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[MantisMan]

I'm having a bit of a hard time assigning equipment to my military. When I first draft a migrant into a squad, he drops his silk socks (and possibly his shoes as well) on the ground immediately and goes to pick up his equipment. The socks are, as far as I can tell, just sitting at the edge of the map until some thief decides to steal them.

That was just a minor annoyance. The main difficulty I'm having is when I try to assign a uniform or weapon to a dwarf. I can't see if the weapon or armour I'm trying to assign is already being used by someone else. I only have so many weapons, and I don't have enough fuel to just overproduce them and hope the dorfs pick what I want them to. Is there a way to to check to see if a piece of equipment is owned without going through my stocks, or checking in each dwarf's inventory?

Just so this post isn't too short, I'll ask one more thing: I have them set to Leather armour because I don't have much in the way of local weapons-grade metal other than silver. If I set the squad leaders to use metal armour, then will they default to leather if they can't find the metal parts?

[Acperience]

1) When you assign them uniforms, is the uniform set to go over clothing or replace clothing? Replacing clothing will force dwarves to drop anything you didn't specify them to wear.

2) Yes it is annoying when you can't see if a weapon is already being used, but are you giving them weapons using the "specific weapon" choice? You can try setting them to have the same general weapon, for example have a squad equip "crossbows" with "steel" as the material, instead of giving each dwarf a specific steel crossbow.

3) No I don't believe they will default to leather if you assign them metal, even with partial match.

[MantisMan]

1. I'll make sure the uniform is set to go over clothing. Thanks for reminding me.

2. The thing is, I have a bunch of different weapons, and I want a quick way to see how many of what kind of weapon is still unassigned, so that can see how many more swordsdwarves I can make. This also applies to armours and knowing how many more sets of leather/bone/metal armour to make. Is there anything like a quick view in the game right now?

3. Alright then. Thanks for the information.

[doctorspoof]

Regarding point 3), i've seen my dwarves equip wooden (stolen from elves, stfu) gauntlets while they waited for my iron ones to be forged.

Following that 'logic', I think they do default down to lesser types of armour if the type you assign them isn't available.

EDIT: My latest fort has no metal armour and unused leather armour sat in stockpiles. So to answer your question, no for leather, yes for wooden stuff. Oddly enough.

[Ravac]

Don't forget that when designing a uniform, the default setting for any piece of armor is "any material", so if you assign gauntlets, the dwarves will pick up any gauntlet available, metal or wood.

With regard to choosing leather armor if metal isn't available, you would have to include leather armor in the design. As an example, if the uniform specification includes only "breastplates", the dwarves will pick up any available breastplate, either metal or wood, and use that. If you want to insist they use metal only, then you have to pick the material the item is made from too. Lastly, they will not pick "leather armor" from the massive stockpile of it since "leather armor" wasn't included in the design. You'd have to design a uniform that included both leather armor and breastplates. Then once you had enough metal breastplates made, you could omit the leather armor from the design.

As far as weapons are concerned, I usually just assign "individual choice, melee" to a uniform and then just make an assortment of axes, spears, and hammers. The dwarves will pick what they want.

[Megaman3321]

If you're gonna build a uniform for archers too, I would suggest inculding a melee weapon, such as a hammer, so that they don't try to melee with their crossbow.

[Acperience]

1. I'll make sure the uniform is set to go over clothing. Thanks for reminding me.

2. The thing is, I have a bunch of different weapons, and I want a quick way to see how many of what kind of weapon is still unassigned, so that can see how many more swordsdwarves I can make. This also applies to armours and knowing how many more sets of leather/bone/metal armour to make. Is there anything like a quick view in the game right now?

3. Alright then. Thanks for the information.

Point 2:

I usually train all soldiers with crossbows and equip soldiers after they're trained, so I've never really worried too much about what weapons are still unassigned.
I also mod my crossbows with bayonets, so the melee attack is a edged type, sword skill attack that's not overpowered. It also makes steel crossbows worth forging. Plus it's just cooler.

However, in the stocks screen (z, then "stocks") under weapons, you can change the viewing mode with tab, this will let you view each individual weapon on the map. The weapons listed in gray are unassigned, the ones listed in brown are either being wielded or are part of a weapon trap.

If there's an easy way to view what you mentioned, I don't know of it, but I probably don't know a lot of things.

[MantisMan]

Update: Good news and bad news.

The good news is that the equipment problem isn't going be as big a problem as before. The bad news is that this is because I tried fighting off a 16-goblin siege (including one mounted on a cave crocodile!). Even after using the dwarven caravan's guards as makeshift reinforcements and using hastily-set-up cage traps to trap about half their number, around half my military was wiped out. I think I'm going to need to expand my graveyard. :/

This 10-15 dwarven casualties is the most "fun" I think I've had at one time. I haven't played dwarf fortress much in the last year or so. Most of my 3 marksdwarves were off "requisitioning equipment" (even though when I added them to the squad I had them set to not use a uniform) or drinking during the invasion when I'd stationed them at the fortifications. I checked partway through the fight, and one of the marksdwarves didn't have any crossbow with him. (?)

Post Script: Among the captured invaders is the goblin leader's cave crocodile mount. I was thinking of putting it in the murder room for sparring practice. If I have to kill it, what military forces whould I put in murder room with it? As far as I know, it didn't get a chance to actually kill a dwarf before it was captured. Is it possible for me to tame it?

[Nilik]

Wait, how the hell do you make a pair of gloves out of wood??

[Acperience]

Imported from the elves, where import can also mean "stolen" or "looted off corpse""

[sneakey pete]

As for point 1, if they have a room with a chest in it, they should cart their spare clothing to their chest during some of their spare time.

Wait, how the hell do you make a pair of gloves out of wood??

Same way you make them our of metal. but weaker.

[Acperience]

I've never seen them put clothes inside chests, only cabinets. I think chests are for non-clothing items.

[Xenos]

I've never seen them put clothes inside chests, only cabinets. I think chests are for non-clothing items.

non cloth/leather items probably.  because my hospital stored no buckets until i loaded a bunch of chests in it.  bags are for powdery items. 

[Pilsu]

I assume wooden items are actually made from thin strips like a woven basket, not just logs or sticks tied together into some kind of laughable zulu armor.

[Trouserman]

However, in the stocks screen (z, then "stocks") under weapons, you can change the viewing mode with tab, this will let you view each individual weapon on the map. The weapons listed in gray are unassigned, the ones listed in brown are either being wielded or are part of a weapon trap.

Items in gray on the stocks screen are imported and those in brown were produced by your dwarves.  Items which are part of a building like a trap are shown in cyan.  For other colors, consult the wiki.  There does not appear to be any indication of which items are assigned or in use by dwarves.