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[Dwarf4Explosives]

!!Ammo!!. Seriously, although you may not achieve the !!!! part, you could probably assign useless dorfs to a squad, station them in front of a giant pressurized water tank and throw them into invaders at high speed you know the rest.

[Ki11aGhost]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've got a few things I do with "useless" dwarfs. First I enable everything like brewing, wood burning, threshing, smelting, and strand extraction for which there is no quality difference. Then build a bunch of each workshop (I've got like 12 strand extracting workshops) so if I need a lot of anything in a hurry I can just throw a bunch of beards at it. Second I build in the meeting hall or high traffic areas a simple mist generator consisting of two manually operated screw pumps one atop the other with walls on one side and a channel with a grate over it on the other. This give happy thoughts, cleans things, and gradually turns all the useless guys red for easy identification.

Third when I've got a lot of red guys roaming around I make them marksdwarfs. Crossbows are my favorite weapons and mature forts of mine are usually at least one third crossbowdwarfs.

I like crossbowdwarves, but I never really figured out how to train them. Is enabling hunting on them good enough? (My best marksdwarf is my mayor/crossbow-squad captain, who basically hunts non-stop.) If I put them in a danger room, will it do anything for them crossbow-wise, or will it just train their hammerdwarf skill?

[TripJack]

I like crossbowdwarves, but I never really figured out how to train them

you need an archery range

[Ki11aGhost]

I like crossbowdwarves, but I never really figured out how to train them

you need an archery range

Well I know that, but what's a good way to set one up? The ones I've set up in the past don't seem to train them all too well.

[Laserhead]

Or live(-ish) target practice. I don't like hunting as a labor, gets too finicky with equipment, too likely to get a dwarf killed, and I don't like surface work for RP reasons.

[Aslandus]

If I put them in a danger room, will it do anything for them crossbow-wise, or will it just train their hammerdwarf skill?

It'll only boost their hammerdwarf skill, though that isn't necessarily bad, since they may need it later, it doesn't help their shooting. there are big builds you could do to make them shoot, and thereby improve, such as a live training room, but they can be tricky to get right.

[Laserhead]

Archery targets are tricky. If you set them up right, assign them right, and get the equipment problems sorted, dwarfs might use them, sometimes. It is still subject to the relative unpredictability of military training, but it can work. Live training is much more effective, though it can also be tricky to set up if you don't have a good supply of targets.

Even without training, 50 fully equipped novice marksdwarves in a fortified position will still blunt a siege considerably.