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[Bortness]

Uh, so yeah, What The Actual F...

I'm working with minecarts, on a long-standing dream project of mine.  I can't get them to work in the most minimal of ways.

I set up a hatch with a switch over a channeled-out ramp with a section of straight track on it.  Seven adjacents to the ramp are solid walls, the eighth is open ground.  Straight track laid over the ramp.  Put cart on the hatch, throw the switch.  The cart drops onto the track and ramp, and just sits there, unmoving.

OK, fine, I've obviously done something wrong.  Let's try another way.  I set up another hole with a hatch over a powered roller.  The roller is powered with a Dwarven Water Reactor, via gear assemblies and axles.  The reactor works, axles and rollers are powered - this is confirmed by the animations they show when turning in-game.  Throw the switch, open the hatch, drop the cart.  Cart falls on the powered, operating rollers... and just sits there, unmoving.  The rollers are rolling under the cart, which doesn't move.  A dorf comes to reclaim the cart and reposition it on its starting hatch, and the dorf's movement is dramatically affected by the roller motion, going very fast with the roller and very slowly against it.  But the cart doesn't move.

I will admit to being very frustrated.  I've obviously spent a lot of time setting up the mechanics for this whole thing, which is only a small trial prototype of my larger design idea, and it's total failure from step zero, before ever even getting off the ground.  And with such an inexplicable problem no less.

Anyone have any ideas for a lost overseer?

[Schmaven]

Is there room in your design to have the cart start moving by being pushed by a dwarf?  I've had success with 3 tile long feeder tracks.  One end is a track stop, set to push always.  I change it to never if I don't want more minecarts in the system.  The cart follows a track onto a tile with a powered roller directly facing a raised drawbridge.  It just sits there idly until the bridge is lowered, then it can proceed into the main minecart system.

S=oB====

S: Track stop
=: EW Track
o: Powered roller to the East
B: Bridge

[Bortness]

I think it might be because I'm not "pushing" the cart to the track stops, just sitting them there.  This makes the game think they're still being "guided" and they ignore other physics effects.  This is my current theory.  Update when I try it out tomorrow.

[Larix]

I set up a hatch with a switch over a channeled-out ramp with a section of straight track on it.  Seven adjacents to the ramp are solid walls, the eighth is open ground.  Straight track laid over the ramp.  Put cart on the hatch, throw the switch.  The cart drops onto the track and ramp, and just sits there, unmoving.

Sounds like you have a nonfunctional ramp. Does it have two (at least) track directions indicated? E.g. a track-ramp that's supposed to push the cart out north and with a wall to the south would need "NS" track. A ramp with only "N" track will not accelerate the cart.

The reactor works, axles and rollers are powered - this is confirmed by the animations they show when turning in-game.  Throw the switch, open the hatch, drop the cart.  Cart falls on the powered, operating rollers... and just sits there, unmoving.  The rollers are rolling under the cart, which doesn't move. 

Is there track underneath the roller? Rollers without track don't affect carts. Track direction rarely matters*, but you must have actual track on the tiles.

* only two-connection corners can affect carts' movement directions on the flat.

[Bortness]

So, for what it's worth, I finally got this working.  I'll put the solutions here for anyone who stumbles across this in the future:

The "tracks under rollers" thing was correct - rollers were not affecting my minecarts because there were no carved tracks under the rollers.  Also, constructed tracks can be either "track" or "track/ramp".  Building "track" over a mined-out ramp will actually remove the mined-out ramp and act as through it's track on flat floor.  To construct track ramps you need to actually construct the "track/ramp" form - building a track over a mined ramp is not sufficient.