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Trains and steampunk, damnit!

4 (17.4%)

Minecarts

7 (30.4%)

Funiculars

1 (4.3%)

Funny-whaty?

2 (8.7%)

None of the above

2 (8.7%)

Both, surely?

7 (30.4%)

Total Members Voted: 23

[stormsaber]

There has been alot of talk before of minecarts, carts and wheelbarrows of various kinds, and trains. However to my incredible suprise no one has used that magic word that fills my heart with joy: F U N I C U L A R



Whats the hells that? A funicular is one of the oldest types of train around - at least some of the oldest were built by monks so they wouldnt have to walk to monasteries that were on massive mountaintops the-better-to-be-closer-to-god. Nowadays when we're not driving around in satan-spawn-automobiles we power funiculars with diesel and gasoline and post-1600 they powered them with steam, but these guys? They used water or sewage. Now thats dwarvenly!

A funicular is a type of car or cart attached to rails that goes up and down a steep mountainside or mine shaft. Its attached to a rope which is attached to a pulley at the top and the other end of the rope is attached to another cart. Now the carts are roughly equal, all you need is a heavier load at the top and you have a working system. Often this was provided by a mountain spring, sometimes a horse or other animal, or even sewage.

The suggestion:
-A cart is an inventory-item that allows a dwarf to carry more inventory items than otherwise. For instance, 5. Its pushed by a dwarf and makes them move slower.
-A funicular can be built on top of a slope. Its made from two carts, two chains or ropes, a mechanism and two levers. The pathfinder treats it as a path with an, e.g., +25 pathfinding bias. A dwarf who takes this path (the slope) moves to the same square as the cart and a tick or two later is at the other end of the slope, having swapped places with the other cart. The dwarf goes on their way.
-It should be possible to make rails at a forge. Rails can be 'built' next to a funicular and join to adjacent rails like walls. They require mechanisms (to thread the rope through) and cause funiculars to change direction - as long as they continue to travel down.
-Cablecars using the same principle, but using rope and built in the air, would also be quite cool and in keeping with the time period. But unlike funiculars, theyre not very dwavenly.
-It should also be possible to make horizontal - not vertical - funiculars, though these require mechanisms at both ends and the mechanisms must be powered. Hey presto - we have a functional, non-steam-based, non-steampunk, way-pre-1400 train system!
-Finally, I had a random idea about using them for automated transport of items. It would be quite cool if you could also build an 'item drop' out of a mechanism. When placed on top of a hole in the path a funicular takes, these cause a trap door in the cart to open, depositing the contents of cart onto the z-level below. Funiculars could be designated in the same way as piles as an alternative to being used to convey dwarves. Thus, when Dwarfy McStonehauler realises a funicular station is just a few tiles away from the stone he's hauling he'll drop the stone into the cart and send it on its merry way. It'll climb back up the mountain and when it passes over the stone depot the stone will be automaticly dropped into the waiting stone pile below.

So whaddya think? Its a much simpler way of adding vehicles than many other suggestions, its easy to implement, and its wayyy pre-1400 tech.

Daniel

[Humaan]

I think that it could be a good idea.

I could imagine dwarves building rails(as an individual building) which is continueally placed all over the mines. They place ores (specifics made like a stockpile) into the cart and a hauler starts pushing it to the stockpile floor above. The ores are dropped, and taken to the smelter to become bars. Then those bars then go to a forge for weapons, which then go to the mines to fight the enemies attacking the miners so they can start mining...

The question is, how to deal with multiple carts?

[Vulkanis]

Well I could imagine something like carts to improve the stone hauling, you have TONS UPON TONS of garb stone and you need to forbid it all then you need to forbid other kinds of garb as well then you can collect the stone you wanted. But what if you just had designated "cart workers" that collected stone types assigned to the cart and then return to the stockpile with the cart and unload the stones there only from the cart and return for more as long as they remain on the track, the cart can hold 50 units of stones or 70 metal bars.

[DoctorZuber]

I would really enjoy seeing this one show up as a feature one day. It just doesn't feel properly dwarfy without at least dwarf powered mine carts. Actual powered trains of any kind might be asking a bit much since that didn't really start until the 1800's or so. But unpowered minecarts have been around for much longer.

[Andeerz]

YESPLZKTHX

[immibis]

YESPLZKTHX

You forgot BYE.

[Pilsu]

Well I could imagine something like carts to improve the stone hauling, you have TONS UPON TONS of garb stone and you need to forbid it all then you need to forbid other kinds of garb as well then you can collect the stone you wanted. But what if you just had designated "cart workers" that collected stone types assigned to the cart and then return to the stockpile with the cart and unload the stones there only from the cart and return for more as long as they remain on the track, the cart can hold 50 units of stones or 70 metal bars.

One square can hold a 10-item bin or 1 rock. Let's not go overboard.

Carts are useless unless we go the realism route and make large boulders unmovable without help. As is, dwarves can easily get strong enough to lug around 186kg diorite boulders on their backs. One unit of gold nuggets weighs about as much as a small car yet can be lugged around with impunity.

[Draco18s]

This is why the forum has a search feature.