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[greycat]

"Pickup equipment" is a weird thing, and it's extra-broken in 0.34.11 compared to earlier 0.34 releases.  You can pretty much count on your dwarves picking up equipment precisely when you don't want them to, and then failing to pick up equipment when you do.

If everything were working properly, an off-duty dwarf in a squad should eventually get around to picking up her whole uniform, but it could take a while.  Giving them a station order should cause them to go on duty, which should trigger a Pickup Equipment job, causing them to get dressed up before reporting for duty.  (This is how it works in older 0.34 releases.)

The way it is now, however, active military dwarves just love running around with one boot on.  I have no idea why.  They'll pick 2 gauntlets, 2 socks, and 1 boot -- more often than not.  The second boot doesn't even get assigned, let alone worn -- it just sits there in the workshop or the stockpile.

[Sutremaine]

Is there any way to check the family of dead/berserking dwarves? One of my dwarves failed at a mood and went berserk, killed her baby and is now sitting in a closed room. When I kill her I plan to bury her alongside her baby in a tomb where I later on want to also bury her husband who will be left as a widower. Problem is I can't figure out to whom she is/was married.

If you have a yearly or seasonal save you could load that. If not, you could make a backup save, abandon the fortress in the backup, and then look up the berserker in Legends mode.

[BossChase]

Does the wrestling skill need to be learned before giving armor or can your dwarves learn it as long as they are unarmed?

[Garath]

Does the wrestling skill need to be learned before giving armor or can your dwarves learn it as long as they are unarmed?

even when armed they will occasionally grab, throw, kick, punch and bite, though not giving them a weapon or shield increases this chance a lot, obviously. Some armor, leather at least, may be advisable since it's been reported that wrestling dwarfs accidentally throw their opponent too hard occasionally, causing the target to skid  on the floor and get injured, or in worst cases to slam head first into a wall. Make it a metal helm.

dodging is also more easily learned before donning heavy armor that prevents dodging altogether (due to restricting movement) untill the dwarf gets somewhere with the armor user skill.

[FearfulJesuit]

Wiki says:

Vermin pets will perch on their masters' shoulders, protecting them from those darned cats.

Does this mean that I should buy a lot of vermin and make them adoptable to prevent cats taking my dwarves?

[Xheia]

In case you aren't joking, I think that is a misplaced modifier/confusing pronouns in the wiki: the vermin are protected from cats not the dwarves. (I'm not sure how true that statement is though). I think having dwarves adopt vermin may prevent cats from adopting those dwarves, if that's what you mean.

[celem]

Its quite true actually.  Cats hunt vermin, but a vermin owned as a pet by one of your dwarves becomes a member of your civ so the cats wont go for that one.  Just as well really..  Loyalty cascade triggered by cat eating rat?  A little too much fun thankyou

[Garath]

a dwarf can have many pets (crazy cat lady in boatmurdered, iirc), so cats can still adopt a dwarf with a vermin pet

[Fortress Calling]

Does bolt quality level affect damage or accuracy? Or both? The only thing i found relating to that is a quote from Toady but it's all the way back from 40d.
Also sometimes i get a announcement that a snatcher has kidnapped a baby, now i understand that when it comes to children since they roam around but babies are supposed to be chained to their mothers and since thieves get discovered if they touch anyone how did he took the baby without the mother seeing him?

[nbp]

My marksdwarves keep leaving the safety of their nice battlements (which double as an ammo storage site), working their way through the long , windy maze of various traps, and wandering out into the midst of hordes of the undead in order to try to bash a partial skeleton in the head with his crossbow and/or pick up a stray copper bolt.  It's maddening watching a legendary marksdwarf just blunder into a stupid death when I've made it very easy for him to stay above the fray and pump bolts into everything that moves.  Is there anyway to better keep dwarves contained in the area you've assigned them?  Failing that, can you tell them to retreat from a fight?  Or at least make them try to restock ammo from a certain area, instead of just running for whichever bolt catches their fancy?

[Telgin]

There was some sophisticated means of getting them to reload, but I don't recall quite what it was.  I think you have to arrange drawbridges so that you can selectively block line of sight or something.

To that end, if you're trying to prevent your marksdwarves from charging to their doom, putting them in a room with fortifications you can lock them in would be the first thing I would try.  Are you kill ordering things, or just stationing the marksdwarves and letting them pick targets for themselves?  I've heard, and can anecdotally confirm, that kill ordering stuff will make your marksdwarves merrily charge to their death.

If you want them to retreat, taking them off duty could help.  If just changing the squad from active to inactive doesn't work, you could remove the soldier from the squad if you're really desperate.

[VerdantSF]

There was some sophisticated means of getting them to reload, but I don't recall quite what it was.

Here it is:

We're all familiar with how horrible marksdwarves are - you might be able to get them to stand and shoot at first but after they run out of ammo they'll charge into melee. Granted you can always mod crossbows to be an awesome melee weapon but that's not a proper solution. So we've come up with the Defend Burrow method to get marksdwarves to sit behind fortifications and shoot. But that just means they don't charge into melee once they've spent their ammo - they still won't reload.

It turns out they don't like to reload when they can see hostiles. If there is no short path to charge into melee they won't suicide but they'll hang around and not reload. However they will obey Move commands and go reload once they can't see enemies. Therefore my crossbow forts now rely on a Patrol order - marksdwarves move back and forth between the shooting platform and the ammo depot (hidden from enemy view). When they see an enemy, they unload their quiver, go back to reload then come back and see enemies again so start shooting again. The shooting platform ensures there is no short path to get down to the hostiles, making marksdwarves obey the next move command instead of trying to charge.

I don't use fortifications, though they can be used with patrols if the architecture is designed properly. If I want to protect my swarm of marksdwarves I get melee dwarves to do that. There is no friendly fire - melee dwarves standing at the edge of the shooting platform act like fortifications except rookie marksdwarves aren't afraid to shoot from further back now. Even better if those melee dwarves are actually down there killing things while marksdwarves are doing their job from the shooting platform.

[knutor]

Or at least make them try to restock ammo from a certain area, instead of just running for whichever bolt catches their fancy?

Paint an ammo pile 3x2 down the floor just inside the fortified wall-murder hole with absolutely zero bins.  Lock down the fortress, by lifting drawbridge in front entrance, and using a forbidden door in the back entrance.  As the sieging targets get shot down, and ammo starts to run thin, other dwarfs with hauling will bring more ammo to your 3x2 ammo stockpile if you allow for it, by including that stockpile, and the craftstation making ammo, inside the Civilian(CIV) "Danger" Burrow, you'll have an unlimited amount of ammo, aslong as the logs hold out.  They will shoot and shoot and shoot. 

I'm assuming your ordering them to Defend Burrow next to a murder hole.  I mix the ammo 3x2 stockpile with 2 barrels of beverages and remove the drink container from the marksdwarf uniform.  Not sure why I do that, maybe so they hold more ammo, but I can't remember why.  For undead I think you need a bigger gun, however.  A ballista bolt aimed directly at trapped sieging targets, caught within a goblin grinder, works very well for mass elimination. 

Dont cut corners like I sometimes break down and do.  Never do far corner to far corner(FCFC), multi-z-level reclaims to get more goblinite.  I forbid all the Forbid options in orders so they never run out, unless I make them.  A FCFC reclaim will goof up the ammo supply and dwarfs will run out to reclaim single bolts and get murdered occasionally.  Just a heads up, if your in a calm embark, ya might be able to do do that, but not with a tower neighbor, I don't think. Sincerely, Knutor

[Fortress Calling]

Does bolt quality level affect damage or accuracy? Or both? The only thing i found relating to that is a quote from Toady but it's all the way back from 40d.
Also sometimes i get a announcement that a snatcher has kidnapped a baby, now i understand that when it comes to children since they roam around but babies are supposed to be chained to their mothers and since thieves get discovered if they touch anyone how did he took the baby without the mother seeing him?

Ok i found the answer to my own question. Goblin snatchers can snatch a baby while being 1 tile away from the mother that is without touching her and thus not breaking stealth.
Still interested in the first question.

[Garath]

when using metal bolts, extra damage doesn't really matter anyway