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[Kagus]

I was strolling through the wiki recently, when I came upon the Marksman article, which mentioned archery targets.  There, I came upon this statement:

"Increasing Marksman skill requires a successful hit upon a target, with "live targets" granting more experience than an archery target^Verify."

If I understand this correctly, then minimum-size archery ranges should be the way to go.  The dwarf will sit and plug bolts away into a target with no misses, and will thus get skill points awarded to him for each bolt.

I always thought it was just awarded for each shot, regardless of whether or not it hit something.  Because of this, I usually made long-distance archery ranges so that I could watch the bolts fly gracefully through the air... 

Before inevitably smacking into the wall twenty feet to the side of the target.

[Hyndis]

Training at an archery range is always very slow. Its actually far more effective to first train you guys up to being wrestlers and shield users. This is so that they can survive incoming fire, using wrestling to dodge and shield skill to block so they don't get pincushioned. Once they're legendary, give them a crossbow and station them in your tower overlooking the entrance.

Even dabbling marksdwarves standing next to an ammo stockpile can throw a tremendous amount of ammo downrange. After a couple sieges they will be legendary, and they will do it while killing goblins.

[Kagus]

That's...   Kinda beside the point.  I was talking specifically about archery targets and whether or not marksdwarf practice is on a per-shot basis or a per-hit basis.

[Mephansteras]

That sounds like a job for dwarven science!

Take a recruit (just one) and give them a crossbow. Make sure they're not horribly lazy or anything like that. Then give them a minimum range archery target to practice at. Once they become green marksmen, put them on duty.

Make another dwarf a recruit and give them a longer range target. See how long it takes them to get Green.

It might be most accurate to give them a set amount of training bolts and see how many they go through before turning Green, since that'll give us the most accurate measure of how much practice they have done.

A locked training area with bolts and food/booze dropped down is probably the optimal way to achieve this since it removes any outside interference.

[Jim Groovester]

How much experience does a dwarf gain with training shots? Live targets get 30 xp, I believe, whether they hit or not.

Anyways, I'm going to test this out right now.

[Jim Groovester]

I didn't expect this would take very long. Anyways, here are my results.

I embarked on a heavily forested calm area with seven goblin peasants, because that's the way my raws are configured right now.

I began chopping down some trees, and made two no quality wooden crossbows and began making wooden crossbow bolts.

I drafted one peasant, gave him a crossbow, and had him shoot at the smallest archery range size I could make. This was two tiles away from the archery target.

After 67 shots into the target, which all hit, he became a novice crossbowman.

I undrafted him, and drafted a different peasant and gave him a no quality wooden crossbow. I repeated the experiment, but with the maximum size archery range.

The results were the same. After 67 shots, most of which missed, he became a novice crossbowman.

So there you go. The experience gain of archery practice is based on firing a shot, not hitting a target.

[Mephansteras]

A victory for dwarven ...er, goblin science!

[Kagus]

Thanks for that, Groovester.  The scientific field of science is grateful for your efforts.


Still though, this probably means someone should change the wiki.  The current wording might give people the wrong idea.

[Mephansteras]

Done. Although I didn't remove the Verify note next to live targets providing more experience, since I'm not 100% sure we've verified that.

[Jim Groovester]

Hmm.

I think I'll go test that, too.

[assimilateur]

It would be the strangest thing ever if training at the range gave experience only for shots that hit while "live training" gave you 30 points regardless of hitting anything.

[Mephansteras]

Well, at least we know that's not true now.

[Jim Groovester]

Okay.

After giving my peasant goblin a crossbow and wooden bolts and telling him to hunt, he became a novice crossbowman after 16 or 17 shots.

Firing at live targets gives lots more experience.

[assimilateur]

Well, at least we know that's not true now.

Yeah, it's a good thing Jim tested that. I mean, we're talking about a game here; accordingly, when something "makes sense" it doesn't have to be true. Hell, that's probably true about any topic.

[Jim Groovester]

Looking at the experience page on the wiki, the values listed for marksman experience are basically what I got. 7.5 experience per shot for archery practice, 30 for shot against live targets.

Footnote 4 is completely wrong, as I just tested.