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Author Topic: Doubling Protection  (Read 1177 times)

CrundleHorn

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Doubling Protection
« on: February 28, 2017, 12:00:20 pm »

Can crossbow dorfs shoot through two layers of fortifications? Does this help them from being shot through their own murder-holes? Also what is the minimum distance between dwarf and target for crossbow training?
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CrundleHorn

Urist9876

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Re: Doubling Protection
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2017, 12:35:14 pm »

Depending on skill level you can shoot/been shot through multiple fortifications.

Your dwarf may not be adjecent to the target. So 1 space in between. Bigger to allow for more misses and a channel behind targets recommended.
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CrundleHorn

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Re: Doubling Protection
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2017, 12:45:27 pm »

Depending on skill level you can shoot/been shot through multiple fortifications.

Your dwarf may not be adjecent to the target. So 1 space in between. Bigger to allow for more misses and a channel behind targets recommended.

Thank you Urist!
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CrundleHorn

Fearless Son

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Re: Doubling Protection
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2017, 01:59:41 pm »

Aye, fortifications make it so a creature needs a high degree of skill to shoot through it unless they are directly adjacent to it.  So doubling-up fortifications would make it near-impossible to shoot through unless the shooter is highly skilled, but this applies both to your own dwarfs as well as to invaders. 

However, a creature directly adjacent to a fortification does not need to be skilled to shoot through it.  This means that relatively unskilled crossbow dwarfs can position themselves behind a fortification and shoot with confidence that, unless their enemies are expert marksmen, they are relatively safe.  But that means that invaders who can close the distance to the fortification can shoot back through it at them, since it works both ways.  If the enemy is really skilled (like the leader of an archery squad) but your own dwarfs are not yet well enough trained, then they would be the ones at a disadvantage in a fire fight. 

Best advice is to build your fortifications so you can only stand on one side of them to shoot.  This could be something like a shallow moat on the outside edge of them, or it could be a raised area like a tower or wall that you build fortifications on the top edge of. 

Incidentally, if you ever build exterior windows in your fort, I recommend you put fortifications on the outside of them.  It prevents something from simply walking through and smashing them, and the windows will allow visibility without allowing projectiles to shoot through. 
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Dunamisdeos

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Re: Doubling Protection
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2017, 02:12:50 pm »

Aye, fortifications make it so a creature needs a high degree of skill to shoot through it unless they are directly adjacent to it.  So doubling-up fortifications would make it near-impossible to shoot through unless the shooter is highly skilled, but this applies both to your own dwarfs as well as to invaders. 

However, a creature directly adjacent to a fortification does not need to be skilled to shoot through it.  This means that relatively unskilled crossbow dwarfs can position themselves behind a fortification and shoot with confidence that, unless their enemies are expert marksmen, they are relatively safe.  But that means that invaders who can close the distance to the fortification can shoot back through it at them, since it works both ways.  If the enemy is really skilled (like the leader of an archery squad) but your own dwarfs are not yet well enough trained, then they would be the ones at a disadvantage in a fire fight. 

Best advice is to build your fortifications so you can only stand on one side of them to shoot.  This could be something like a shallow moat on the outside edge of them, or it could be a raised area like a tower or wall that you build fortifications on the top edge of. 

Incidentally, if you ever build exterior windows in your fort, I recommend you put fortifications on the outside of them.  It prevents something from simply walking through and smashing them, and the windows will allow visibility without allowing projectiles to shoot through.

Or Rocs from squeezing through!
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Bradders

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Re: Doubling Protection
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2017, 02:18:24 pm »

Double-layer Fortification would be a great defense, but is only usable by legendary/lord-tier marksdwarves, otherwise it's like any other non-adjacent fortification, dwarves can't shoot through it.  It's why you usually have to make your pillboxes single-tile-wide corridor affairs, to force the dorfs to stand next to the fortifications and actually shoot.  If you have a trained squad, then go for it.

Also, experimental results seem to indicate line-of-sight and target acquisition range to be ~20 tiles.  I dunno what the minimum target dummy distance is, but I usually use short ranges of 2-3 tiles between target and dorf.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2017, 02:20:55 pm by Bradders »
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