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[Madmonkey24]

I've read the wiki, and this is the most frustrating problem I've had so far. I built an archery range with on target, shooting from left to right. The target is against a wall on the right. My three man squad of marksdwarves is off duty, and they all are carrying iron crossbows. I've made bone bolts available to them, and they have them in their inventory. Yet they have never practiced on the range. Is there anything I'm missing here? Thanks.

[Michaelsoftman]

You're sure you've designated the size of the archery range and such?

Try changing the direction they shoot at, see if that makes a difference.

[Madmonkey24]

Absolutely sure.

I tried changing directions, it didn't work.

[Michaelsoftman]

Hmmm...

Are your dwarves forbidden from going outside?

Do you have extra bone bolts in addition to what they're holding?  They usually pick up extra stacks to go practice with.

[Madmonkey24]

There are plenty of bolts. Is this a bug of some sort?

[Karadan]

Did you remember to designate it as a room?

[Madmonkey24]

Yep, it's designated.

[Puck]

is the room shared? did you accidentially set the shooting direction from right to left?

maybe you should just get us a screenshot from the archery range anyway.

[Madmonkey24]

[Karadan]

Deactivate your dwarves, reactivate, see if that helps.

Also keep in mind that you need to designate each individual archery target for them to use one.  Could be that they are only using one when you aren't looking, could also be that the overlap is causing some kind of problem.  Personally I put each target in its own little hallway, and have never had problems.

[Puck]

And I let my archery range rooms overlap withouzt any problems. I asked about the overlap because of other rooms that might cause the floorspace to be too crowded, like when it prevents people from sparring in barracks. But I dont know if its even possible...

BUUUUUT

do I see a bolt-preserving channel there? Does that even work that way? I somewhat seem to be remember that it works if you put the channel BEHIND the range and just collect the bolts that miss. But I think right now they refuse to train over a channel like that. (marksdwarves, that is, not siege guys, for instance) I could be wrong there, but its easy to test, innit?

edit.... OOOOhhhh wait,. the thing i thought that could be a channel is actually the target,right 

edit2: maybe they are stationed somewhere? somewhere not close to the range? put em off duty to check? maybe?

[Madmonkey24]

Yeah, it was the channel that was stopping them. Thanks everyone!

[Albedo]

(adding on here, since it's a related question)

When creating a practice range, is it better to make it longer so more bolts don't hit (and thus fall into your recovery channel, and can be re-used), or is it hitting the target that increases skill, and the longer walk not worth the savings in bone bolts?

That is, should a practice range be as short as possible, (? - 4 tiles long? - archer, 1 empty tile, target, channel), or closer to 20, near the max range for a bolt?

[zchris13]

It's pulling the trigger that nets you the skill.

[cancel.man]

Related question- but my channel is behind the target

I have a squad of 6 would-be marksdwarves. After they all attained marksdwarfdom I decided they should all get a little wrestler cross-training. After they trained a bit, I set them all back to crossbows. Unfortunately I let them train a little too long and a few of them must have really taken to the wrestling...

Now 3 of the marksdwarves in the squad are training up their marksdwarfship once again at the range. The other 3 in the squad are carrying their crossbows... but spend all their time sparring in the barracks with the Royal Guard. They're now Elite wrestlers (so I can't deactivate them) and their hammer skill is increasing in spades (the way you're not supposed to use a crossbow), but they refuse to fire a shot!

Any idea what would cause this behavior? Should I try locking them in the archery range? Should I move them to melee squads and train new marksdwarves?

Update: To add to the weirdness... I dumped a bunch of captured gobbos in my slaughter pit and stationed the marksdwarf squad outside the fortification wall to shoot them down like fish in a barrel. The Elite Wresters just stood there with crossbow in hand a refused to fire.
The other members of the squad fired off a couple of bolts... but then stopped reloading and just stood there. About 6 gobbos remained- all active and alive. There's lots and lots of ammo nearby.
I took the squad off duty- they didn't budge. I put them back on duty and moved their station point - nobody moved. They just stood still and watched the gobbos from the other side of the fortifications.
Finally I called in a squad of speardwarves and opened the door to the slaughter room. It wasn't until all the remaining gobbos were dead that the squad of marksdwarves finally went about their business (of training the wrong skills and such).

I'm starting to think this is the most broken squad of marksdwarves ever. Half of them don't shoot and all of them get hypnotized by the enemy.