Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: Garfunkel on October 29, 2021, 09:17:39 am
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In multiple forts I've now had the problem where the marksdwarves dodge through the fortification in front of them and end up falling out of the archery tower to their deaths. At first I thought the problem was that I had carved entire segments of walls into fortifications but the problem persists even if there's only 2 out of the 14 possible wall tiles. Then I experimented and even if there's only 1 open tile, one marksdwarf after another will dodge through that single open tile and fall into the throng of goblins outside.
So, it seems to me that archery towers are now completely useless if the enemy has any ranged units and every siege has them. I guess archery tower might be useful against necromancers and beasts still but this is very disheartening. Are there some funky layout tricks I can use to eliminate this or should I just focus on traps and melee instead?
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This is odd, because I've been using a system where I have enemies come through a long spiral tunnel with archers behind fortifications on the inside of the spiral, and I've never once had one of my archers dodge through the fortifications, even though there have been plenty of crossbowmen among the raiders. As far as I can tell, the crossbowmen never shoot at my archers at all--there's a trench in between the enemies and the fortifications, so while my dwarves can get right up next to the fortifications, the enemy archers can't, and that will generally prevent them from shooting at all. Only highly skilled archers can shoot through fortifications they're not standing adjacent to, and few enemies are that skilled.
So...are you sure your dwarves are dodging straight through the fortifications rather than climbing over them somehow? If you construct the fortifications, I think you might need to also build a floor on top of each fortification.
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There is a bug that causes them to teleport through fortifications and walls when dodging
type of structure doesn't seem to effect it
but I've stuck to making my walls and fortifications 2 blocks thick and this seems to prevent it
So a two block thick fortification line seems to prevent it
I say seem. It's worked for me the whole time, but I can't say that is the official fix for it
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My archery towers are completely sealed otherwise. I build walls out of stone blocks and then carve fortifications into them. Goblins definitely shoot at my towers even though they can't path to the fortifications, there are broken bolts and arrows on the top and around them too, and I've seen them do it. Unless pathing counts climbing, despite them not being able to climb multiple levels of smooth walls.
There is a bug that causes them to teleport through fortifications and walls when dodging
type of structure doesn't seem to effect it
but I've stuck to making my walls and fortifications 2 blocks thick and this seems to prevent it
So a two block thick fortification line seems to prevent it
That's very interesting! I'll have to give it a try in my next fort and see if it works.
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I believe the dwarfs are literally attempting to climb out the window and down the wall to attack, because they want to charge the enemy but there there is no walk-able path to the enemy. You will also see melee units climb into trees to attack sometimes.
Some posts about dwarfs jumping out of archer towers, and players talking about the why of the problems and their solutions (via a google search (https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abay12forums.com+%22archer%22+%22tower%22&biw=924&bih=466&ei=arV9YbLaLLKzytMPi4uu-AE&oq=site%3Abay12forums.com+%22archer%22+%22tower%22&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAM6BwgAEEcQsANKBAhBGABQvPYBWIKPAmDnkwJoAnACeACAAZMBiAGfBZIBAzIuNJgBAKABAcgBBMABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwiyt8_LhvPzAhWymXIEHYuFCx84HhDh1QMIDQ&uact=5)):
Easy archer tower design that stops dwarves from jumping through fortifications (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=159443.0)
Archer Tower total Fail (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=165274.0)
Marksdwarves rushing to their death (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169042.0)
Markdwarves aren't reloading Ammo when stationed (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173851.0)
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Okay so looks like my only chance is to try to make the archery tower with walls and carve those into fortifications and in addition to have a single floor "overhang" around it to minimize the chances of archers charging goblins outside.
Or then give up on marksdwarves completely.
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Don't give up!
FWIW my 20-year fort has about 25 marksdorfs and using this stone block tower with carved fortifications on level 2 has never caused a problem. I just station them on that floor and they do their job flawlessly, never jumping out of the tower even when enemies come right up next to it.
Sorry if the GIF is too slow.
(https://i.postimg.cc/RFJJF2Sb/Archery-Tower-GIF.gif) (https://postimages.org/)
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...I actually like the slow progression of this gif. How did you make it damn well slow down to human vision speeds? It's excellent.
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...I actually like the slow progression of this gif. How did you make it damn well slow down to human vision speeds? It's excellent.
Cool. Instead of DF's video capture, I used GifCam.exe (it's a freebie I like because it has neat options & resizable capture window).
The speed is actually how slowly I was changing z-levels.
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...I actually like the slow progression of this gif. How did you make it damn well slow down to human vision speeds? It's excellent.
conversely, if you use the program ScreentoGif, you can adjust the ms delay per frame to something like 500 (.5 seconds) and end up with a nice and slow gif. lets you keep the quality up too since the gif will only be like 8 frames, depending on purpose of course
on topic, I would rebuild with a moat and see if that makes a difference. you also might be in a unique situation where enemies have some unexpected angle that causes more sustained fire, causing more dodges and more occurrences of the teleport bug? I dunno, DF problems come with so many variables your best bet is to chalk it up to 'confounding bs' and rebuild until it works. Usually.
There is a bug that causes them to teleport through fortifications and walls when dodging
type of structure doesn't seem to effect it
but I've stuck to making my walls and fortifications 2 blocks thick and this seems to prevent it
So a two block thick fortification line seems to prevent it
I say seem. It's worked for me the whole time, but I can't say that is the official fix for it
Curious, I wasn't aware our own dwarves would successfully shoot through 2-z of fortifications? Not that I tested it. Is that a thing?
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Wiki says it is a thing but I haven't tried it yet.
I wonder if part of the problem comes from my towers being very small - the tower in the GIF seems to be quite massive.
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Not sure about tower size, but I can station lots of dorfs comfortably in that tower, and I put the "move to" target right up next to the fortification.
I'm just wondering about two things that *seem* like they might be factors.
1. If crossbowdorfs are also trained in hammer skill, are they more likely to want to melee?
2. If crossbowdorfs have low archery/xbow skills, are they more likely to prefer melee?
Anyone know?
(in my case, I don't train them in hammer)
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It might be a personality issue as well. In my current fort I usually see only the same three (out of 12) crossbowdwarves consistently trying to path through the entire fortress and bash the goblins' heads in; they all have their VIOLENT trait at "likes to brawl" or better. Might be a coincidence of course.
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The military orders for a dwarf, and the pathing order given for those military orders, are important here. A dwarf given military orders will attempt to obey them. Those orders will move the dwarf to the map position where the dwarf's personality might have an effect on their actions and on their combat effectiveness.
So, when a marksdwarf is in a tower and runs out of ammo and can still see their target, they will receive a path order to move to the enemy's current location. If their path is broken or no enemy is in sight when they get there, they will usually attempt to refill their ammo, and then their next order will be to go back to their archery tower to continue their Move/Patrol/Train/Defend order that put them in the tower in the first place). I'm still not sure how to avoid the situation where a marksdwarf successfully paths through the fort and bravely starts melee with a horde (instead of running back into the fort in fear as they should).
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conversely, if you use the program ScreentoGif, you can adjust the ms delay per frame to something like 500 (.5 seconds) and end up with a nice and slow gif. lets you keep the quality up too since the gif will only be like 8 frames, depending on purpose of course
GifCam will automatically combine frames if there's no artifacting going on.
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Mysteries. Sometimes it looks like everyone is playing a different version of DF.
Often I use burrows of 3x1 tile and a full squad moves onto those 3 tiles adjacent to a fortification. Some others say it will act similar as station?
Some say archers will path towards the enemy and not get new ammo? My archers often freak out as soon as their quiver is empty, because getting new ammo seems to be a civilian job? Eventually they will get the ammo.
I often have an open path towards the invaders, but it is a very long walk for the archers. So they rarely try that.
Dwarfs seem to favor their highest skill. Sometimes I do cross training with hammers, to get armor and other skills up. However this makes them much more likely to go into melee. The default armor for archers is bad. Just give them good armor, so they do not die instantly when in enemy contact.
Archers need to be trained well to shoot through fortifications they are not adjacent to. So double fortifications will only work for archers that had some prior training.
Castle like surface buildings will often fail in some way. I had much more luck with having my archers overlooking a long entrance hall. Archer towers are good to defend the surface, but no proper dwarf wants to be there anyway?
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Well unfortunately I am obsessed with getting a major surface castle working with a hundred or more dwarves in it so I'll have to keep trying.
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I've been using archer towers / bunkers in all my forts for the past several versions and never had any trouble. But also in all of my forts I train the marksdwarves up to legendary status before deploying them, and also have sealed roofs to the towers, as well as ammo stockpiles in the same tower. I usually go with a 7 x 7 footprint because that's the general wandering radius around a station command. It doesn't take that many casualties to route a siege. Often a single well timed ballista volley can do just that, so the archers generally don't have to reload more than once per siege. I'll try relying more on the marksdwarves and see how effective they can be purely on their own.
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Well, these problems are strange to me. Not because there isn't a problem with dodging - there is one. It's strange because enemies need very high level marksmen to shoot through fortification (unless they are standing next to it, which in case of towers is irrelevant). I rarely see enemy archers above level 5, usually they are in range 2-5, or even without skill, like zombies. And I have a fort which is besieged at least twice yearly, but sometimes even every season, by elves, humans, goblins and assorted products of necromancy.
However, I've lost a dwarf, my legendary doctor who was also a legendary marksman, to the above mentioned bug. He somehow jumped out of tower, and landed under it. My towers are not high (higher tower means lower range), so he was only temporarily stunned, and thanks to his skills he almost survived till the soldiers came to defence, but even the best soldier won't do much against a pile of 15 goblins, all of them in a single tile. I suspect a dodge from a dog caused it, because dogs and other critters sometimes charge when crowded, and this may trigger a dodge. But not arrows - arrows need better archers than average gobbos have.
I use the standard and necessary precautions so dwarves don't charge, and the tower cannot be climbed - the edge is protruding, the fortifications have a roof above the standing place for dwarves. The place is only one tile wide (which may have contributed to the death of my medic) to let dwarves under level 10 to shoot through them. Though I use such training regime, that the dwarves get level 10 after about 2 weeks.
__ __
F F
W W
W W <-enemies come at this level
WW WWW
WW barracks at level -1 WWW
W = wall
F = fortification
_ = floor (one above fortification is a part of original wall, which was then carved into fortification)
Dwarves are standing next to F
My tower is on the beach, with narrow passage between it and the ocean. I named the beach "Omaha", because no enemy comes through it unscathed. In fact many stay here as corpses for months. The marksdwarves are super effective. Not as much as melee of the same level, but they are safe while doing so, and if I let the melee dwarves out, the crossbowmen give an outstanding support. Every enemy resembles a pincushion.