v0.31 Talk:Squad

Priority Assignments and Supplies

We still have nothing on Pri/Assignments (m-e-P) and Supplies (m-u). Dunno much about them myself yet, just saying. --Retro 06:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, but I'm afraid they are still quite impenetrable to me. Pretty hard to write about it when we don't understand it ourselves yet. Doctorzuber 15:28, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, ditto. I'll investigate later I guess. I suspect Priority Assignments allows you to re-prioritize what your dwarves are doing judging by its name, but can't tell how it works yet. The latter just seems to be for food/flask/water orders and the like but still going to put aside some time later to look into it --Retro 18:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can tell Supplies is just to set up how much food and what drinks your military dwarves carry, meaning, (0/1/2/3) rations of food and (alcoholic/non-alcoholic/no) drinks. I assume it works much like the food or water for military squads used to in 40d, except that you can tell your dwarves to carry drinks in their waterskins instead of just water, so it's nothing fancy --Ramperkash

I think priority assignment might determine which dwarf gets to choose equipment first, so dwarf #1 gets the best stuff, #2 get the best remaining stuff and so on. Maybe re arranging items is what the constant Equipment Manifest jobs are for? -- [o_O]WTFace

Looking over the screen I can see that you can rearrange dwarf order in the squads as well as squad order, but wasn't able to do anything with the rightmost pane. So I've figured out prioritizing squads/dwarves but not assignments thus far. --Retro 23:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Assignments on the right hand side seems to display the items for which the arsenal dwarf has so far completed equipment manifests. Useful for figuring out which dwarves have been assigned multiples of weapons and equipment.82.41.13.58 05:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Another Buggy behavior

I'm dumping this here for now because it's debatable, and it's a bit of a mess. Here's the issue. soldiers still get unhappy thoughts from leaving their duties if they have no civilian skills. At just hearing that, it doesn't sound like a bug, it's how it was in 40d, expected behavior right? Here's what it really means in the present environment.

The thoughts in question are "upset about being relieved from duty" and "complained about the draft" and likely minor variations of the same two thoughts depending on how recent the thought was. These would apply to civilians who have no military skills, or to soldiers that have no civilian skills. The times these thoughts are believed to occur are.

at the end of every month in the militia^[Verify]

every time they eat or drink^[Verify]

when joining/leaving the militia^[Verify]

after a squad cancel command^[Verify]

If this is accurate, it basically means drafting an unskilled peasant into a squad is a very fast recipe for insanity. I saw this in the bug tracker, I haven't personally verified this yet nor have I seen what the official word is on the subject yet. I just thought I would go ahead and list it here. Do with this information what you will. Doctorzuber 15:36, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, that sounds like a big one. I don't have time until tonight to add it but I'll make note of it within the article as a word of warning when I can. --Retro 17:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I just tried to verify this one myself with a brand new batch of 7 peasants, and then again with one axedwarf and 6 peasants. In hopes of a bit of fun I also brought along one good axe for each test which I assigned to my test subject. In both case I issued a brutal series of move, kill, and cancel commands to the dwarf in an attempt to drive him into a mad killing frenzy.

I was unsuccessful. Despite my best efforts to be the most irritating squad commander in the history of dwarf-kind I could not seem to induce even so much as one unhappy thought with active squad commands of any kind. Admittedly, I made no effort to test for the other passive behaviors. That little test will be a lot more tedious so I think I'll leave that one alone and see if more people jump on the report or not. Doctorzuber 18:46, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Several more updates on the ticket, and a breakthrough. On careful inspection of the thoughts page I find the thought "Complained about the draft lately." This bears more investigation. Doctorzuber 20:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't that specific unhappy thought in 40d as well? Or do you think it might've changed since then to include these thoughts, being bugs or not? --Ramperkash

Yes, as I have already said at first glance these appear to be the expected behaviors consistent with 40d. However with the new military system, they occur much more frequently than you might expect which can potentially be quite dangerous. I've just updated the details above to reflect my better understanding of this issue as the reports come in on the bug tracker. I'm watching the bug tracker on the issue and attempting to verify this through experimentation as well. Doctorzuber 21:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Done some testing on this, at first I couldn't seem to reproduce it, but now I have found something. apparently a key element of this behavior is that you must have your orders set to have less than all dwarves on duty at a given time. With this setup they will periodically go off-duty and other dwarves will take their place. it is at this off-duty change that bad thoughts occur. With a rotation schedule like this you will also see a message in the announcements every time a dwarf switches duties. The workaround to avoid this bad thought problem would be to cross train all your military to have at least one level in a civilian skill which is probably not a bad plan in any event. Doctorzuber 03:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand this issue quite as well as I like yet but I have confirmed enough to feel comfortable adding a short warning about the matter, which I have already place up in the military page. Doctorzuber 04:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Equipment

Gave Equipment its own page, to be used for info on equipping soldiers, making/applying uniform templates, and will also serve as a good spot to store related summaries on weapons/armour much like this 40d page. Nothing there yet but we can move the stuff here into there and replace the current stuff with a summary, then expand within that page from there.

On a side note, I'm working on a Category thing for Military v0.31 that we can apply instead of this See Also nonsense every time. I'll go add it when I'm done; getting there. --Retro 22:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

How to Activate a Squad

Love the changes. I think. I am unable to use them, however, likely because I am dense and not due to any bug. This article seems to go over everything except how to actually activate your squads in order to give them direct (active) commands. I have created a squad because a cougar is approaching my undefended fort. (just a bunch of civies with picks and axes). However, all of the active commands (move, attack, active, etc) are all grey'd out and unusable. I can't see anything in this article on how to actually activate a squad. Am I missing something or is something missing from the article? --Frewfrux 19:46, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I suppose I should've emphasized - you need to select a squad before you can use it, even if there's only one. In the squads screen you can do this with a / b / c (it'll list which squad = which key) or hold shift to select multiple at once. Should fix your problem; lemme know if it doesn't. --Retro 20:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Read the section on selecting a squad, it's there. There's just a ton of information to swallow so it's a bit overwhelming still. Doctorzuber 23:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

AH HA!!! That did the trick. (Thank you thank you thank you) One mutilated cougar. That was a little too easy. I was assuming that because the squad was showing up on the screen that it was activated. This does not appear to be the case. As a side note, shouldn't a cougar run faster then a group of untrained dwarves? Just a thought. --Frewfrux 11:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

the current speed system is a placeholder. I opened a ticket about it but they closed it for now. I had an alligator that led my dwarves on a merry chase all around the map for days. Doctorzuber 13:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Naming Squads?

The change list says you can name squads, but I can't find the option, how do I do it? 24.255.86.193

I don't believe you can - the squad leader seems to still use the RNG to name themselves. You can name alerts, scheduling, and uniforms though. --Retro

You can, however, abuse the RNG until it gives you something you like. Unlike 40d where each dwarf had a permanent group name that became the name of a squad they lead (that's how I recall it working anyhow), names are now assigned at the squad level and a new name is rolled every time you disband/re-create a squad. --Njero 19:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Expedition Leader as Militia Commander

I can do this, no problem. Wondering what the deal is.--Albedo 06:04, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The militia commander position is simply squad 1 unit 1. Any dwarf you stick in that position is the militia commander. If you try assigning the expedition leader to squad 1 unit 1, he simply doesn't show up on the list. Once a commander is assigned, you can assign the expedition leader to positions 2 to 10 with no hassle.

Just to further verify, I cleared everyone from the squad and went back to the nobles screen. Strangely enough here it does allow me to assign the expedition leader to be the militia commander. Very strange. And now I unpause and let a few frames pass, I recheck the nobles and squad screen and see that my expedition leader has quit his job as the militia commander. This verifies Retros claim of difficulties with appointing the militia commander.

I think this behavior is a minor bug, but it's consistent. If you can persuade the expedition leader to accept and keep the militia commander position, please provide a verifiable STR. Thanks. Doctorzuber 17:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Delete Confirm

Arrrg I just accidentally deleted a squad for the third time. He's got a nice delete confirmation when you try to delete an alert, wish there was one for deleting squads, given how much time it can take to set one up... 72.84.235.48 19:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It is an annoying behavior, but it's a feature request. I wouldn't anticipate any change here anytime soon. --Doctorzuber 00:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Is this a bug?

Currently in my fortress I have a lot of military dwarfs assigned to equip a melee weapon of their choice. However they all seem to equip crossbows. --81.105.215.124 19:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

AAAAARG multiple squads so so annnoying

It's really annoying that when you make a new squad, it lists all dwarves not in that squad as potential dwarves. Short of naming every dwarf marked for a squad "SquadX" is there any easy way to set up a military without having to scroll through huge lists of squad dwarves to see if they're in one? It's annoying with 2 squads, but it must be rediculous with like 8 71.134.230.146 00:50, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Um, yeah. As you scroll through the list, up top where it says the name of your highlighted dwarf and what weapon skill he likes, it also says what squad (if any) he's currently assigned to, along with his current order. --DeMatt 02:01, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah that's very helpful :) 71.134.230.146 06:21, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

More Bugs: Cannot remove Militia Commander

So, I have a militia commander, with no squad, and I cannot remove or change his militia post. Other weird behavior related to this I think, when I add/change squads, the Captain of The Guard position gets vacated. On the Military screen there are still several squads available to for (militia commander -> press 'c' to create squads).

Most annoying, as the commander keeps trying to hold squad training despite he has no squad, and all my miners refuse to mine as a result.

Remove everyone else in the squad first. You cannot remove position 1 if any other positions are filled. I don't usually use the nobles screen at all for military appointments, it's simpler to just assign or remove them directly from the military screens. Also it's normal for the empty squad to stay there after you remove everybody. --Doctorzuber 18:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Dwarfs with too much equipment

Shorast the legendary axe dwarf has 8 axes and 5 shields. He says he needs them all, but wouldn't it be better to leave some axes and shields for the other soldiers? How can Shorast be made to dump his excess equipment?

Phantom Squads?

Some of my dwarves, despite never being assigned to the military, have begun being soldiers. When I look through the positions section of the military menu, they seem to have formed squads on their own which do not appear anywhere aside from the details you get at the top of the military screen(names, squad, relevant skills, orders), hence the 'Phantom Squad'. They seem to give themselves orders which I cannot alter(mainly "Defend" or "Train"). They also have the soldier icon instead of the civilian one. Am I just missing something here? I couldn't find anything like this in any part of the military section of the wiki. update: I just discovered that another one of my forts has squads with the exact same names as the 'Phantom Squads' that were created.

gloves/boots

This may sound like a really stupid question, or maybe not considering the AI, but when you add hand and footwear to the uniform, will they attempt to wear a pair rather than just one? Or do you have to specify each article twice? Uzu Bash 19:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

One handwear/footwear entry counts for a pair. Granted, assignment of handwear is extremely buggy in that it completely ignores handedness, often resulting in a dwarf being assigned 2 left gauntlets or 2 right gloves. --Quietust 21:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Uniform Functionality

I have no idea how uniforms basically function. If you assign a squad the default "Leather Armor" uniform, I presume, none of the squad will use any available metal pieces. If you assign them "Metal Armor", but there's not enough metal to go around, do they substitute? Would some then end up wearing cloth even if leather is available? Do dwarves with crossbows automatically pick up quivers? How do they know how many? Do they wear these uniforms all the time, or only on duty? Do they have to run to their rooms to change if you call up an inactive squad?

Related?: There's some equipment toggle controls on the Barracks to use "Squad Eq" or "Indiv Eq". What do these do? -- Maunder 16:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)