Archery

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v50.12 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

Archery is the term given to the practice of firing ranged ammunition at targets by a personal weapon. It is also the military skill, (Archer), which is trained alongside the marksdwarf skill in Dwarf Fortress.

The Archer skill increases with the use of any ranged attack including throwing weapons.

In terms of weapons this naturally encompasses the crossbow, the bow as a foreign or natural weapon depending on modding; and the blowgun which can only be made as an artifact in a bowyer's workshop by a strange mood, and which does not have any ammunition for its use outside bludgeoning.

Archery

In order to engage in archery a dwarf needs five things: a ranged weapon; a quiver and ammunition; proper labor/military assignments; and a target. For further information, see the archery target page.

Dwarves will fire at targets 20 tiles away and are able to engage targets that are 3 z-levels up or down without any loss in firing distance.

Assignment of ranged weapons is done through the military equipment screen (m -> e). If you only have a few ranged weapons, military squads get first pick, and then hunters can choose from the leftovers. Squads can be assigned a particular type of weapon, but hunters cannot be controlled so finely.

Assignment of ammunition is done through the military ammunition screen (m -> f) for both military squads and hunters. Ammunition must match the weapon: bolts for crossbows, arrows for bows.

A living target can be selected from the squad menu, by selecting the squad(s) you wish to have attack, then selecting attack target. You can then select a single target with the cursor, a number of targets by enabling selection by rectangle, or selecting a number of targets through a list. Note that if your dwarves don't have the required ammunition, quiver or bow/blowgun/crossbow, the squad members missing these components will attempt to engage the target in melee. There is no way to force dwarves to only attack from range, but adequately equipped dwarves stand the best chance of remaining at range.

Subsections of Archery

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Crossbow -- Ranged Ammunition -- Quivers -- Archery Target -- Crossbowman -- Hunters -- Ranger

Effects of Skill Leveling

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Higher skills in the bowman, crossbowman or blowgunner attribute equates with greater accuracy and higher rates of fire. In order to increase the crossbowman/blowgunner/bowman skill a dwarf must fire at something; if it misses a target it will gain the same amount of experience points even as if it had been hit.

Firing at live targets gives much more experience points than firing on inanimate archery targets. The difference is about fourfold. Tests found that by firing around 67 practice bolts provided 7.5 experience for each shot at the archery target; the same experience total is gained by firing 17 bolts at a live target, providing 30 experience per bolt.

Value in the Military

Dwarves using archery have their place in the military: They may fire at a distance without the threat of being attacked by melee weapons or by being mauled to death. They may fire from higher or lower Z-levels than the target intended. Archery targets must be engaged from the same Z-level and with no empty spaces in between the ranger and target. They may fire at enemy targets through fortifications and over empty spaces although their usefulness is thwarted by proper armor and tactics.

Hunters use the archery skill and will use ranged weapons in general.

Archers will use their bows or other ranged weapons for melee combat in close quarters. Crossbow melee uses the hammerman skill while bows and blowguns use the swordsman skill.

It is possible to equip melee and ranged weapons simultaneously, dwarves can usefully switch between weapons in the middle of fights - perhaps sometimes to the wrong one.

Issues with Archery

• If you assign both arrows and bolts to the same group dwarves who are holding a crossbow may grab arrows and dwarves who are holding a bow may grab bolts.
• The way weapons get assigned is bugged. ^Bug:535 The basic problem is this: when a hunter which is equipped with a crossbow goes on duty as a marksdwarf it will look for a different crossbow rather than the one it is currently carrying. One workaround is to have lots of spare weapons.
• If archers don't equip ammo a remedy may be lowering their dedicated ammo counts. This is done by going into military screen: m, ammunition: f and lowering ammo counts for all squads by pressing NUM MINUS. 50 bolts are more than enough.
• If an archery target is enabled to training a squad but no one of the squad is willing to use it, you can encourage them by disabling all their labors and stationing them near the target. When they come close, remove the "station" order. This issue happens more often to untrained archers.
• Assigning archers to fire from the top of a wall may result in the archers climbing down to engage the target in melee combat.

See also

• Military
• Combat skill
• Weapon

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