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[Zebra2]

It's come to my attention that my marksdwarves are not receiving the protection they need. Two main factors play into this:

1) I've noticed that a lot of enemies seem to be able to fire straight through fortifications at long distances. Elite bowman/crossbowman, for instance, seem to completely ignore fortifications.

2) It seems like ranged weapons have an unusually high chance of piercing the spine, permanently crippling my dwarves.

Regarding point 2) what uniform should I equip my dwarves with to minimize injury to vitals? I'm thinking of just giving them all steel breastplates, chain shirts and helmets. That will mostly eliminate the fatal/crippling injuries that they can sustain from a distance.

[Gnauga]

Consider investing in gauntlets, in addition to the armor. If they get pegged in the arms, they might be forced to drop their crossbows. A danger room will train your dwarves in blocking and dodging. You can give them a shield too- crossbows are one-handed.

[INSANEcyborg]

I've noticed the first problem a couple of times.  I've also notice my marksdwarves shooting though fortifications without being right next to them, although there was no path to them at the time (built floor out of wrong material, had it deconstructed at the time)  Did your fortifications have roofs over them?  Mine didn't, I'm wondering if that's the problem.

[Urist McTaverish]

Baby dwarves make good ad hoc armor.

[Gnauga]

Fortifications act pretty much like grates or wall bars. They act as walls for anything above a certain size, and are passable to anything small enough. So for dwarfs and goblins, they're impassable walls. For fluids and projectiles, it's as if they weren't there. At least, that's my understanding.

[Zebra2]

I was under the impression that the whole point of fortifications is that only units near them can shoot through them.

[Gnauga]

Nope. The whole point is to prevent creatures from moving through. There can be a thousand  goblins swordsmen swarming the fortification, and all they can do is get pegged with bolts and stuff. A thousand marksgoblins and it's a little less one-sided.

[rmunn]

The 40d version of http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Fortification said:

Archers firing through fortifications must pass a skill test of some sort if they are not standing directly next to the fortification. This test is more difficult from further distances.

This was, however, tagged with "verify" tags and has not been carried over into the 2010 version of the wiki page, so I have no idea if it's still correct. Anyone have actual experimental data?

[iceball3]

i think it has something to do with a 'projectile' tag, which ment things that are sent flying can pass through a fortification. i don't know if the distance protects or something like that affects about the frequency of passing through (adjacent being 100%) but size doesn't affect the passing through chance
Examples:
- in a proper situation, a hammerdwarf can hammer a goblin through a fortification trapping him/her on the other side. needs testing
- you can fall on top of a fortification and exist on the same tile as it. confirmed
- entire dragons corpses can be thrown through fortifications in adventure mode. confirmed
- moving water flows seem to move players around by invoking the 'projectile' tag to move creatures around, possibly pushing it through fortifications. needs testing

so is anyone willing to test the unconfirmed ones?

[Zebra2]

Nope. The whole point is to prevent creatures from moving through. There can be a thousand  goblins swordsmen swarming the fortification, and all they can do is get pegged with bolts and stuff. A thousand marksgoblins and it's a little less one-sided.

That's pretty lame then. So essentially the game has three redundant structures with this function: fortification, vertical bars and wall grates. You would thing that fortifications at least stand a chance at blocking projectiles - hence the name fortification.

[Zaik]

Why not equip them just like any melee dwarf, aside from the shield?

Steel mail shirt, breastplate, greaves, helm, gauntlets, high(if available, otherwise low) boots

Beyond that i keep my marksdwarves' armor skill low because it keeps them slower so they don't move as fast as my melee dwarves.

I worry it might make them shoot slower, but slower shooting is better than crossbow melee.

[Hyndis]

Give them steel armor and shields. Poke them with wooden training spears for a while. Then once they're ready give them crossbows and put them on the battlements. You don't need to worry about training their ranged skills, they will do that with live fire practice. So long as they're good with a shield and good with dodging they will perform very well.

Within a few sieges they should become legendary on their own.

[Sheb]

Giving them crossbow in the danger room will also train them in the Hammerdwarf skill, which help if they ever go to melee and may help them parrying arrows as well.

[Valkyrie]

Nope. The whole point is to prevent creatures from moving through. There can be a thousand  goblins swordsmen swarming the fortification, and all they can do is get pegged with bolts and stuff. A thousand marksgoblins and it's a little less one-sided.

That's pretty lame then. So essentially the game has three redundant structures with this function: fortification, vertical bars and wall grates. You would thing that fortifications at least stand a chance at blocking projectiles - hence the name fortification.

I believe fortifications have a /chance/ at blocking projectiles, but it's just that - a chance.  In 40d, you could certainly see the piles of arrows in the channels below my fortifications, and watch the hail of incoming fire simply /stop/ at the fortifications with none getting into the room beyond.  But there were always 'lucky shot' issues, and Elite Snipers were a real problem, since they seemed much better at getting arrows through the fortifications - and a dwarven archer that got hit generally seemed to die, either from that lone wound or by repeat hits from the machinegun-esque Elite Archer who got the first arrow through.

When I experimented with using grates as removable, permiable walls for my entrance maze, they seemed to have some of the arrow-blocking features, but not nearly to the extent of fortifications.  They mostly blocked shots from the 'top', ie bolts that wanted to descend through that square, but instead 'landed' on the top of the grate.  Bolts and arrows trying to move through the same z-level as the grate seemed to have very little issue, and that experience cemented in my mind that fortifications, while imperfect, were certainly treated differently than grates.  I've never experimented much with vertical bars, so I don't actually know about their behavior, though I suspect they'll be like grates.

That was all 40d.  With archers having been nonfunctional for most of 31.x's lifespan, I haven't had a chance to mess with fortifications much in this version - though I will agree with the OP's comment about arrows being attracted to spines.  I think over half of my dwarven-fighter-death-by-arrow cases have included an arrow hit to the spine (usually the first hit they took, too).

[Dariush]

The whole point of fortifications is to allow to shoot DOWN on targets! Of course they can be shot through from both sides, so to prevent marksdwarf damage you should place them a z-level ABOVE the whichever place they target.