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[crekit]

So, I have a group of marksdwarves. They picked up ammo and stuff (funnily enough, I had more trouble getting them to equip a crossbow than to equip ammo) and got set up and ready to go.

(well, then they ran into combat without crossbows and get murdered but I recruited new guys so whatever )

The problem is, they won't practice archery! They have weapons and quivers and bolts, and they have archery rooms. The target rooms are separated from their barracks and each target has an individual room, and directions are set, and they don't have to be adjacent to the target to fire. They even say in their jobs list "go to archery practice." But then they just STAND THERE! Not moving!

Unrelated problem, if a dwarf wants to bury another dwarf, and the dwarf is unreachable or out of their burrow, they will sit on the coffin and throw cancellation spam until they die of hunger or thirst.

Random note: these goblins don't even have breastplates! Do goblins normally come with barely any armor? Or is it just because they are only ambushes?

Final thingy: Managing plant production sucks. There's so much cancellation spam! Why can't they just process plants automatically?

[Michaelsoftman]

Make sure to set which squad trains in the settings for the Archery target, then the squad must not be on active duty to train.

[crekit]

Make sure to set which squad trains in the settings for the Archery target, then the squad must not be on active duty to train.

The archery squads are set correctly. What do you mean not on active duty? I have them set on active/training.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Make sure to set which squad trains in the settings for the Archery target, then the squad must not be on active duty to train.

The archery squads are set correctly. What do you mean not on active duty? I have them set on active/training.

Weirdly enough that will get them training to bash each other with crossbows at a barracks. Putting them on inactive will get them shooting at targets.

[crekit]

Make sure to set which squad trains in the settings for the Archery target, then the squad must not be on active duty to train.

The archery squads are set correctly. What do you mean not on active duty? I have them set on active/training.

Weirdly enough that will get them training to bash each other with crossbows at a barracks. Putting them on inactive will get them shooting at targets.

When I put them on unactive that set them to put their civilian cloths back on o.O

Also how come this isn't on the wiki?!

[Torrasque666]

if you hit "/" in the schedule screen you can edit how they function when "off duty" allowing for them to still be equipped if desired.

[crekit]

So what if I want them patrolling part of the year and training the other half? Do I have to manually set that every time?

[Nyxalinth]

Are the burial areas where you placed the coffins very small?  I had the same issue with the coffins in a previous fort.  I had very small burial chambers, so deconstructing the coffins and putting them in a larger space fixed it.  The dorfs were literally too dumb to get down from the coffin towards the exit in 1 x 2 burial chambers I was trying to use, and there was no room in any other direction.

[crekit]

Yeah, they are built like..
O = coffin
+ = floor
X = wall

XXXXXXXX+++
XOXOXOXO+++
X+++++++++
XOXOXOXO+++
XXXXXXXX+++

More or less.

[JimboM12]

Final thingy: Managing plant production sucks. There's so much cancellation spam! Why can't they just process plants automatically?

Do you mean the can't find the seed cancellation spam? You can reduce that by disabling barrels in your seed stockpile; with the seeds in bags without barrels, dwarves will only carry the necessary bag to pick up seeds after brewing and such, instead of dragging an entire barrel of various seeds causing mass spam as Urist McFarmer goes for plump helmet spawn but cant find the seeds due to Urist McSpam dragging the entire barrel of seeds to the still. For processing plants like in a farmers workshop or a millstone/quern, just use the manager to make batches of 30 job orders. Or use repeat.

[crekit]

Final thingy: Managing plant production sucks. There's so much cancellation spam! Why can't they just process plants automatically?

Do you mean the can't find the seed cancellation spam? You can reduce that by disabling barrels in your seed stockpile; with the seeds in bags without barrels, dwarves will only carry the necessary bag to pick up seeds after brewing and such, instead of dragging an entire barrel of various seeds causing mass spam as Urist McFarmer goes for plump helmet spawn but cant find the seeds due to Urist McSpam dragging the entire barrel of seeds to the still. For processing plants like in a farmers workshop or a millstone/quern, just use the manager to make batches of 30 job orders. Or use repeat.

No, that's easy. The problem is the processing, milling, and dying of plant products! See, with many tasks it just queues up stuff at the workshop until it runs out and then only gives ONE cancellation. But here I have to either go make it repeat or order lots in the manager screen, and with the manager it ends up sending tons of cancellations! Can't it just auto mill so that I have like, 50 flour/sugar/dye or something? And auto process my pig tails (or most of them, so I can brew the rest)

[Rutilant]

So what if I want them patrolling part of the year and training the other half? Do I have to manually set that every time?

No;  You can set up custom orders where they, on any month you indicate, will go defend a particular burrow. instead of Active/Training.  So they can be off duty for a month, patrolling the battlements for a month and then training for a month, for example.  Preferably on rotation.  There might also be a 'patrol' order instead of defend, but I don't really recall - I just try to keep them doing everything through active/training and squad orders, myself.

Seems to save me a lot of casualties if I station them myself because it's the only way they'll stay grouped up enough.

Another trick is to set up your archery targets so that while they're shooting the target, they're also backed up against fortifications so if any thief tries to flee past the training area they'll get bolted and be extra good practice.  You can just have them train on location this way, but remember to add a drawbridge shutter of some kind on the outside in case an elite bowgoblin shows up before your marksdwarves are any good.  ( Edit for clarity; I mean so they turn around and fire out the battlements at the thief.  Not so that the thief has to run in between dwarves and archery targets.  That sounds... insecure.)


Ranged goblins can also show up as the leaders of melee squads and will singlehandedly annihilate a crappy unarmored marks squad, so.  At some point you might just want to force them inside for easier dealing with so being able to close off your battlements is important.  Especially since you'll get a wounded cascade if people keep running up onto the battlements to grab wounded and then get shot themselves.  And then a mood cascade!  Er, tantrum spiral.

[Naryar]

Eh, archery range is such a waste. I usually fire on useless wildlife or goblins to train my marksdwarf squads. Trains far faster and doesn't require much oversight.

As a bonus, I get meat/leather/bones, I redecorate my map in red, and I appease Armok.

[smakemupagus]

You can also edit any order so that only some of the squad is required to do it, so sometimes I'll have it set to "2 marksdwarves guard the burrows on top of this watchtower" while the other 8 are inactive, that is, free to use the archery range or stand around the dining room getting soused.  They use the range a fair bit. 

> No, that's easy. The problem is the processing, milling, and dying of plant products! See, with many tasks it just queues up stuff at the workshop until it > runs out and then only gives ONE cancellation. But here I have to either go make it repeat or order lots in the manager screen, and with the manager it
> ends up sending tons of cancellations! Can't it just auto mill so that I have like, 50 flour/sugar/dye or something? And auto process my pig tails (or most
> of them, so I can brew the rest)

There is a plugin for DFHack called Workflow which does just this, you might want to look into it.  Can't tell you too much more since I don't use it much.

[crekit]

Alright so basically they need to be innactive. Okay!

As for workflow, I shall have to try that out!