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[levraininjaneer]

Hi

I have a setup where a minecart is pushed down a track. The track goes down and down. For each level, it looks like
\_
   \

So, that's (up) ramp, level, (down) ramp. I know now that the level bit is not necessary, but I didn't know it when building.

Anyway. This worked 100% with the nether cap minecart. However, the iron minecart stops about 3/4 down. It rides about 10 tiles of level track, which includes one turn. This does slow it down, but it keeps going, hitting the downramp-level-downramp sequence again.

The Wiki says a downramp should decrease friction by 4890, while the level track only adds 10.

So, as I understand the Wiki, my cart should be going down just fine. Why would it stop?
I've triple-checked the tracks and the are correctly carved up and down the ramps.

And like I said: it works fine for the nether cap minecart, why would it be and issue for iron one. One difference between the two is that the nether cap was of better quality: it was =exceptional=, while the iron one is only *superior* (I think).

Other things I can think of:
There are some gabbro boulders lying on the track (but as I understand it, this does not matter)
Maybe the cart "derails" and is just sliding down the slope (but no: there is always a wall next to its turn, so according to the wiki, no derailing can happen...
->== W
      ll W
       l
      v

So how then?

[Fleeting Frames]

Minecarts can stop on proper ramps - one exit into wall, one into floor/empty space when there's something able to block the movement of the cart in the exit direction (most frequently another cart).

But they should behave the same no matter the weight as long as they don't bump into any bumpable objects (just carts, I think?) or living beings. Upload the save?

[levraininjaneer]

Here she is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4O9l_KnvMK3Nm5yWF9rZ2dqbUk/view?usp=sharing
42.06


lemme know. Also, out of curiousoity: what frame rate you getting on the save.

[Larix]

None of your ramps is properly carved. They're all only connected "down", to the floor. To accelerate, a ramp must also be connected "up"; i.e. when the wall is north of the ramp, track on the ramp must be "NS". Yours is always just "S".

The cart just rolls without acceleration until the speed from the single dwarven push is used up. If your nethercap cart behaved differently, maybe you tested it on properly carved ramps...
(Cart quality, cart material and garbage on the track don't affect the way carts move. In identical situations, they'll always behave identically. If they didn't, the situations weren't truly identical.)

If you want the cart to gain/keep speed, connect the ramps on both sides and get rid of the intermediate level track. That's directly harmful, carts on proper ramps eventually accelerate enough that they won't take down ramps when coming from level floor and jump (into the walls behind the ramp openings) instead. They won't do this when already coming from a (proper) ramp.

Route management tip: ignore the dotted lines, they only show routes when using the interface for soldier patrols. Minecarts/guiding dwarfs simply follow track, the dotted lines are irrelevant. There's no need to make them line up with track, especially not by sticking a route stop into every track corner.

FPS on my machine in uploaded state was 17; 27 after i removed the horrible archer squads (all members seem to be hunters and uniform is set to "replace clothing"; every single one of them was constantly swapping equipment back and forth).

[levraininjaneer]

Wow! Some solid tips there, thanks so much!

Ok I feel like an idiot now about the tracks. But very glad that the "mystery" is solved. Shame on me.

But, wait, what? About the archer squads... Could you explain a bit more?

[Fleeting Frames]

Hunting/Mining/Woodcutting generates invisible uniform [respective weapon, quiver and bolts (adjustable in (m)ilitary- (f)ammunition screen) with carry no drink or food]. A soldier can only have a single uniform, and things part of it are earmarked for it.

I'd guess you also have some barracks/schedule setup to make them switch between military and civilian modes and thus stop, drop equipment and stroll towards getting new ones/storing old ones.

In any case if you want your archer squads hunting it is best to disable their hunting labours so they can wear armor, enable refuse gathering from outside so somebody will bring kills back and give then route via [N]otes (place points patrolling from inside to outside of fort, then switch to [r]outes to [a]dd route, and then to connect them by [e]dit waypoints and [a]dding them, following up by giving [m]ilitary a (s)chedule  to patrol route and then enabling that in [a]lerts for your archer squad.

(The above is abridged version, see wiki for more complete guide.)

[levraininjaneer]

Whoa: that's quite a trick.

I guess then that which I had worked so hard to achieve kinda becomes moot 

You see, I want to be very active in the caverns, so I "prepared" some bad ass dwarfs for the tasks.

The plan was to train up dwarves in marksdwarving and hammerdwarving and enable hunting, as well as weaving (silk collection) and wood hauling and mechanics (retreiving caged critters) for them. Then, to have them in a military squad, with 3/9 active at a time, allowing the other guys to venture into the caverns to retreive wood, captured critters and silk... in full military uniform. The hunting labour is only so that they can keep their crossbows.

Similarly, I prepared miners with military skill to do pretty muc the same.

I had read that this uniform trick does not work on woodcutters, so they are also highly trained, but only cut trees - then they get out of there.

It was a fortuitous coincidence that the save I shared the marksdwarf squad was set to inactive. I'll be investigating the uniform matter in a bit more depth soon.

Is there any way then to get a dwarf in full armor and carrying a weapon to haul wood, for example?

[PatrikLundell]

Yes, the uniform conflict ONLY affects hunters/miners/wood cutters, because those professions require a tool/weapon to perform their jobs, and that tool/weapon is assigned as an invisible uniform. Any other dorfs can be set to replace clothing and wear uniform when off duty (the former defaults to the rather useless over uniform, while the latter defaults to wearing uniform at all times). Note that armor training is required to negate the encumbrance penalty of armor, so an untrained hauler wearing a full steel uniform will move verrrrrry slowly. I like to equip my civilians with a melee weapon and a shield, but no armor.

[ManaUser]

Is there any way then to get a dwarf in full armor and carrying a weapon to haul wood, for example?

That shouldn't be a problem. There's an option for whether a squad should stay in uniform while off duty, and it's on by default. It's only hunting, mining and chopping (jobs that require a weapon) that mess with it as far as I know. They shouldn't have any trouble just hauling wood or pretty much anything except those three tasks.

[Fleeting Frames]

The hunting labour is only so that they can keep their crossbows.

Just make sure they have crossbow (not individual choice - ranged, no spear isn't a ranged weapon Urist) assigned for their uniform and don't give them barracks to train + make them inactive. Civs with equipped crossbows will still pincushion hostiles and can do everything you wanted expected cutting wood (just hauling).

Additionally, were you to elect using hunting instead of uniform(of even just crossbow), they'd prefer to primarily hunt instead of other labours as well as sleep on the floor anywhere they get tired.

For woodcutters, the best you could do is perhaps ensuring there is decent metal axe available (wooden ones don't work 43.03+ anyway), some axedwarf skills and no military squad assignment (Even "No uniform" with 0 drink and food will make them drop things as soon as they do anything militarily!).

That said, the bug affects imho miners the most, as clearcutting can be done once every 3 years, while mining is a regular thing that both trains attributes and is a combat skill. As mentioned above, you practically need two picks for every miner if you toss them all in the same squad, due one set getting assigned to their military uniforms, and having to equip gear every time they go on duty doesn't make them exactly responsive.

[levraininjaneer]

Ah, thank you so much Fleeting Flames.

The way the game works actually is more convenient for me:

I "train" miners first, by having them mine, which is actually a pretty safe job. I then assign them to full-time military training until they become at least expert armor users. I had assumed that I needed to keep the *squad* active, while training in a barracks but allowing only a partial minimum (went with 3), which frees up between 0 and 7 to do civ work. However, making the whole squad inactive frees them all up. The only downside is that if no action is taken their combat skills will no longer improve and can in the very long run rust... but that is easy to deal with.

The actual mining can then be done by anyone.

Crossbow dwarves: awesome. It's no problem that they can no longer hunt. I like to capture-tame-butcher/breed anyway.

[Fleeting Frames]

About barracks: dwarves with some levels (3+ iirc) combat skills tend to like training even when inactive when picking a job, rather than doing things you command. I believe full train schedules will guarantee they train no matter the skill as long as they have barracks to train in, while inactive will just mean they like running individual drills in them (unsure if this will cause them to switch uniforms, but leaning towards yes).

That said, I have not actually experimented with military much beyond getting armor equipped (non-detoriating clothes and drinking whenever one wants seem beneficial), toying with the bug discussed above and kea extermination.

Though a FB attests picks seem to compete favourably with bone bolt spam from crossbows, should they happen to be in hitting range and not flying away.

[PatrikLundell]

To get civilians with a reasonable amount of military training to actually perform their jobs while still being attached to a squad you have to remove them from the barracks. That way they'll still wear their uniform (provided it's set up correctly), but have no place to sneak off to for individual training.