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[yaklin]

I've been thinking of getting back in to DF after being gone for a few years, what kind of big changes are there now? I think the last major change that I saw was the introduction of carts, and the reworking of weight and move speeds.

[Nagidal]

A lot has changed. We have multilevel trees. (Lots of wood even for scarce trees embark). Stone drops boulder only in 25% of cases (you'll need to mine for stone). Minecarts! A blessing for transport down to and from the magma forges. And there is dozens more crops and fruits (above ground).

[endlessblaze]

Who uses minecarts for hauling?

By the time the track is carved the stone is already in the stock piles.

Minecarts are however, good weapons.

Mine cart shotgun.

Minecart grinder.

Ect.

[superbob]

One time I successfully used minecarts for hauling involved a large obsidian farming operation, deep underground and a very long way from where my workshops were. IIRC it took a lot of setting up, even with macros it took hours to get the carts rolling. It worked ok.

Same fort, I tried using minecarts after finding a massive iron ore vein, it wasn't worth the effort. By the time the route was carved and setup, dwarves had already hauled most of the ore up to the stockpile level and there wasn't much left to dig out. OTOH I didn't try very hard that time - had an excess of idle haulers. Had I organized the effort to maximize the use of minecarts, that would've saved me many dwarf-work-hours.

Another setup that worked was a quick route moving metal bars from the smelter level to the master smith level, dumping them in a nice quantum stockpile near the magma forges. Minecarts can fit a lot of metal bars, so that was a very efficient way of keeping the forges supplied and more importantly, preventing the smelters from overflowing.

[TerryDactyl]

Who uses minecarts for hauling?

By the time the track is carved the stone is already in the stock piles.

I have found they save *huge* amounts of labour in a mid-to-large build. Their use requires substantial planning and foresight. If you have your track carved before you even begin to quarry stone, a task any idle hand can perform, then the process of getting stone to where you want it to be is streamlined to the point where, when you do get around to building your city walls, the stone is already waiting for your masons to pick it up and carry it the short distance they need to place it.

(I like to do a lot of surface builds)

All this means that you can maintain a smoother economy with fewer idle labourers.

[NW_Kohaku]

Who uses minecarts for hauling?

By the time the track is carved the stone is already in the stock piles.

With the new way trees grow, I like to set up indoor tree farms.  I can designate a zone for fruit picking or have trees cut down, a nearby stockpile for accepting the goods, and a cart that follows an automated track to dump the goods in the appropriate quantum stockpile, often several z-levels below ground, then reset itself.  It MASSIVELY reduces the amount of time it takes a dwarf to perform the task, which in turn saves tremendously on labor. 

I also use minecarts (just set to "guided" for a path of one tile) to dump goods into a concentrated quantum stockpile in the center of my workshops that use them.  I.E. all stone consolidated onto a single tile just two tiles from all my stone workshops.  I can then quantum stockpile their outputs onto a single tile right next to the stairwell or ramp. 

The single biggest limiter of productivity is hauling time.  Legendaries produce goods nigh-instantly, but typically haul items 30 steps or more to get them.  Make that into taking two steps, and you have just increased your productivity by a factor of 10.  Even with haulers, if you put everything as a mere few steps from a central stairwell or ramp, and you can have a clean fort with 1/10th or 1/30th of the haulers.  Do you have haulers idling because there's nothing left to haul?  I have haulers idling.

Same goes for having a cart track from your main industry stockpiles to a quantum dump right outside the trade depot.  Dump your vendor trash directly onto the vendors!

Also, keep in mind that if you set minecarts to "guided", they are basically just wheelbarrows with 5 times the capacity.  No tracks required but at the ends.  Doing this for new stone quarries you won't be staying in for long is an easy way to organize stone and haul it fairly quickly.

[miauw62]

Best not to dump stuff straight into stockpiles, that could cause clutter.

[TerryDactyl]

Best not to dump stuff straight into stockpiles, that could cause clutter.

You mean workshops. It's fine to dump things into stockpiles.

[Rogue Yun]

One day I might manage to break myself from exploiting quantum stockpiles... But not today.

[NW_Kohaku]

One day I might manage to break myself from exploiting quantum stockpiles... But not today.

I didn't do it before minecarts, but being as quantum stockpiles appear to be literally what they are designed to do when used as intended, I'm figuring they're just not really to be considered an exploit, anymore, but a feature as a reward for going through the effort of setting up a minecart to do it.

[TerryDactyl]

Sometimes I unload carts manually: If I have plotted out a build, and I know how much stone it is going to cost me in advance, I can use stockpile controls to determine exactly how many blocks to deliver to a specific place. This is especially helpful if I have several drop-points I'm delivering to along a line.