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[Noir]

I have actually all my melee fighters in squads of three, with the default active/training. Each squad uses only one weapon.
Some of them are complaining of their training times though.

As for the bolts, I will wait if my woodcrafters were busy doing something else; if this fails, I will give the woodcrafting job to someone else...

[Starver]

[...]and my armorer will level-up quite a bit making all those mail shirts (the sheer amount of metal rings should be well in the hundreds of thousands).

OT: You're not wrong there.  As someone who has made chain mail, IRL, there's loads of the blighters.  Even in a dwarf-sized shirt, there'll be a lot of 'em.

(And I bet your armourer will be riveting the things closed, which is a job and a half, whereas I did it the lazy way with all my self-made rings kept closed by pure metallic stiffness.)

[Noir]

OT: You're not wrong there.  As someone who has made chain mail, IRL, there's loads of the blighters.  Even in a dwarf-sized shirt, there'll be a lot of 'em.

I know that far too well, as I've done the same myself.

This is me wearing the fruit of my hard work, which was also non-riveted, a simple 4-in-1 mail of iron rings.
The latin cross in the center is made of brass rings, the decorations at the edges are made of copper.
In the photo you cannot see my chainmail gloves, which are basically leather gloves with chainmail on the back of the hand.





There is nothing better than charging into battle wearing the steel crafted with your very hands!!!

[Starver]

Nice.  And, what's more, pretty much genuine-looking.  (I was never happy with my mail headgear.  I keep on doing it and redoing it in my "practice" rings, composed of common plastic-coated garden wire....  Slightly lighter, easier on the fingers, almost as rigid.  Yours hangs nicely.  If you don't mind me saying. )

There's one shirt I've not finished (it's been a couple of years since I touched it) that was 8-in-1 over the shoulders, 6-in-1 in a "V" down front and back of the torso (incorporating different coloured metal rings to make a particular statement) and 4-in-1 in the arms and (as far as I've got) elsewhere towards the lower extremities.

Not exactly a bog-standard design, of course, very much anachronistic, and you can imagine how many rings I've got in that monstrosity.

(Still, it's not too bad for weight and fit.  You know how well they hang, if not too loose to start with.)

[Lord_Phoenix]

Nice.  And, what's more, pretty much genuine-looking.  (I was never happy with my mail headgear.  I keep on doing it and redoing it in my "practice" rings, composed of common plastic-coated garden wire....  Slightly lighter, easier on the fingers, almost as rigid.  Yours hangs nicely.  If you don't mind me saying. )

There's one shirt I've not finished (it's been a couple of years since I touched it) that was 8-in-1 over the shoulders, 6-in-1 in a "V" down front and back of the torso (incorporating different coloured metal rings to make a particular statement) and 4-in-1 in the arms and (as far as I've got) elsewhere towards the lower extremities.

Not exactly a bog-standard design, of course, very much anachronistic, and you can imagine how many rings I've got in that monstrosity.

(Still, it's not too bad for weight and fit.  You know how well they hang, if not too loose to start with.)

The key to a good coif is ring choice and properly doing the top and the expansions.  16 gauge steel at 5/16th inch ID works pretty well, in standard Euro 4-in-1 of course.  6-in-1 and 8-in-1 is best for jewelry among the Euro weaves, really too stiff for much else if using a good ring size, and they have a nice herringbone type pattern.

Other interesting weaves are Dragonscale, the various Japanese X-in-1, Full and Half Persian (only really good for jewelry, but you can make sheets of half Persian), etc.

Also, a suggestion, if you want to practice using full sized rings, try Brass.  You can get plenty of brass wire at various gauges for cheap at Lowes or Home Depot, and it's really easy to work.  Also, if you don't have your own mandril, you might be able to find a hand held one that works for just about everything, even 16 gauge steel, from some craft place like a Michael's in the jewelry area.  I have a plastic one with interchangeable different sized bars that works for everything, but the heavier metals can be tough on the hands to wind up.

[Noir]

Thanks, it did took me quite a bit of planning to do this. I actually prepared the mathematical formulas for a semi-sphere, and then calculated how many links I had to add to every next expanding circle, and I equally spaced them. The outcome was pretty good.

More questions for you all:
-when I designate a room as barracks, do I have to expand EVERY object as barracks? Every bed should "be a bedroom"? If yes, which size? Every armor stand/weapon rack should be a barracks? If yes, which size? Do I have to make barracks out of every single Archery Target? If yes, which size?

In short: if I have a bunch of barracks-related objects in a room, what is the good/best way to make a barracks?

-Also, do I have control regarding what piece of furniture to engrave with which metal/gem? Can I encrust a bed with a gem AND stud it with metal?

-Finally, I dumped a cage with a dead animal on my (internal) quantum stockpile. It caused a lot of miasma, yet NOBODY came to pick it up. Same for a rotten piece of food left in the barracks. How can I remove them?
EDIT: looks like they got removed after I removed the "dump" flag from them and made more room for a refuse stockpile. Good.

[Darkmere]

Barracks (melee) you can just make a big enclosed room and expand the barracks designation from a central armor stand/whatever.
Archery range: defining overlapping archery ranges with multiple archery targets is necessary for multiple marksdwarfs to train at once, just flag each one from training and they should take the first one free. It seems like ranges more than 10 tiles long are ideal.

Decoration: Make a small stockpile next to crafts shop that only accepts X quality Y items of Z material. Artisan should grab those first. Then you can redefine the stockpile near the other workshop and repeat. Might be a bit harder for beds than, say, masterwork gold statues, but you could forbid the ones you don't want to use in the pile and go that way.

[Starver]

Spoiler: Off Topic mail making... (click to show/hide)

Also, if you don't have your own mandril, you might be able to find a hand held one that works for just about everything, even 16 gauge steel, from some craft place like a Michael's in the jewelry area.  I have a plastic one with interchangeable different sized bars that works for everything, but the heavier metals can be tough on the hands to wind up.

Well, I don't actually have a mandrill monkey, or a proper mandrel tool.   (Sorry, picky, there.)

What I do use, if this damnable link of mine will let me use the upload service for this just taken/edited set of photos is...

Tell you what, I'll add it tomorrow, when I'm not in the back of beyond.  The Photo goes up to TinyPic/wherever and the link resets and restarts before I get the usable URL back.

Metals I've used include everything from 3mm thick stiff steel wire (galvanised, which makes it non-kosher for true historical re-enactments) to copper wire (enamelled stuff, definitely not historical) from 2.5mm to less than 0.5mm gauge.

[Lord_Phoenix]

Spoiler: Off Topic mail making... (click to show/hide)

Also, if you don't have your own mandril, you might be able to find a hand held one that works for just about everything, even 16 gauge steel, from some craft place like a Michael's in the jewelry area.  I have a plastic one with interchangeable different sized bars that works for everything, but the heavier metals can be tough on the hands to wind up.

Well, I don't actually have a mandrill monkey, or a proper mandrel tool.   (Sorry, picky, there.)

What I do use, if this damnable link of mine will let me use the upload service for this just taken/edited set of photos is...

Tell you what, I'll add it tomorrow, when I'm not in the back of beyond.  The Photo goes up to TinyPic/wherever and the link resets and restarts before I get the usable URL back.

Metals I've used include everything from 3mm thick stiff steel wire (galvanised, which makes it non-kosher for true historical re-enactments) to copper wire (enamelled stuff, definitely not historical) from 2.5mm to less than 0.5mm gauge.

It's "mandril", comes from French "mandrin".

[Starver]

Okey doke.  I've heard of mandrels being used, but not of mandrils/mandins.  I'll make a note.

(My Google-Fu fails me also.  I looked all over the place, and all I can say is that I suspect you don't mean "a firm stylet or guide for a flexible catheter"...  Well, I hope you don't. )

[Lord_Phoenix]

Okey doke.  I've heard of mandrels being used, but not of mandrils/mandins.  I'll make a note.

(My Google-Fu fails me also.  I looked all over the place, and all I can say is that I suspect you don't mean "a firm stylet or guide for a flexible catheter"...  Well, I hope you don't. )

"mandrin" is French for Lathe, which comes over into English as the driving spindle in the headstock of a lathe which becomes a shaft or bar the end of which is inserted into a workpiece to hold it during machining or a spindle on which a workpiece is supported during machining operations. 

[Noir]

OT Mail Making:

For winding up iron wire into coils, I built my own, simple tool: a very hard plastic tube, heat-bent to form a handle with a hole in one point to insert the thread; it has a wooden support to let it turn with the handle while I feed the metal wire in.
Heavy duty wire-cutter takes care of the rest.

Dwarf fortress:

Is there any problem in this game that cannot be solved by liberal amounts of Large Serrated Discs? My first Titan arrived, a large Minotaur, that in a previous botched attempt killed three of my dwarves and severely wounded others; when I finally managed to correctly make my trap serpentine work (via timely lowering of my drawbridge), this is what happened:





I'm speechless!

[Nameless Archon]

Wood bolts - craftshop + woodcrafting
Bone bolts - craftshop + bonecarving

I generally make the hunters do dual-purpose as bone/wood crafters so they can make their own darned bolts.

I also add butchering and tanning, so they will butcher/tan their own kills. If uniforms and hunters/miners/woodcutters were playing nicely in the current version (are the weapon bugs fixed yet?) I'd add leatherworking/Bowyer, and have hunters make their own crossbows, quivers, armor and bolts!

As it is, I usually add leatherworking for quivers, until I have a more skilled dwarf.