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Author Topic: Equipping bolts for marksdwarf training in Steam Edition  (Read 5237 times)

Biglulu

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Equipping bolts for marksdwarf training in Steam Edition
« on: December 11, 2022, 11:30:33 pm »

I'm trying to figure out why my marksdwarf won't equip bolts for training in the Steam version. I have 500 bolts in several bins, and one stack of 25 bolts in a single tile stockpile in the barracks because the wiki said that could fix it, but no luck. I have a functioning military with melee dwarfs, so I have the uniform, barracks, schedule, and archery range all set up. The marksdwarf squad is assigned to train in the archery range, it has targets, she has a quiver and crossbow equipped. Everything on the uniform is green except the bolts, which are red. There is no option for me to select bolts. It seems to be automatic. The wiki says you have to select the bolts for training, but I see no menu for that. Idk what else to try. Has anyone had success with this? Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Here are screenshots of my setup:

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« Last Edit: December 12, 2022, 09:26:52 am by Biglulu »
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A_Curious_Cat

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Re: Equipping bolts for marksdwarf training in Steam Edition
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2022, 11:48:47 pm »

I don’t have the new version, but from what I’ve been reading on the forums it’s for two reasons:

1.  You haven’t assigned your marksdwarves any bolts.

And,

2.  There isn’t any way to assign them bolts in the game.


Hopefully, this will be fixed in an update.
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Biglulu

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Re: Equipping bolts for marksdwarf training in Steam Edition
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2022, 09:24:47 am »

I don’t have the new version, but from what I’ve been reading on the forums it’s for two reasons:

1.  You haven’t assigned your marksdwarves any bolts.

And,

2.  There isn’t any way to assign them bolts in the game.


Hopefully, this will be fixed in an update.

So it's a bug?
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Xen0n

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Re: Equipping bolts for marksdwarf training in Steam Edition
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2022, 12:39:35 pm »

I'm also very interested in this topic. I know military in general & marksdwarves & bolts specifically have always been pretty fickle, but I've been successfully using them up through 47.04. However, so far in Premium I have not been able to get any marksdwarves to pick up bolts, either by attempting to follow my old habits, or trying some of the rumored fixes for Premium such as:
  • Place extra coffers in the barracks assigned to the marksdwarves for them to put bolts in
  • Place stockpiles for bolts inside the barracks assigned to your marksdwarves
  • Place separate stockpiles for metal or wood/bone bolts, metal in the barracks, wood/bone within an archery zone
  • Use the default "Archery" uniform for marksdwarves, not a custom one
  • Use "Move" orders to move your marksdwarves near the stockpiles with the bolts
  • Toggle your marksdwarves squad from Off DUty to Active/Training to get them to equip bolts
  • Click "Update Equipment" in the uniform menu for their squad

I've been trying all of these, but still no luck. However, I keep seeing messages from people claiming they have gotten marksdwarves to equip ammo, and often attributing their success to one of these tips, so maybe it is possible? I think maybe the best thing to do is try to get anybody who HAS gotten them to equip ammo to chime in and say / post a screenshot of exactly what their uniform/squad settings are, and what their barracks/archery range/bolt stockpile settings / locations are, and hopefully we could pin down a common trait?

Of course it's also quite possible that there's just some obscure bug that is active in most saves, but randomly not affecting some saves :P


EDIT:

So while not a total fix for all outstanding issues, I think I just had a minor breakthrough:

From some quick tests, it appears that a squad that had the "Archer" uniform any uniform with crossbows selected when it was created, and then never had a different uniform set via the "Assign Uniform" button, will equip and use bolts properly. Editing specific parts of the uniform on individual dwarves in the squad with the "Details" button afterwards is fine, however if you "Assign" a different uniform, that squad will never use bolts again, even if you "Assign" it back to "Archer" later  and so is "Assign"ing to a melee uniform and back to a ranged one.

Still don't see a way to specify bolt material, however I have a stockpile of wood/bone bolts in bins very near to the room with all my Archery Targets, with a stockpile with bins of metal bolts a few rooms away in their main barracks, and so far they are all using bone bolts at the Archery Targets. Haven't tried them out in combat yet.

Hopefully this can help others work around the bugs somewhat for now.

EDIT:
Turns out it stills works even if you delete the "Archer" uniform!
« Last Edit: December 12, 2022, 07:43:58 pm by Xen0n »
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Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Equipping bolts for marksdwarf training in Steam Edition
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2022, 12:10:13 pm »

Maybe it just takes time?

Mine did pick up bolts eventually.

I used o-orders to make 10 crossbows and like 300 bolts.

I created a squad and clicked the default archer-uniform.

Gave them a barrack room with both options to store things in the room selected.

I added 2 coffins to the room on a hunch they might use those to store the squad-stuff in. Maybe those are important?

After that, they did take their sweet time.

I wanted the dwarves to attack something, but eventually gave it up because one my squad of 2 dwarves didn't pick up bolts.

Then I did different stuff to deal with the problem, and after like a month or 3 of game time I returned to the marksdwarves to check what they were doing - they were not doing much, but at least he had taken the bolts.
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