So, I’ve attempted to find documentation here and on Github, but I haven’t seen any discussion that states it explicitly: Were the aiming skill changes intended to make it impossible to train ranged skills without a live (or undead) target? I just picked up a new experimental yesterday after some number of months away, and was surprised to discover that there appears to be no way to get even residual XP for ranged weapons unless you’re trying to kill something.
Some of the Github discussion about the aiming rework (for instance, This discussion) seemed to imply that XP only for hitting an enemy was a forgone conclusion, so I was wondering if there was another discussion somewhere where the decision to get rid of non-combat ranged training was made, or that this was simply an unintended consequence of attempting to reward success in aiming for ranged weapons. (I suspect it’s the latter, since plinking inanimate objects is the simplest method of training ranged weapons in the real world.)
One simple way to bridge this discrepancy would be something along the lines of a mode in the aiming menu that allow furniture to be designated as a valid target, with most of the underlying mechanics related to skill gain working as normal (with perhaps a hefty nerf for stationary targets.) Another possible kludge would be to argue that a person can still learn from a miss, meaning that there is a minimum level of experience gain for any shot taken.
However, before I descend into munckin-esque whining, I mainly wanted to know if this was working as intended.
