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[LordUbik]

Hello Overseers!

I have a little problem setting minecarts...

I would like to "automate" food delivery, so plump helmets delivered to a drink production facility, cave wheat to milling and so on.
I managed to set up everything, minecarts load from various stockpiles, bring plants aaall the way down to the facilities and dump them on the designated stockpiles.

Now, the problem is that, right after dumping, some haulers came here, take the barrels back, and bring them aaall the way UP to the original stockpile.

I tried setting one by one and both the stockpiles as "takes from link only", and it didn't work. I tried setting the upper stockpile (the one where the minecart is loaded) to actually GIVE to the receiving stockpile.

Nothing worked, they keep to bring back the barrels right after the unloading.

Someone has any idea?

[PatrikLundell]

You talk about bringing barrels up. That indicates you are sending barrels of produce down rather than individual food items. This also means you have to make sure the QS at the bottom allows barrels, so I would double and triple check the settings of that pile (both for barrels and the actual kinds of food items). Note that SQ dumping stuff that doesn't match the SQ stockpile settings will cause the items to be scheduled for moving (although you never know if they're going to bother to do it; compare with Dump sites which can take an eternity before some items are moved to a matching stockpile). I've had mixed results with trying to store barrels (with booze) in QS, however. I would probably send unpackaged produce down and have the QS at the bottom give to a slightly larger stockpile that allows barrels and that links its contents to the still (or skip barrels altogether if you can keep the brewing going in a timely fashion, which might be tricky). Since we're talking about food items, you'd probably need both a time limit and a carriage saturation for the route stop, to ensure the mine cart actually gets sent away before the produce withers.
The other alternative is to use the setup I typically employ, i.e. to have the still next to the farm plots. You'd then have to move the booze instead (I haven't moved my fortress downwards, however), which means you definitely have to crack the barrel nut, however.

[LordUbik]

Yeah, i too usually keep the stills and kitchen close to the farms, but this time i wanted to try something different, also for pure RP question... it's so dwarfy to send down minecarts full of everything the fortress could need!

At the moment the situation seems to be stabilized by setting both stockpiles to take only from links, setting the SQ to give to a larger one, linked with the stills. A bit tricky but it seems to work.

With that sistem i created 3 routes, one for plump helmets and other brewable plants, one for cave wheat and another one for pig tails and rope reeds... and it's working like a charm! Actually it's working far better than i tought, keeping after my industries pretty well, and freeing a lot of haulers!

Thank you for your help!

[PatrikLundell]

I would probably have multiplexed the produce streams such that the various feeds were sent to a single minecart route, and the produce would then be linked further to different stockpiles from the QS at the bottom, but it's also a matter of how much work the mining etc. for the route is. When I did set up such a system it was some 140 levels...

[Larix]

I think the barrels remain assigned to the stockpile they came from.
Moral: only move loose items with minecarts, not stuff in containers.

[Linkxsc]

Are you sure that only plump helmets are on the list of items to be loaded in the cart? Ive personally never had the problem you are even with heavily minecartized forts. (Srsly, a total pain in the ass setting up the cart system, but after its up and running, the hauling time for things, especially stone) becomes amazingly short.

[LordUbik]

Are you sure that only plump helmets are on the list of items to be loaded in the cart? Ive personally never had the problem you are even with heavily minecartized forts. (Srsly, a total pain in the ass setting up the cart system, but after its up and running, the hauling time for things, especially stone) becomes amazingly short.

Nope, it's plump helmets, fruits and something else, everything that can be brewed and can't be used in other industries. And yeah, once set up this sistem has lowered a lot all the hauling, and i think (but i'm not sure) that it has also improved my fps!