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[Stromko]

The devlog mentioned that Toady's considering ways to handle carts that carry liquids, so I felt this would be a good time for the community to brainstorm on that. I couldn't find any other threads about this exact subject, aside from an Eternal Suggestion Voting entry that was extremely far-ranging in topic.

First thing that occurred to me: what if there was a type of rail / depot that caused carts to 'tip' over in a given direction, causing liquids to be dumped? Players could use these as an alternative to pumps to allows for both vertical and horizontal transport of liquids over long distances.

There could also be different varieties of carts, some of which do not carry liquids. Maybe a metal mesh cart, or a slatted cart, or whatever, that just allows fluids to flow right back out. This could be a useful way to coat items with liquid materials, in case there's ever a use for that. Perhaps there could be types of cart that can be switched from watertight to non-watertight when they pass over certain rails or depots.

I'd suggest that carts that fly off the tracks and crash into things should also spill their contents, but that's probably already planned. This should satisfy people that want more varieties of magma cannon.

[Supersnes]

I'd suggest that carts that fly off the tracks and crash into things should also spill their contents, but that's probably already planned. This should satisfy people that want more varieties of magma cannon.

Artillery barrage fire!   Extra Points if you can launch it into the settlement next door

[Deimos56]

I'd suggest that carts that fly off the tracks and crash into things should also spill their contents, but that's probably already planned. This should satisfy people that want more varieties of magma cannon.

Artillery barrage fire!   Extra Points if you can launch it into the settlement next door

Meanwhile in the Elven Forest of PeaceBlossoms...
NotCacame McTreeHugger: I didn't know there was going to be an eclipse todaAAAAAAH.
Your Forest Retreat has come to its end.

If you can do a good enough job at aiming minecarts, you could probably do precision drops of magma on a partially water filled corridor and convert invaders into obsidian. Their friends will be talking about it for... Well, seconds, since they'll probably be in the spray radius too.

[Geb]

The word you're looking for is "tipple". They can be quite awesome.

In this context it means a loading chute for wagons: either a big silo above the track with a hatch, so that you can drop stuff into wagons below, or a chute and mechanism for emptying wagons.

Who wouldn't want one of these in their forts? http://www.palmercc.com/PacCoastCoal069.bmp

Out in the real world, they were mostly used for coal. In DF, I guess mostly for magma. Still, it would be awesome to be able to drop rocks out of a cart at an unloading tipple.

[slothen]

Some good ideas.  Cart tipping should be able to be done by a regular dwarf, or with a special cart/building.  This presents the issue of easily making quantum stockpiles, which toady wants to address very soon anyway along with the hauling changes.  As for liquids, yes we should be able to transport liquids this way.  A few suggestions on this point.  Special carts for liquid shouldn't be able to hold other items.  If regular carts are allowed to hold liquid, they should have their liquid spill if they attain a certain velocity or change z-levels.  I really like the idea of carts that allow drainage for coating the contents in liquid.

[Jeoshua]

Keg Cart.  A Keg on wheels.

Need I say more?

[Stromko]

This presents the issue of easily making quantum stockpiles, which toady wants to address very soon anyway along with the hauling changes.

I wonder if some kind of fluid dynamic might be a good fix for that. Say a tile can hold 10 items, so once it's full additional items will spill out to adjacent open tiles. This would be a good way to properly simulate big mounds of treasure in a hoard, or a mounting stack of coal being brought to your smithies via mine carts.

If items have a size or volume attribute, then each tile could have a total capacity which will vary in quantity based on what the items are. A few bins might stack, whereas a few dozen loose crafts will probably spill all over the place. Clever players could use this as a sort of warehousing system, with increased economy of space in exchange for the extra work of manually stacking items.

Full-capacity tiles shouldn't completely block movement-- that would be hell on pathfinding, not to mention introduce intimidating complexity for newbies-- but force dwarves to crawl through the space, which will introduce inefficiency and slow down work if not accounted for. This would encourage players to set up proper storage spaces instead of any old place.

Once items have a liquid-type flow mechanic, it makes sense to incorporate item volume and liquid volume together. Items will displace liquid, or be displaced (float) if they have low weight-to-volume ratio. There might already be something like this in the new splash code.

It all seems rather complex, but I think it would fit with dwarf fortress pretty well. It would open up activities like filling a lake or a well (or a caldera) with rocks in order to raise the fluid level. Clever folks could probably set up custom pumps and liquid cannons this way, and item stacking rules have been a long time coming.

[Niyazov]

---> MERCURY <---

also amalgam-method precious metal extraction to increase ore yields

[King Mir]

This presents the issue of easily making quantum stockpiles, which toady wants to address very soon anyway along with the hauling changes.

I wonder if some kind of fluid dynamic might be a good fix for that. Say a tile can hold 10 items, so once it's full additional items will spill out to adjacent open tiles. This would be a good way to properly simulate big mounds of treasure in a hoard, or a mounting stack of coal being brought to your smithies via mine carts.

If items have a size or volume attribute, then each tile could have a total capacity which will vary in quantity based on what the items are. A few bins might stack, whereas a few dozen loose crafts will probably spill all over the place. Clever players could use this as a sort of warehousing system, with increased economy of space in exchange for the extra work of manually stacking items.

I think it's not worth bothering limmiting what items spill on anything other than volume and maybe mass.

Full-capacity tiles shouldn't completely block movement-- that would be hell on pathfinding, not to mention introduce intimidating complexity for newbies-- but force dwarves to crawl through the space, which will introduce inefficiency and slow down work if not accounted for. This would encourage players to set up proper storage spaces instead of any old place.

Pathing would still need to take terrain roughness into consideration, so this wouldn't help there. It might be convenient to prevent a mound from preventing movement compleately, but I disagree that's a good reason not to have it.The real trouble is how do you make the dwarves fill up a stockpile from back to front instead of the more arbitrary system they use now?

Once items have a liquid-type flow mechanic, it makes sense to incorporate item volume and liquid volume together. Items will displace liquid, or be displaced (float) if they have low weight-to-volume ratio. There might already be something like this in the new splash code.

It all seems rather complex, but I think it would fit with dwarf fortress pretty well. It would open up activities like filling a lake or a well (or a caldera) with rocks in order to raise the fluid level. Clever folks could probably set up custom pumps and liquid cannons this way, and item stacking rules have been a long time coming.

It would take more than that to make things float. And it wouldn't help make boats work.