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[Leonidas]

I have several legendary marksdwarves.  (Lots and lots of bones.)  I want to train up some more marksdwarves, which means that I need available archery targets.  But I don't want my legendary marksdwarves gobbling up all my bone and wood bolts to polish their already-epic skills.  Here are the options I see:

1.  Turn the legendary marksdwarves to melee practice.  I don't like that because it may get them killed, and I have a serious problem with low immigration.  I already lost one.

2.  Keep the legendary marksdwarves on duty all the time.  In earlier version I remember this generating some unhappiness.  How serious is that unhappiness?  Will a permanently on-duty dwarf do OK if he has a legendary dining room, food, and bedroom?

Any other ideas?

[Retro]

You could always change the champions to use different weapons ('m'-'w') to get them to pick up hammers or something and not waste time at the archery ranges. Though, in any ambush or other sudden attack, you'll need to switch them back immediately.

[Derakon]

Just set them to wrestling. They won't get killed, and they can train up their shield skills, which will greatly improve their survivability in an actual fight (including against enemies with bows). If you're really worried about the dangers of training melee, just make certain that their sparring partners are also wrestling.

[expwnent]

I heard that champions never complain about being on duty for extended periods of time.

[dogstile]

I heard that champions never complain about being on duty for extended periods of time.

This, i have never seen a champion complain about being on duty, put them at the walls

[Astramancer]

alternately, you can set up a separate area of your fort that's well stocked with food and training bolts and lock the newbies there.  The champions won't use what they can't access.

[assimilateur]

Derakon's suggestion wins, hands down. Wrestling practice is, to my knowledge at least, pretty safe (and can be made even more so by giving them heavy armor), and having them gain wrestling skills - for better dodging - and stats is useful in itself.

[Shakma]

Put them on duty.  It is dangerous to have a xbow dwarf with a high hand-to-hand skill as they sometimes decide they want to wrestle close opponents instead of reloading.

[Kraegan]

Put them on duty.  It is dangerous to have a xbow dwarf with a high hand-to-hand skill as they sometimes decide they want to wrestle close opponents instead of reloading.

^  I've had this happen before.  If you keep them on the walls above the enemies you should be ok, note I said "should".

You could also forbid ammo when the elites are off duty when you want to give them a break.  Personally I leave marksdwarves off duty until they are champions, then they get set to perma-duty.

[Jim Groovester]

I heard that champions never complain about being on duty for extended periods of time.

I can't say that I've had this happen. I had some champions on duty for an extended period of time while a batch of new recruits trained wrestling to legendary. After a while they were pretty miserable.

[Derakon]

Did you check their thoughts? The main source of happy thoughts for soldiers are "had a satisfying sparring session" and "took joy in slaughter", neither of which are possible if the unit is stationed on-duty without being attacked.

[petersohn]

I once had my champion complain about being on duty for too long - for several years.

[bluea]

You can make their "On Duty" station dead center in a legendary dining room/zoo/whatnot.

Or put statues on the route you want them marching along. (Or just make masterwork quivers, backpacks, waterskins + everything else.)

You can get your military pretty darn happy even with permanent patrols and no booze (since they have waterskins).

[Hyndis]

You can have marksdwarves happy while also on patrol constantly by letting them sleep in their own rooms, and then make their rooms awesome.

"Slept in a room like a personal palace lately."

If you don't mind the trips back to the booze stockpile you can get rid of waterskins completely so the dwarves will drink booze and get happy thoughts from that. You can also station a food and booze stockpile near your main gate, so your soldiers do not have to travel very far for their alcohol.

Aside from that you should be okay. So long as you don't have very many negative thoughts you don't need any positive thoughts at all to keep them content.

Make sure that they're not marching in the rain and give them nice beds or booze they like, and they'll stay happy and on patrol forever. Be sure to build a roof over their patrol area to keep out the weather, such as rain or snow. They will not be ecstatic, but they will be at least content, and thats good enough. Even unhappy is fine. Its only when they get very unhappy that you should worry.

If any patrolling dwarf goes berserk for any reason, thats okay. He's going to do it in the middle of your barracks booze stockpile or out on patrol with other armed dwarves, so that problem will take care of itself.

[Kav]

I put small booze stockpiles at my station points set to "take from" the main stock pile. That way they have a high priority and are always stocked with delicious booze for the front line troops.

One of my favorite setups is to have the dwarfs station be inside of his own room with fortifications cut into it. I always give them their own personal booze, food, and ammo stock piles set to "take from" the main stock piles so they stay full. Turn off the "chases enemy" option so that they will go back and reload when they are empty.

This way he always stays happy, and even when he eats/drinks/sleeps he never leaves his post
Put multiples of these above the kill zone to make sure there is more than one sleeping defender when the orcs arrive...  ~.~