quivers only. After the quivers arrive there, I mass dump the bins containing the quivers, remove dump form the bins, remove dump from the quivers using the 'z' menu, wait for the bolts to get dumped, and un-forbid the bolts which then go to the ammo stockpile. So, when they get assigned new bolts, they pick up an empty quiver, pick up their assigned bolts, and successfully train or engage in combat.

It may sound like a lot of work, but it doesn't take very long. And, it can fix the problem with not training because of carrying combat-only bolts as well as not fighting because of carrying practice-only bolts.

[Diamond]

To back up what I stated about schedule earlier - just tried to have orders to train set, and no orders for testing purpoces.
While on training, they hanged out with "cannot follow order" in meeting zone, due to not having barrack assigned. After assigning the barrack they went there to watch how one dwarf masterfully swinged his crossbow, learning hammer skill. One dude that had a day off went to shoot targets.
After setting 'em off duty and turning off hauling, all went to archery targets to train. All five of them were occupied.
Proofpic

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Therefore, marksdwarves only train archery+crossbow skill ONLY when not training, in their free time.

P.S.: Had to leave only 2 ranges for use now, as they used up bolts faster then I could produce.

[khearn]

Here is an idea I just had to deal with the combat/target bolt issue. Set your marksdwarves to use any bolt in combat or in training. Then set up a bolt stockpile in your archery range that only accepts wood bolts. Set up another stockpile near where your dwarves will be shooting from in combat. So when they go to train, first they'll shoot whatever is in their quivers (which may be metal), but then they'll refill with wood and keep practicing with wood. When a siege arrives, they'll run to the walls (when you set then to an alert that has them defending the burrow on the walls) and start shooting. At first it might be wood bolts left over from training, but when they reload it will be with the metal bolts.

You might want to use bone bolts instead of wood in the archery range, since they some in stacks of 5, so they'll switch to metal quicker in combat. It depends on your bone and wood supplies.

Either way it still wasts some metal bolts in training and ends up starting combat with wood/bone bolts, so it's not perfect by any means. And I haven't tried it out yet, so it's certainly possible that the dwarves will manage to screw it up by reloading from a more distant stockpile. But it seems like it would work without a lot of micromanaging.

[humblegar]

To back up what I stated about schedule earlier - just tried to have orders to train set, and no orders for testing purpoces.
While on training, they hanged out with "cannot follow order" in meeting zone, due to not having barrack assigned. After assigning the barrack they went there to watch how one dwarf masterfully swinged his crossbow, learning hammer skill. One dude that had a day off went to shoot targets.
After setting 'em off duty and turning off hauling, all went to archery targets to train. All five of them were occupied.
Proofpic

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Therefore, marksdwarves only train archery+crossbow skill ONLY when not training, in their free time.

P.S.: Had to leave only 2 ranges for use now, as they used up bolts faster then I could produce.

My marksdwarves are wasting ammo like its nobodies business with training orders + active/training, as mentioned in my post. But yes, you can make them train off duty as well. "Cannot follow orders" can mean a lot of different things, as mentioned by Tarn recently.

What's the best solution? Beats me, I don't know but I like to have all my military on duty 24/7. You join for life, and leave without it - either of old age or covered in glorious liquified honor in the nearest murky pool.

[Garath]

if they dont want to practice, check if the shooting direction is right. I forgot that a few times