I find it's easier to never trigger the dragons at all than to shut them down after you've done it. I searched and I'm finding all sorts of warnings with descriptions of using the command. I didn't find the command, however. I'll keep looking.

I'm after the reverse of disabling them.

I want to enable them, I tried "help dragon 3" and saw a global variable for it, so I attempted a few different command entries and the one that worked for me was "set dragonsenabled to 1"

Needs to be like that, obviously changing the 1 to a 0 will deactivate them. Hope that helps anyone else after it.
Also, I'll post again in a few days on a new thread probably saying whether or not random dragon encounters are affected by that command. I'm hoping it is so I can finally make use of deadly dragons.

Allie has no ranged attack and does just fine. It's a little annoying before you get Dragonrend, but only a little.

I imagine that some builds will work better and some worse. Do not worry about it, but give it a try and see if yours works out for you.

When I started did I only use what I had available or what I could find and what seemed to be effective during the situation I was in. Only much later did I plan my skill development.

From that experience would I say that Enchanting, Smithing as well as Alchemy shall always be trained. They do nothing on their own, but combined with your other skills will they increase your combat skills. I am not even sure why these three were implemented as a skill, when they cannot exist independently from other skills and are hardly an option to be left out. They are unlike the Speech skill, which is a one entirely for role-playing and therefore exists for a purpose other than combat.

One can play on the lowest difficulty setting and have fun without Enchanting, Smithing and Alchemy, but these should have been implemented differently and perhaps even better. Maybe they should have been just stand-alone objects in the game without an associated skill tree or as unique services provided by NPCs.

As some have asked before, why has the Dovahkiin to be better than anyone else in Skyrim and at everything?

Unless "Dovakhiin" means "Egomaniac" in dragon tongue...

No ranged capability = lots of frustration, in my opinion. Not just for dragons, but I just find myself in a lot of situations where it's easier to boom headshot someone with an arrow (at a distance, difficult/impossible pathing to them, convenience, etc.) than to get up close and personal. I actually enjoy archery though; your mileage may vary.

Picking up a ranged follower can be useful, but I find followers generally unpredictable in combat. The mages will start punching things, and whatever mechanic that decides if followers engage at ranged (with a bow) or go into melee seems to be a bit hit-or-miss. If I could force them to fight at range it might be different.

Never had a problem not having or not using a ranged ability, never had a problem with getting dragons to attack or land, the very very few that don't are actually 'scout' dragons that have A.I made that way.

Can't imagine not having any ranged capability. If my character didn't have it I'd pick up Marcurio in Riften. I remember one dragon attack when Frost Dragons first appeared. I was by myself and stupidly removed my bow from my inventory without noticing. One attacked an literally flew around blow frost attacks for at least 20 passes and almost ten minutes before finally landing. It was just irritating.

Thanks for the replies all.

I have done archer characters in the past (currently playing a Khajiit run-&-gun archer actually), and I don't mind the archery mechanics per se. I just wanted this character to try something different.

I'll check out the skill builder thing on ign to see how this could work with & without archery. My characters rarely make it out of the 20s in level, so I fear that if I have too many active skills, I'll get bored with the character before my skills are very high, if that makes sense. But maybe I'll see how it goes. If I take my time progressing through the Companions & MQ, then that might make me play for longer than usual.

Oh, since we're now in Spoilers, to change topic slightly: Would the Stormcloak civil war questline be too much of a hassle to work in alongside those other two? If not, what's the best order in which to do those quests?

any normal follower has a ranged attack so it doesn't have to be an issue.

i have a bow for when the dragons are airborne.

then when they land i slice into little peices with my war axe.

I never use archery. I've never wanted to bother with it in any games I've ever played. I just don't like it period. I DO use magic as left-hand attack for ranged. And I don't use 2-handers/shield for that reason.

I have an orc who only uses shouts for range and it is pretty interesting. Dragons do fly higher than my shouts can reach pretty often though.

Just noticed you're planning a Nord. You should be fine. Most low-level dragons breathe frost, just stand there and take it until they land.

Personally, I love Archery, and I use it often, especially when sneaking around dungeons. I havent been doing much smithing. So honestly, my highest damaging single weapon is my Glass Bow, and I have hundrerds of Ancient Nord Arrows. Now, I do dual wield in melee, so two weapons combined can add up to more damage than the bow, depending on what I use.