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[CognitiveDissonance]

I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but I still don't get it. Outside of indirect uses, such as a Dwarven Shotgun, how are minecarts actually used?

For example, I have a mason 3 levels below surface. Everything below is rock. How can I use a minecart to get the rocks to his stockpile?

HALP

[deve]

I use minecarts for easy quantum stockpiling w/out having to designate items for dumping. Just make a small stockpile, and have a short minecart track take from the stockpile and dump into a 1x1 stockpile. There's a good example of how to do this on the wiki.

As for how to truck stone from 20+ z levels down, the principle is the same. The only difference is the minecart track needs use ramps to change z levels.

You want to set your minecarts to "guide," not "push." The extra dwarflabor is negligible and will save you a lot of design work.

[saurio]

Minecarts are one of those completely optional, yet potentially awesome features of this game.

Personally, I find they're useful if you find a mineral-rich area far away from your fort. You can set up a track to deliver lots of raw whatever stones directly to your smelter. In close quarters tho, wheelbarrows will do.

So yeah, it's pretty much up to what you make of them.

[Maxmurder]

Main uses in my fort:
Minecart Shotguns.
Moving food from my farms/food-prep area to dining hall.
Easy garbage disposal
Elimination of unwanted pets/children with no micromanagement required.

[Darchitect]

Honestly quantum stockpiling is the only thing I really use them for.

I usually set up 11 4x1 stockpiles for stone, and assign 3 wheelbarrows to each. Then, I assign those stockpiles to a minecart quantum stockpile very nearby. That way, 33 dwarves are pulling stone deep from the earth (and quickly), while other dwarves are feeding the stockpiled stone into the QS. You can setup multiple QSs to sort types of stone. Useful for then linking to masons' workshops.
 
Wheelbarrows are, IMHO, far more useful for dealing with stone.

I did once run a ramp all the way down to the magma sea. I used minecarts to bring magma up to just a few levels below the surface for my smelters and forges. That was quite a lot of work, but debatably worth it.

[Hurkyl]

I just had an opportunity to use minecarts in a way I've only thought about before: wood transport.

My fort is tucked away in the NE corner of the map, in a mountainous biome. The biomes with trees are half way across the map, and it takes a lot of time to haul the wood back one log at a time. So I've set up a hauling route.

[Veylon]

I mostly use them for gathering up scrap after a battle.

On each bloody leftover mess of a goblin squad, I put down a stockpile that takes from nowhere, uses no bins, and accepts corpses, refuse, ammo, armor, weapons, and finished goods. Then I designate a route to go from that stockpile back to a minecart-dumping-tile in my fort. A dwarf drags the cart out there, fills it with all the stuff, and drags it back to be sorted in the safety of my fort. When there's nothing left to grab, I clear the stockpile and route. It saves a lot of trips of dwarves hauling bins back and forth, especially when they're almost-full bins of ironmongery.

[CognitiveDissonance]

That makes sense of them. I was trying to envision minecarts being used everywhere, but that doesn't seem feasible.... yet

[Triaxx2]

Let's see. I use minecarts to lift finished goods from craftshops located 10z below the surface, dumping to a stockpile just off the trade depot. I use mine carts to haul wood from the surface down to carpenters and craftsdorfs.

My current fort is using them to lift huge quantities of green glass blocks up through an aquifer for construction of a massive tower on the surface.

The 'problem' with minecarts is that like large spiral ramps they can be a pain in the neck to designate, and the hauling routes tend to have problems when it comes to connecting. Sometimes a perfectly valid route will throw up that yellow exclamation point for no good reason. Plus as much as they can hold it can sometimes take a hideously long time to fill them.