Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[billw]

Maybe this is obvious, but in case it hadn't been thought of:
Use the "take from stockpile" mechanic: set up your main stockpile, set up other stock piles at the place where you want items to come from (e.g. your dig site). Build track between the locations (has be adjacent to the stock piles?). Any spare carts are automatically added to the track (can be limited just like stock pile bin/barrel limits). Forget about collisions, just assume all the track is doubled. Then you set the "take from stock pile" settings on the main stock pile, and target the source stock piles.
From then on the dwarves can just use the carts automatically (obviously it needs a bit of AI work for the dwarf to check if there is a route via cart, then to find the nearest cart that's free and go get it, but its not complex compared to some of the other game mechanics).
So if you are chopping a bunch of trees:
1) set up your main stock pile next to your carpenters workshop (the "terminal").
2) set up a source stock pile at the location you are chopping (a "station").
3) set the "terminal" to take from the "station"
4) build a track from the "terminal" to the "station" making sure it is adjacent to both at some point
5) build some carts
6) make sure some dwarves have wood hauling
7) start chopping trees. Firstly a dwarf will move chopped wood to the nearest stockpile, which is the "station". Then another dwarf will grab a cart, run up the track, fill it with wood and haul it all back to the "terminal".

[profit]

=)

Looks like a valid method of them working.

....

However just to warn you the idea of mine carts has been suggested before there may be some forum police around that will inform you you should have used the search feature.   I think they mean well but sometimes they can be a bit gruff.

[Grendus]

This is a new take on mine carts, and one that I like. I would chew you out about the dozens of others, but I hate thread necromancy more than I have repetitive ideas, so I like it.

I think this covers most of the AI issues with hauling multiple items. Similar to other suggestions (like loading zones, where a pack animal is loaded with anything not forbidden in a designated area and then dumps it all in a selected unloading area), this takes the bulk of the AI stress off the engine and puts it on the player. Wouldn't exactly be efficient (I imagine that laying long tracks would get expensive, if we assume the material cost is similar to axles then one iron/steel bar and one log equals 3 rails), but for permanent hauling it would be awesome. I like.

[billw]

=)

Looks like a valid method of them working.

....

However just to warn you the idea of mine carts has been suggested before there may be some forum police around that will inform you you should have used the search feature.   I think they mean well but sometimes they can be a bit gruff.

Yeah, I know, its in the development page as a future feature. This was meant to be a suggestion on how to implement it. The user interface for DF is already complex enough without adding another set of buildings that have to be built to use mine-carts. So why not just use the features that are already there. I thought it made so much logical sense to do it this way I couldn't help but post it

[PTTG??]

However just to warn you the idea of mine carts has been suggested before there may be some forum police around that will inform you you should have used the search feature.   I think they mean well but sometimes they can be a bit gruff.

Grrrrr.
License and forum registration, sir.
Grrrrrr.

[NW_Kohaku]

Forum cops here, sir.

While "minecarts" are indeed old news, there was actually another thread a couple weeks back which was called "An honest-to-god SIMPLE idea for the dreaded minecarts".

I commented on that one, and would basically just say the same thing again.

edit: In fact:

Hmm... I would honestly prefer something more like a conveyor belt, myself.

Rails are designated and constructed, and basically have a single, set pattern (albiet changable with levers and pressure plates, so we can get technical with it), and have points where they will accept materials, and points where they will then drop those materials off.  They can move faster than regular dwaves, but more importantly, they would have the advantage of not needing to pathfind, since they have a single set path, and be capable of carrying a much larger set of items at once.

Such a system would let you replace some of your typical haulers by simply carting the wood directly to the furnaces, or at least directly to the stockpile right next to the furnaces.

Basically, the difference being that the cart works autopilot, dwarves just dump into the loading station, then dump them off at the target station, where someone else might have to carry the goods to specific parts of the warehouses.  Carts can be powered by riding dwarves or livestock like oxen.

I still want my conveyor belts that can pump goods direclty from workshop to workshop, though.

[billw]

The problem with the solution in that thread (imo) is that it is too easy. Mine-carts should be something that takes a little effort, and, obviously, real mine carts have (had? I guess now-a-days mines use conveyors etc.) rails. Still, as is becoming apparent, mine-carts have had enough discussion, so I will shut up now.

[Solace]

Well it's not like it's hard for dwarves to carry things around right now, if you make the carts too hard to set up no one will bother.