Wrestler not picking up ammo

[Marlowe]

I've just upgraded to 40d and my new fortress currently has a military of 5 wrestlers. Because of the uber-wrestler bug they trained very fast; 2 are now at champion, the others are elite.

Trouble is I really want them to be Marksdwarves. I only started training them in wrestling to build up their physical stats. I've given them all crossbows and they've picked up quivers. We have an archery range. But they don't pick up ammunition. They just go to the barracks and hit each other with their crossbows.

We have a supply of wooden and copper bolts, so that's not an issue. I've made them drop the crossbows and pick them up again repeatedly. I've undesignated the ammo stockpile and designated it again, no result. Any ideas?

[Gothmog]

The same happened to me.
Do they wear any kind of armor? I saw they held any kind of stuff in their hands alongside the crossbows, like... leather high boots, leather helms and such. (probably because I had them wear leather stuff before I changed to Chainmail equipment)

I just told them to wear NO armor at all for training and that seemed to fix the problem for me. Don't know what happens when I want them to be protected for combat again, through.

[Marlowe]

I checked their inventories and they were ALL holding an item of armour in their left hand. I ordered these dumped and reclaimed (cue sudden rush of wrestlers to the garbage dump to get their helms and boots back) and they went and fetched ammunition immediately.

Thanks for the quick response and I think that might help with your problem too.

[susancreature]

Slightly related to this topic..   Is it a known bug that military dwarves can somehow get two sets of armor on their upper torso?  I have dwarves running around wearing chainmail AND platemail, both on "upper body" slots.   Maybe I'm not familiar with armor - is it supposed to be that way?

[Gothmog]

Slightly related to this topic..   Is it a known bug that military dwarves can somehow get two sets of armor on their upper torso?  I have dwarves running around wearing chainmail AND platemail, both on "upper body" slots.   Maybe I'm not familiar with armor - is it supposed to be that way?

Several of my Axe/Hammer Champions wear both leather and Plate armor.
It could be a feature since you perfectly CAN wear a leather vest under a plate armor IRL, too.
But I can't say the same about "boots under boots" or "caps under helms".

[Deon]

Platemail over chainmail/leather is not a bug but a feature (but you can't wear a platemail over a platemail, it's tied to the armor "thickness"/"size" parameter which is called "layering" in the armor data file), but with current equipment feature sometimes it's hard to make. But I ensure all my legendaries wear 2 levels of armor, just in case.

[shoruke]

So if you modded the game, you could make clothes of all different sizes, and have your dwarves wearing 8 (or more, even) layers of boots on top of each other?

Sounds positively dwarven!

[Marlowe]

Though what I've never heard answered is whether there's any actual benefit from stacking armour.

[Wolfking6116]

It does give a bonus, if I recall correctly.

Now what I'm curious about, how do you -make- them wear two sets of armour?

[Gothmog]

It does give a bonus, if I recall correctly.

Now what I'm curious about, how do you -make- them wear two sets of armour?

Assign them to wear one set of armor (lets say chain)
wait until they have picked it up
then make them wear another (better) set (in this case it would be plate)
wait until they have picked the second set up
now your soldiers should wear two sets (operative word being SHOULD, since I regularry see them wear -Leather Boots- on their hands)


Or is there a better and more secure way to do it? I would love to ensure my champions actually wear my masterwork catleather armor under steelplate.