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[phoenixuk]

I have a curious occurance... um... occuring.
My militia squad number 2 "Steppes of Blockading" is my ranged unit, all equipped with leather armour and crossbows. They are equipping perfectly, which is nice to see, and i have my ammunition set to bone and wood bolts for training, metal for combat. This seems to also be working.

However, 80% of the time, the 5 of them i have in training at a time are stood around watching striking demonstrations or dodging... and only occasionally will one of them wander off to shoot at the 5 carefully arranged archery targets i made for them.

Is the actual training cycle random? Or is their any way i can force the dumb buggers to learn how to shoot more, instead of spending time learning how to club things and dodge stuff... Note: They do use the targets, just... not very often, at least, not as often as i would like a specialist crossbow team to use them.

[darkflagrance]

What happens if you disallow their squad from the barracks they are currently assigned to?

[krenshala]

You might try shuffling troops between squads with an eye to what they prefer doing.  Perhaps the slackers gawkers are more inclined to a life of hand-to-hand fun?  Its more micro-managing that most people enjoy, but this is DF after all. 

I know I had a miner that spent more time "On Break"/"Eat"/"Drink" than mining, and a Hunter/Fisher that just wandered around outside.  When I viewed their moods I noticed the miner liked the outdoors and the hunter enjoyed "picks" ... I switched their professions and both became dramatically more productive at their new jobs. 

[phoenixuk]

Well all of my ranged troops were recruited because they had some marksdwarf skill, to avoid bad thoughts from drafting unskilled muppets. The weird thing is that they do from time to time use the archery range, they just spend MOST of their time attending dodging demonstrations or striking etc... which i've now noticed are being organised by my elite crossbowdwarf o.0 You'd think he'd be more inclined to pass on his awesome killingsmanship skills rather than "This is your bow, This is how to hit someone with it..."

I've plenty of wood and bone training bolts, and more quivers than i'll ever need. Everyone is using a crossbow, and some have even grown attached too them. I've moved them to another barracks with only archery targets and a single armor stand, and they do the same thing... sometimes they'll have some archery practice, but most of the time, they'll stand around smacking each other with the butt of the crossbow.

[Heavenfall]

You don't need any armor stand or weapon rack, you can straight up assign them to an archery target. Use a weapon rack or armor stand if you want them to train defensive skills as well.

[phoenixuk]

aha... ok i'll strip the armor stand out of the barracks and see if that helps!

[phoenixuk]

Ok removing the armor stand has resulted in one dwarf performing archery practice, and 4 with "Soldier (cannot follow order)" on the jobs screen.

Here's their barracks now.
Targets                ammo stockpile

x                         ===
                          ===
x                         ===
                          ===
x                         ===
                          ===
x                         ===
                          ===
x                         ===

Each target is set to shoot from Right to Left, and has Training ticked in the barracks list for this squad.

[darkflagrance]

Do you have enough quivers?

[Heavenfall]

That's standard, unfortunately. They're very hesitant to actually use archery targets.

[NewsMuffin]

I've plenty of wood and bone training bolts, and more quivers than I'll ever need.

I'd say he has enough quivers.
I don't delve into ranged combat, but that's mainly because my .31.xx fortresses never got far enough for me to try.

[phoenixuk]

I'm beginning to think it's something to do with ammo assignments, i'd set them up to have 100 of each bolt type, but the assignments were never ticked in the ammo screen. I've since dropped them to 50 wood and 50 bone, and i'm getting more training done.

Point to note, i've 32 quivers of various sorts, and about 1500 bone/wood bolts, so it's not a lack of gear, it's something to do with who get's assigned what ammo.

*edit* Ok now i'm stumped, after two or three succesful archery blam sessions, we're back to 4 "Soldier (cannot follow order)" and one guy training. I'm definitely not short of ammo (hell i've nearly 800 cow bone bolts alone) or quivers... so, any further suggestions? Or hell, anyone who's succesfully set this up have any tips, or even a Ranged team walkthrough?

[Valience]

my only suggestions, as others have stated and I'm fairly sure you've already done, is to make sure they are set to train (and only train) at the archery targets, and not to train anywhere else. Also make sure you give them a place to sleep (seems to help sometimes). Further, place all of the training ammo in a stockpile around where they'll be standing to shoot at.  I had a few coffers in the archery area, just for show, but you could probably assign them to your archers to put crap in if you were inclined.

So as I said... nothing much helpful Sorry~ If you've got the dwarfhood to do it, setting them all up as hunters and giving them each a (useless) hunting dog should get then to 'train', while also bolstering your food and leather supplies. Of course then you have to read all the "Cancels hunt: no ammo" spam.

[krenshala]

The only other thing I can think of is, do you have the targets (or is it the soldiers?) assigned for individual practice?  I know the one time I've tried a military, my one and only soldier (immigrant that liked crossbows and was a novice everything military) made a bee-line for the archery target once i configured it for individual practice, but ignored it for the two seasons previous ...

Now to try and figure out military stuff better so I can defend my latest fortress from the elven caravans goblin seiges.

[Foehamster]

Is the single archer that's using the archery target using the same target every time? I believe you need to designate each archery target as a room with a firing direction then allow a squad to train at each target.  Because it sounds like the other 4 want to train, but the only usable archery target they are aware of is already in use.

[phoenixuk]

All the targets are set to train, with that specific squad assigned. I've got them set so that only 5 of the 10 are training at a time, and i've on very rare occasion had 2 or 3 using targets at once, but after a half dozen bolts it's back to "Solder (cannot follow order)".

Can they actually be set to individual archers? If that's the case i'll need ten targets, one for each squad member, but if that's what it takes to get it working...