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[Henrik Undrgrim]

Try training a different squad with crossbows.If it doesnt work its a problem with training/designations, if it does work its the dwarves and they should be made an example of.

[Sphalerite]

yep, they all have bolts in their quivers. They refuse to use them

What kind of bolts?  Normally your marksdwarves will only use wood or bone bolts for practice.  If their quivers are full of metal bolts, they won't practice, and they're not smart enough to remove the metal bolts to make room for wood or bone bolts.  You'll need to dump the metal bolts manually so they can pick up the practice bolts.

[bombzero]

I make Black Bronze crossbows (genesis), so its arguable which method is more effective.

Unrelated but Genesis crossbows have bayonets so making them out of edge metals is actually better than dense metals.

I seem to be getting alot of enemies with breastplates instead of mail, so the blunt blade actually does a decent amount of damage, however i will be swapping thier gear for addy stuff, just for redundancy points.

[Nan]

yep, they all have bolts in their quivers. They refuse to use them

What kind of bolts?  Normally your marksdwarves will only use wood or bone bolts for practice.  If their quivers are full of metal bolts, they won't practice, and they're not smart enough to remove the metal bolts to make room for wood or bone bolts.  You'll need to dump the metal bolts manually so they can pick up the practice bolts.

Emphasis on normally? For me these problems tend to disappear if I remove the existing bolt allocations and add new ones. My dorfs then have no problem at all burning off excess copper bolts in a firing range. In fact I consider replacing the existing bolt allocations with new ones, essential practice, I've not been scientific about it, but if my marksdwarves are being uncooperative it always seems to help.

[MonkeyHead]

Pardon me, I need to shout this:

MARKSDWARVES WILL PERFORM CROSSBOW USE DRILLS AS PART OF BARRACKS TRAINING AS WELL AS DODGE AND SHIELD USE. THESE ARE GOOD THINGS. THIS CROSSBOW DRILL TRAINS THE ARCHER SKILL. SHOOTING STUFF TRAINS MARKSMAN SKILL (maybe even both)...

Both skills are good to get.

[Naros]

Shooting stuff with a crossbow trains the crossbow skill and the archer skill, yes.

My solution is usually to have about ten hunters run around in groups, hunting down all the wildlife. They'll be at skill 8+ in no time at all, and all those bones you get from the dead aminals, you turn into more bolts!

Edit: Which comes with the bonus that they'll sometimes try and attack things with the crossbow when out of bolts. Which isn't an issue, because their buddies are shooting tons of bolts into the poor targets, often stunning or disabling them while they're being pummelled to death.

[Loud Whispers]

Shooting stuff with a crossbow trains the crossbow skill and the archer skill, yes.

My solution is usually to have about ten hunters run around in groups, hunting down all the wildlife. They'll be at skill 8+ in no time at all, and all those bones you get from the dead aminals, you turn into more bolts!

Edit: Which comes with the bonus that they'll sometimes try and attack things with the crossbow when out of bolts. Which isn't an issue, because their buddies are shooting tons of bolts into the poor targets, often stunning or disabling them while they're being pummelled to death.

Just wait for a siege, or anything really, really big to show up, and watch your hunters get torn to pieces.

[JackOSpades]

Hmmm  just a thought but I've noticed my marksdwarves use the crossbows to shoot in combat far more often when they also have a valid melee weapon other than the crossbow. they will then switch to said weapon when forced into melee range or they run out of bolts.
I noticed this quickly after equipping them with daggers for esthetic purposes.

[bombzero]

Hmmm  just a thought but I've noticed my marksdwarves use the crossbows to shoot in combat far more often when they also have a valid melee weapon other than the crossbow. they will then switch to said weapon when forced into melee range or they run out of bolts.
I noticed this quickly after equipping them with daggers for esthetic purposes.

that.. is a good idea, training time would be longer but you would wind up with higher attribute, versatile military dwarfs, you wont need crossbow and melee sqauds as they are one in the same.

get scienceing... now.

[Naros]

Shooting stuff with a crossbow trains the crossbow skill and the archer skill, yes.

My solution is usually to have about ten hunters run around in groups, hunting down all the wildlife. They'll be at skill 8+ in no time at all, and all those bones you get from the dead aminals, you turn into more bolts!

Edit: Which comes with the bonus that they'll sometimes try and attack things with the crossbow when out of bolts. Which isn't an issue, because their buddies are shooting tons of bolts into the poor targets, often stunning or disabling them while they're being pummelled to death.

Just wait for a siege, or anything really, really big to show up, and watch your hunters get torn to pieces.

This will get them to Legendary before the first siege shows up, if you play your cards right. Poor elephants and tigers...

[Azure]

First things first. Hunters should not be employed as marksdwarves without getting rid of their hunter equipment. They are derpy and like to forget how to use their gear.

Make some Copper crossbows. Seriously. Wood is for training hammer skill.

Make a lot of ammo. As in tens of thousands. A squad will use 400+ in a mid-sized engagement. Then make sure it's assigned properly.(Bolts)

Designate a barracks with the archery targets inside. Then designate the targets room as well. Assign everything for the squads use.

Populate the squad, disable other labors or leave a hauling/processing task for off-duty.

Spend a season or two shooting wildlife/prisoners so that they get some conpetency.

That should handle it. If you have trouble toss them in a naked or wrestling squad so they dump their gear them swap em back in. It helps if you use a custom marksdwarf uniform as well. {Helm, Capx2, Breastplate, Mail Shirtx3, Gauntlets, Greaves, High Boots, Shield, Xbow}

[Tiruin]

Tl;dr (sorry)

Instead of setting the barracks as a training ground for that squad, only set the archery targets to train. They will train there even if they have no barracks.

[Ogdibus]

.

[Azure]

Tl;dr (sorry)

Instead of setting the barracks as a training ground for that squad, only set the archery targets to train. They will train there even if they have no barracks.

Have targets in the rax as well. You WANT them to train on non-marks skills as well. That limited dodge skill increase will pay off later. Especially if you cross-train them as hammerdwarves.(The teacher skill increase will help with later archery demonstrations.)

[Jimmy T. Malice]

You can change the marksdwarf squad's uniform so they only use ranged weapons.