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Author Topic: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!  (Read 14810 times)

Qrox

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    So I stumbled upon this while dealing with clowns in a candy tube. My legendary archers kept firing at the clowns but none of the bolts ever got their way to them, but rather fell onto one floor in the middle. I searched the net but no one seems to have mentioned it so I decided to utilize it to make an infinite archery range which also can be used as an ammo splitter. Here's the setup, bottom-up

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

    On the first level, in the right is the (hostile or wild) creature to intimidate stimulate the archers.
    On the second level, there's a well. That's to prevent the dwarfs from jumping down to brawl with the creature with their bare hands, which often results in their own oblivion. Why it would work, however, is beyond me. Maybe the well just reminds them of Urist McMelancholy, who plunged into a well and never came back?
    On the third level is the floor to catch all the bolts fired. You can put a stockpile here to give them to a smelter or another stockpile. You can also set 'claim fired bolts' order so you'll be freed of the hassle of manually unforbidding them. (But remember to cancel the order when facing real enemies!)
    On the fifth level is another well, similar to the one on the third level, but to prevent the dwarfs from jumping down to get the bolts laying on the floor. Dwarfs are quite suicidal... :o No they won't. This well is unnecessary.
    On the sixth floor is an up/down stairway to station the marksdwarfs. You may notice that the left side stairway is four tiles away from it. It's the minimum required distance, elsewise your dwarfs will simply stand on that stairway rather than going to the right stairway.
    On the seventh floor is a floor hatch covering a downward stairway. It's to prevent the archers from firing when they've just moved onto that tile, so to prevent the ammo from hitting the stairway below, or getting their way to the creature. However, if more than two dwarfs move through the hatch in succession, the latter ones might fire through the open hatch. I'll see if I can prevent it somehow.
    Edit: Yeah, Skullsploder mentioned you can use 'defend burrow' orders to station your soldiers on one tile. Based on this idea an improved version of the design came up.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
    The upper well has been removed. Make a burrow containing the right downstairs tile and the tile the creature occupies, set defend burrow order on it, and switch to the alert.

    As to the creature selection, you may want to pit a creature that's non-flier, non-climber, and who can't breath or shoot or hurl fireballs at your marksdwarfs and bolt-collecting civilians. Clowns are the least recommended, despite their remarkable contribution to the discovery of the method. And for safety's sake, you may want to pit some creature that's tough enough so they won't die from a single bolt hit yet weak enough so they'll not beat your dwarfs to death. (I'm not 100% sure the two wells will at all prevent them from jumping down. They'll break one or two limbs but at least they'll live)

    Test shows that, even with legendary crossbow and archery skills, a dwarf rarely send their ammo through the bend and all bolts just drop and sit on the floor for easy retrieval.

    Tested in 0.40.24 with dfhack. Any thoughts? :D

    Edit: fixed a typo
    Edit 2: added a new design
    Edit 3: by further research it is showing some weird behavior. If you station only one marksdwarf in one splitter he will not miss most of his bolts. But if you increase it to two dwarfs their bolts will miss virtually 100% of the time. And even weirder is that when you remove the newly added dwarf the first one will continue to miss all of his bolts. I guess more SCIENCE will be needed.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2015, 06:08:34 am by Qrox »
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Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2015, 02:24:39 am »

Looks great, much less complex than the older original. Currently my archery training has been taken care of with this:

Code: [Select]
oooooooooooooooooooooo
o.....................
o.X+++++++++++++++++++
o.....................
oooooooooooooooooooooo

Mine trains slowly and only conserves bolts until they hit legendary and start landing every shot perfectly. On that note, how well does your bolt catcher catch bolts from legendary marksdwarves? In my experience they never miss, even when the shot has a miniscule margin for error. I'm gonna build it anyway, but if legendaries miss their shots too it would make for much less micromanagement.
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Qrox

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2015, 02:36:49 am »

Yeah, that's also how I did before I discovered this :P
In one test run one legendary marksdwarf and archer missed every single bolt in his 25-bolt stack. I used dfhack to promote his skills but it should make no difference.

Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2015, 08:12:30 am »

Eeeeexcellent. I have a new archery range :D Thanks for this design Qrox, it will be a great contribution to the Dwarven military. I reckon you should update the wiki for archery training and bolt splitting with this.
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TheFlame52

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2015, 10:39:56 am »

Right now I'm good as far as metal goes with ~2000 silver bars. But when I start running low, I might use this little trick.

Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2015, 03:32:06 pm »

Oh something you might like to know, re-reading your OP: If you give a defend burrow order on a squad's schedule, they will only stand within the burrow. This is much more precise than station orders, and is automated via scheduling as well. Just create a 1-tile burrow for your dwarves to stand on. I'm also thinking of modifying this slightly so as to make the one target serve four marksdwarves, to save on space while enabling more training.

Fake Edit: I have dug out the framework for a version of this that serves 16 firing positions with four live targets. Theoretically I can pack an unlimited number of dwarves into this without reducing squad size  from 10. I have yet to put all the wells and things in and actually catch some wildlife to act as would-be pincushions.
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Qrox

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2015, 08:44:02 pm »

That sounds good! I never used scheduling while playing so that didn't come to me in the first place... When you've finished with your design, would you mind to share it here?

Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #7 on: April 27, 2015, 08:25:57 am »

No problem. I can show you the design now in text. I'm just having trouble with catching wildlife, as there is a humungous pack of draltha stuck on a tree in the middle of the cavern lake, preventing anything from spawning.

Code: [Select]
ooooo  z+0
ooooo
oo+oo
ooooo
ooooo

ooooo  z+1
ooooo
oo.oo
ooooo
ooooo

ooDoo  z+2
oo+oo
D+.+D
oo+oo
ooDoo

ooooo  z+3
oo.oo
o.o.o
oo.oo
ooooo

ooooo  z+4
ooXoo
oXoXo
ooXoo
ooooo

+++++  z+5
++H++
+H+H+
++H++
+++++


This would be one column of it, with three other columns identical to this one adjacent to it to make a 2*2 grid. It all fits nicely into an 11*11 tile space. So the top, with four of the above columns, looks like this:

Code: [Select]
+++++++++
++H+++H++
+H+H+H+H+
++H+++H++
+++++++++
++H+++H++
+H+H+H+H+
++H+++H++
+++++++++

And the collection level looks like this:

Code: [Select]
oooooooooo
ooo+ooo+oo
+D+.+D+.+o
+oo+ooo+oo
+ooDoooDoo
+oo+ooo+oo
+D+.+D+.+o
ooo+ooo+oo
oooooooooo

I applaud you if you can decipher that horrible mess. I'll post screenshots of it as soon as it's actually finished. All I have at the moment is the space carved out. I still need to put in the wells, hatches, and doors, as well as pretty it up a bit, and then put live bait in. Acquiring material for the wells is taking ages because I've only just set up the metalworking industry properly and have no textile industry.
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Qrox

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #8 on: April 27, 2015, 09:29:49 am »

Well then I've got some good news for you: the upper well seems to be unnecessary... I thought they would plunge through the hole to get their bolts back, but it turns out they won't. They indeed jump down to fight the creature without the lower well so that one is necessary. Also I think if you use defending order to station the dwarfs then you can let them just move from beside. I used the downstairs & hatch setup basically because they will either scatter in the corridor or start firing from the downstairs without them. On that note, I've improved the original design using your idea of defending order, and if you don't mind it I'll put it in the OP.

Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2015, 10:11:49 am »

I don't mind at all! And that's excellent news with the upper well being unnecessary... saves me 16 ropes, mechanisms, buckets, blocks, and build jobs!
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hatesdigimon

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2015, 02:41:26 pm »

ptw

Qrox

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #11 on: April 28, 2015, 06:04:35 am »

I have to note that by further research it is showing some weird behavior. If you station only one marksdwarf in one splitter he will not miss most of his bolts. But if you increase it to two dwarfs their bolts will miss virtually 100% of the time. And even weirder is that when you remove the newly added dwarf the first one will continue to miss all of his bolts. I guess more SCIENCE will be needed.

Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2015, 12:59:56 am »

Okay the wells, hatches, pits, smoothing, and everything else has been done. Unfortunately, my plethora of cage traps in the caverns have failed to catch anything aggressive so far. All I have are naked mole dogs. GET ME SOME CRUNDLES.

Side note: A flaming FB came through and burnt the first cavern layer to ash. Including all my wooden cages. Literally hundreds of cages. ONE DAY I will test if my modification works, I swear :(
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taptap

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2015, 03:18:38 am »

I have an archery range with a "marksman window" only opening for 13 ticks, allowing my dwarves to get a shot off, but closing again before the bolt arrives (I made it to preserve live targets), could be fitted with a trench as well. It needs a device to produce an on-signal followed by an off-signal shortly afterwards, a steady repeater and eats into FPS while running (as any toggling furniture does). The core device is built with minecarts along the lines described by Larix in this post (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=145879.msg5846710#msg5846710). It appeals to me because it solves the problem with in game assets. A similar arrangement can be used for marksdwarves to shoot out against ranged opponents, while preventing return shots from reaching the dwarves.







In front of the troll are fortifications, the cyan thing is a raised 1-tile bridge, they look the same in my tileset.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2015, 03:20:30 am by taptap »
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Skullsploder

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Re: New generation archery range & ammo splitter. >99% recycle rate!
« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2015, 03:48:14 am »

@taptap: The drawbacks you listed there are exactly why I'm so interested in Qrox's design. Not only does it not require any complex machinery or moving parts, but because it doesn't, it should be no drain on FPS.

EDIT: ARMOK DAMN IT. A giantess was wandering towards ny cage traps when an off-duty marksdwarf spots her, looses an entire quiver and makes her give into pain and bleed profusely, and he  bashes her skull in over the course of a month T_T I don't think my dwarves want any hostiles on the map, captive or not. :( ONE DAY.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2015, 02:25:18 pm by Skullsploder »
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