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[MagmaSolutionsInc]

I finally have my first really effective danger room set up, with my military achieving legendary levels quickly  in various combat skills, even while invasions are turned off. Given that I'm using 10 training spears per trap, and have something like 20 upright spear traps (with resettings pressure plate, o'couse), I've lost a few dogs, cats, kids, and babies .. but the room is engraved, so apparently that's okay to my dorfs. They also are getting attached to cloaks like crazy, which I've not seen before (only weapons for the most part until now).

I also have an archery range setup in the same room, with only marginal overlap between the melee and archery training area ... partly through only designating 1 archery target as a range to cover the area. I've setup my militias to carry bolts - metal for combat, bone for training - plus quivers, and added both "individual choice - melee" and "individual choice - ranged" weapons to their equipment/uniforms.

It's only early on with this change, so I was wondering if this will have the effect of training my legendary melee fighters with crossbows too? That's my ideal effect - I'd like them to be jacks of all trades so they can take on essentially any invaders. I know dual wielding doesn't really happen, but I was hoping they'd willing change between melee weapons and ranged depending on how I deploy them.

I may have overlooked the answer on the wiki, but I thought I'd check with others for their thoughts. I guess I could be risking encumbrance issues, which I haven't really seen to date, or maybe even a Holistic Wrestler scenario of beating enemies to death with their backpack (or crossbow), but it'd be nice to have all-rounder militia. Certainly I've observed marksdwarves learning into melee skills, but I'd essentially like to make this work in reverse.

As a side note, I've found references to obsidian swords being just as good as steel, and references to them being relatively useless compared to any metal.  I imagine that the latter is correct, but just thought I'd check 

[Mitchewawa]

I'm not sure how ranged-melee units behave, but I suppose a few minutes in the testing arena will show. I'll be back soon with results.

E: They tend to fire off all their shots before engaging in melee, and even then they seem to use their ineffective crossbow more often, even with their sword in in their right hand. I'm going to try switching hands and see what happens.

[MagmaSolutionsInc]

Thanks! I haven't quite got used to the arena yet. I realise there's a fair bit of depth to it, but have been preoccupied primarily with fortress mode.

[Mitchewawa]

Okay, re-testing right hand swords with actual dwarfs (I tried it first with bat men, easier 'cause they're top of the list). Seems to go 50/50 with swords and cross-butting, regardless of which hand, the value of the particular weapons or weapon skill. If you've got legendary hammer/marksdwarfs with a silver warhammer and whatever best non-silver-blunt-metal (iron I think) crossbow in either hand, plus quiver-and-bolts, you'll get good results.

E: I theorise that combo will work particularly well due to a few factors:

1. Bolts tend to chip bones and pierce organs instead of outright killing, causing elves to give in to pain and fall unconscious often. This leads to automatic attempts to headshot the enemy.
2. Blunt weapons beat sharps in terms of killing unconscious enemies, only for the fact that swords tend to be repelled by the helmets of sleeping goblins, whereas playing warhammer-golf with their heads brains them all over the pavement.

[MagmaSolutionsInc]

Nice! Sounds like there's a chance of success .. thanks! appreciate it! 

[Urist Da Vinci]

...
As a side note, I've found references to obsidian swords being just as good as steel, and references to them being relatively useless compared to any metal.  I imagine that the latter is correct, but just thought I'd check 

In 40d, Obsidian swords were as good as steel swords.

In 31.xx, Obsidian swords can't cut anything by default. This can be fixed by changing the entry for obsidian in inorganic_stone_layer.txt to: (I added the SHEAR values)

Code: [Select]

[INORGANIC:OBSIDIAN]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STONE_TEMPLATE]
[MELTING_POINT:13600]
[BOILING_POINT:16000]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:obsidian][DISPLAY_COLOR:0:7:1][TILE:177][LAVA]
[MAX_EDGE:20000]
[SHEAR_YIELD:33000]
[SHEAR_FRACTURE:33000]
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:113]
[IGNEOUS_EXTRUSIVE]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:3]
[IS_STONE]

The swords become able to cut flesh easily, but have a hard time with bone or any metals. This seems like the desired behaviour.

[MagmaSolutionsInc]

Aha, thanks for that!