Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mythalinear]

I simply CAN NOT get them to train. I have read and tried everything listed so far.

My squad has 4 dwarfs in it, 1 militia leader, 1 recruit, 1 marksdwarf, 1 speardwarf. I have no idea why he insists on being a speardwarf, the uniform for the squad is is Archer. Only the militia leader bothers to train with the crossbow, which he does off and on, the others refuse to. They also refuse to pick up the quivers I made for them. Any idea what is going on?

[Garath]

maybe upload it somewhere (like the DFFD), I'd like to take a look

[Khegit]

Well, I actually tried your barrack suggestion again. It worked this time...for some reason. Although marksdwarves are still punks. The stupid captain of the guard waits until he organizes the entire archery demonstration, waits until everybody's there, and then runs all the way to the back of the fortress, down the stairs, and to the ammo stockpile to get the fucking wooden bolts. Seriously, the hell's the matter with these guys?

[Khegit]

Actually scratch that. He wasn't going to get wooden bolts, he was just going to get MORE fucking iron bolts. Seriously, what the hell?!

[Frogwarrior]

how many bolts do you have? if it's less than 100 and you havn't changed the default settings, 100 bolts are always reserved for hunters.

My guess is:

1: not enough bolts. Have about 50 bolts per marksdwarf
2: not enough bolts assigned. In the military screen, under ammunition, the amount assigned isn't per dwarf, it's the total amount.
3: Only one archery target set. As mentioned, each target needs to be set for the squad to use for training
4: targets set for wrong directions, or not for training enabled. As also mentioned, the length to the target may also be a factor
5: Problem with bolts number uncountable (*sigh*, bloody military). They may have trouble switching over to training bolts when they still have combat bolts


It would definately help if you could give some info on how many bolts you have, how many marksdorfs, your settings exactly for bolts, do hunters still have bolts reserved, have you double checked if the ranges are all set up correctly and other such common issues. Please spare me any 'I don't have to check I know I did it right', everyone makes mistakes and it's good to check if you didn't make one. Sorry if that last sentence is a bit sharp and not-nice, I'm a bit tired, time to sleep soon and I heard it too often (and used it myself too, shame on me).

While there do seem to be troubles with marksdwarf training, it's sporadic enough and there are enough people who report no problem at all that I'd first check for mistakes


There used to be a common problem where dwarfs wouldn't change or pick up different bolts when assigned various ones for combat and different ones for training, I don't know if it still exists

Also, @frogwarrior, aside from that issue, if you have 1000 bolts and squad 1 has 500 assigned, as well as 2 and 3 the same amount, and the hunters still have 100, the hunters have first pick of 100, squad 1 has 500, 2 has the last 400, and squad 3 will have none. If you assigned like 1.000 without having enough bolts, the other squads might never get anything

I had about 30 per marksdwarf assigned; about 2000 total bolts available for use for my 22 marksdwarves. Turning off hunting bolts was one of the first things I did. (But I checked anyway. )
I have 16 archery ranges all set up correctly, each assigned to all three marksdwarf squads. I have a mix of metal and other bolts, so I had each squad assigned 100 metal bolts and 200 bolts of any material, set to Combat but not Training. (Currently in a siege, so I don't want any training - although that's probably completely unnecessary since they're all on orders anyway.) Also I checked that all marksdwarves have a quiver and crossbow.

[Mythalinear]

maybe upload it somewhere (like the DFFD), I'd like to take a look

I was unable to make a DFFD account (wouldn't send confirmation email) but I was able to host the save folder as a .rar on mediafire. If you have time, please take a look so that I can learn why half the squad refuses to pick up quivers or shoot the target.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/dp2vqcjx1wnuaf2/region1_Marksdorfs.rar

[Garath]

well, I got them shooting the range, two of them at least. The first problem you have is that you have a total of 4 crossbows, 2 of which are claimed by hunters, so only 2 of your militia have a weapon

I changed their schedule back to training when active, set the squad to a bit of active, then inactive and the two with crossbows ran outside to shoot

I also remember someone finding a workaround other than leaving them inactive for the practise

So, it works pretty fine within the limits of a sometimes very annoying game, but make some more crossbows

[Repseki]

When you set them to Inactive, you still need to have them scheduled to train (The military schedule has a button to switch between active/inactive/or any custom alerts you create). Being "inactive" simply means they will train when they don't have other things to do, so if you remove all labors from your Marksdwarves, they should train at the targets.

You also might want to increase your ammo stockpile. I usually aim at 200~ bolts per dwarf, but even 100~ would probably be better than only have 30 each.

[Laserhead]

I usually avoid multiple bolt types. Since I prefer to keep my dwarves underground copper is usually more plentiful than wood anyway, and forging copper bolts trains weaponsmith. I'll make bone bolts occasionally, but I don't do anything to seperate them. I also keep large ammo stockpiles both near the training area and near the ramparts where they shoot enemies. They don't always seem to grab from the closest stockpile though.

Also, live training is fun and effective. Snatch a necromancer, or set them up in a reanimating biome.

[Mythalinear]

well, I got them shooting the range, two of them at least. The first problem you have is that you have a total of 4 crossbows, 2 of which are claimed by hunters, so only 2 of your militia have a weapon

I changed their schedule back to training when active, set the squad to a bit of active, then inactive and the two with crossbows ran outside to shoot

I also remember someone finding a workaround other than leaving them inactive for the practise

So, it works pretty fine within the limits of a sometimes very annoying game, but make some more crossbows

Thanks, I'll build some more crossbows and see what happens.

[Garath]

crossbow quality has a direct impact on accuracy iirc, so messing around with copper crossbows, melting down the bad ones, untill you get some decent ones is to be recommended

[Laserhead]

unless you get a legendary bowyer migrant or mood or something. Unfortunately though metal crossbow bolts are way heavier than they ought to be, so you aren't really going to be able to limit encumberance by using wooden crossbows.

[Frogwarrior]

Huh. Not sure how, but I got it to work. 2 squads full of bolts really helped against the zombie siege.

[greycat]

I have no idea why he insists on being a speardwarf, the uniform for the squad is is Archer.

The title simply indicates the highest combat skill.  It has nothing to do with what weapon they're assigned, or carrying, or training with.

Once his crossbow skill becomes higher than his spear skill, he'll show up as a marksdwarf, and change color.  It's just cosmetic anyway.

[Khegit]

You know they actually train their archery and crossbow skills in the barracks.....so why do we even need practice targets again?