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[ShuangXi]

I'm locked in, going outside for more than a moment is like a death wish.

So... what is the best to get bolts to train archers?  Metal is too expensive to waste on training at this point. 

Do some animals produce more bones than others?  If that's true, maybe I can request some from the caravan and breed them underground

[Stargazer]

Turkeys and pigs don't need to graze and produce a decent amount of bones and meat, so they're likely the best to keep in a pen underground and breed.

[Cool Guy]

Turkey and Pigs don't need to graze, so they can be raised underground

(None of the poultry graze so you can use any but the turkey is the biggest and has the largest clutch size, so you can breed them faster and get larger animals for the effort.)

[knutor]

Pop and reseal a cavern to get underground spores.  Then harvest them in your soil layers, or paint a layer with an activity zone: pond, to moisten and then dirty up the stone floor enough to grow stuff, 1/7 should be enough.

Or better still, don't train.  Shooting real stuff, real stuff yields more xp/shot, and thereby takes less bolts.  Clean the cavern of Elk Birds.  Try and open the cavern with widest most open areas, those narrow, cluttered caverns are hard to hunt in.

[AutomataKittay]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Domestic_animal

I'd go with peafowls and a cage, they grows up just as they get to full size, so you can butcher them right away. Easy to manage too and provides food while you wait for them too

Bone bolts will kill everything with enough of them and I like them better than metal, personally

[I am Leo]

Dig down, wall off any accidental meeting with the caverns, set up a forge on the magma sea. Set up a mining operation, dining room,some beds, food stockpiles and everything else needed for a self contained mini fort down there and suddenly metal bolt production is very cheap and easy, just with a big gap between it and the rest of your fort, but far easier than breeding farm animals for bones.

You may even consider digging a shaft next to the stairway to the depths that you can use to drop food and materials from the surface to cut down hauling time. Metal, food and beds get dropped down, bolts get hauled up.

[Gaybarowner]

make a fortification outside and use it to shoot live creatures from the safety of indoors

[Blue_Dwarf]

Say, can you order dwarves to shoot your peahens?

[katana]

@Blue_Dwarf Nope.

I've been finding that archer training isn't needed, killing invaders/wild creatures from a fortification at the entrance to my fort is enough. If you do need bolts, try pigs/turkeys as suggested earlier.

[goblolo]

Say, can you order dwarves to shoot your peahens?

you cant, but you can chain them right outside the fortress wall to attract invaders and shoot gobbos instead!

[Blue_Dwarf]

I've been finding that archer training isn't needed, killing invaders/wild creatures from a fortification at the entrance to my fort is enough.

Indeed, however it's nice for the attribute training. You also need a level 10+ marksdwarf to effectively shoot from fortifications, otherwise its's not very convenient.

[Sutremaine]

You also need a level 10+ marksdwarf to effectively shoot from fortifications

Only if the dwarf is standing on a tile not right next to a fortification.

You can station a dwarf right next to a fortification by blocking off their other options. When a dwarf has a station point, from routes or from a direct order, they can place themselves anywhere in a 7x7 square centred on the station point.

Code: [Select]

###+F..
###+F..
###+F..
###SF..
###+F..
###+F..
###+F..
# = wall
+ = floor
S = station point
F = fortification
. = open space

Here, a dwarf ordered to the station point has nowhere to stand but the floor tiles, and will always be next to a fortification.

[Blue_Dwarf]

Only if the dwarf is standing on a tile not right next to a fortification.

Yes, that's why it's inconvenient. It's affordable in a training room, not so much in live siege environment.

[AutomataKittay]

Only if the dwarf is standing on a tile not right next to a fortification.

Yes, that's why it's inconvenient. It's affordable in a training room, not so much in live siege environment.

It actually works pretty well if you designate the area to stand on through armor or weapon stand for training and don't have any other areas set to train them. I've not had any trouble from that.

[knutor]

I use Defend Burrow, to keep mine snug against the murder holes.  I also remove any access from the Roost, name of burrow, to the outside of the fortress, or what they are to shoot, so they don't change their minds and proceed to melee, when quiver runs dry.  If ya paint an ammo stockpile underfoot, and keep it bin-less and limit other ammo stockpiles; they will never run out of ammo. 

Well of course, as long as CIVs can haul more up safely, from below.  I've had soldiers without any xbow skills, go to lv15, during one siege, if a bunch of of targets are disabled outside the roost, by a flush trap, or some means, preventing them from leaving range.  It does work, the trick is keeping them from exiting the Roost, to engage in melee.  They tend to want to do that, instead of reload and refill quiver.

Its really a crap shoot.  But I never use Station with murder holes.  Because the Station order has awful precision.  And if the player limits the floor space, he runs into collision-falling problems, eventually.  16 xbows standing in one 1x1 burrow,  provide efficient cover fire, as opposed to 3-4 with the other dozen meandering the causeways.  Sincerely, Knutor