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[Cruxador]

Huh. I didn't really think we'd get minecarts or tracks.

I wonder how Toady is going to deal with run away minecarts down hills?

I guess that depends minecarts are moved, and if Toady is going to let them have the ability to be loose and uncontrolled.

It could be the start of the physics stuff that Toady's talked about before, where if a boulder falls on a ramp it rolls, and things have physics-defined flightpaths rather than straight out and straight down.
It also occurs to me that there will be some variables there that could change in air-aspected regions, once Toady does more with spheres.

[NW_Kohaku]

It could be the start of the physics stuff that Toady's talked about before, where if a boulder falls on a ramp it rolls, and things have physics-defined flightpaths rather than straight out and straight down.
It also occurs to me that there will be some variables there that could change in air-aspected regions, once Toady does more with spheres.

Games like Rollercoaster Tycoon had fairly simple physics (and really, physics with perfectly elastic objects when the only factors are gravity and friction where you only have to solve for one step at a time are fairly easy math problems) that tracked how fast roller coasters would go rolling along different tracks based upon gravity.  If you just have a way of tracking a "forward velocity", and then subtract from that a certain portion due to friction per tile, you are pretty much there.


The real problem with minecarts are how to actually get the game to handle setting up jobs where they are used.  This is more complex than even the "hauling more than one type of item at a time to more than one stockpile at a time" problem, in terms of complexity of number of permutations of possible solutions, because it allows you to actually move an "intermediary stockpile" around into numerous different positions in order to potentially optimize tasks, so you have to put together the complexity of finding objects that are going to similar nearby stockpiles and putting them together in a job, then seeing how far away the nearest minecart is, then figuring out where the optimal place to put that minecart is as an intermediate step, then how far you'd have to haul the cart, and then compare that to how much time it would take to just haul everything by hand.  You have to optimize for both processor power and optimize for least dwarf-steps.  It's a rather complex postman problem.

Spoiler: Long quote from previous thread (click to show/hide)

There is but it's hard to think of an efficient algorithm to solve a problem we don't understand.  If we accept that the only use of minecarts (And related lifts, etc.) is to move things from one or two specific locations or stockpiles, to a few other specific locations, and we think manual control is tolerable, then that sets some fairly easy limits on what the algorithm is actually expected to cope with.  In this case we don't really have to change the algorithm at all, we just have a minecart that create store jobs like a stockpile.

Well, if we don't understand it, it's time to think about it more until we do.   

There shouldn't be any more manual control than absolutely necessary.

OK, let's think logically about how a minecart should probably operate... Unless you want to have the carts pushed around manually waiting at one point or another, then what we need to do is have a way for dwarves to know when it is fine to use a cart as a stockpile, and what areas that cart has connections to when you want to use it as a bulk transport. 

Without having to make your dwarves do a really complicated pathfinding check to see when it is acceptable to try to use a minecart, the only thing I can think of is to make a minecart track create its own zone upon creation.  Presumably, this will be connected to every other piece of track, lest it be useless, so it basically forms a long, snaking zone throughout the areas you have built those tracks, connecting everything together. 

This minecart zone would spread some arbitrary (possibly player-togglable) number of tiles out from the tracks, and when a dwarf tries to take up a job involving hauling, it will check to see if the item to be hauled is within the zone of the tracks, and if the destination is within the zone of the tracks.  Pathfinding along tracks, barring some really kooky behavior on the part of the player, should be very easy, so you could probably do a count of how many tiles it takes to get from start to finish fairly fast, but you could have either a pathfinding check to see what a straight walk would be, anyway, to see how many more tiles one would have to travel by foot, and compare that against the minecart's pathing if you want to be really accurate and save as much dwarf travel time as possible.  (Again, this is a matter of CPU efficiency vs. Dwarf motion efficiency.)  This would have to include the time/tiles it takes a cart-hauling dwarf to actually move the cart into position.

Before using a minecart even makes sense, however, you need to have a set number of items in the area to even make it more useful than just hauling everything by hand. 

This is a possible calculation, of course, it's just a very wierd one, since it means that you have to get the dwarf to calculate how many trips it would take the dwarf back and forth without using the cart vs. how many trips it takes with a cart, plus the amount of time you have to spend getting the cart into position, plus the amount of time it takes to get the dwarf to the cart to start pushing it... and these might have to be done by quick-and-dirty calculations to save on pathfinding time, and prevent a dwarf from just sitting there and making a dozen pathfinding calculations and then winding up just doing the simple pick up the earrings all by himself since it was only very light items type of solution. 

The player might have some sort of ability to interfere with how the zones are set up - letting the player exclude some areas from being in zones, and include larger areas than the cart would normally allow to be in zones, if need be.  It might just be a separate part of the zones menu, or some special cart extension of the zones menu. 

Cart zone tiles would theoretically also be able to include areas that are still walls as part of the zones, so that the yet-to-be mined portions of the mines would already be included in the cart zone... but that causes problems because you don't want zones that are on other sides of walls to be included.  The other solution is to make any tile that is made into a floor with no blocking wall tile take another check when the pathfinding connectivity map is running to see if any adjacent tile is already in a minecart zone, and if so, check for cart tracks within a finite number of steps (flood style) to see if it should be connected to the minecart zone.  This would mean that a tile that was recently mined would declare itself part of a minecart zone, and then tell the stone hauling job of the stone the wall became to become a potential minecart hauling job if its destination is part of the minecart zone's sphere of influence, as well. 

... OK, that's all that a first-blush look at how to make a minecart path will tell me... so could someone blow this idea up for me so I can try to think of a better way to rebuild it?

 

[hermes]

Yowzer!  Tracks?  Carts?  Wheelbarrows?  Definitely donating after this release. 

Personally, I'm hoping for mine carts that can be weaponized. I don't generally try to weaponize everything I get my hands on, but mine carts sound especially weaponizable to me.

Wheelbarrows too   

[Cruxador]

It could be the start of the physics stuff that Toady's talked about before, where if a boulder falls on a ramp it rolls, and things have physics-defined flightpaths rather than straight out and straight down.
It also occurs to me that there will be some variables there that could change in air-aspected regions, once Toady does more with spheres.

Games like Rollercoaster Tycoon had fairly simple physics (and really, physics with perfectly elastic objects when the only factors are gravity and friction where you only have to solve for one step at a time are fairly easy math problems) that tracked how fast roller coasters would go rolling along different tracks based upon gravity.  If you just have a way of tracking a "forward velocity", and then subtract from that a certain portion due to friction per tile, you are pretty much there.

I know it's fairly simple. That's why I figured we might get a more general system along with it.

[Greiger]

I predict folks modding in complex low boiling point temperature stones, with horrible deadly symptoms, loading them all up in a minecart, pushing the minecart off a steep 20 z level tower, into a goblin siege group, possibly actually running one or two over, on a track that takes it over a couple 1z down magma heated tiles at just the right moment.

Now we just need a name for this contraption.  I vote Gravity Powered Syndrome Delivery Device. GPSD2.

[Khym Chanur]

Do drinks really have hidden quality levels? If not, then what causes the varying thought strings about "X had a (quality) drink lately"?

Drinks currently have no hidden quality level.  A dwarf will only get a good thought from a drink if that's the type of drink that the dwarf prefers, in which case the monetary value controls how good a thought it is.

[NobodyPro]

You can carve tracks in stone now.

I just an entire toasted sandwich.

[NW_Kohaku]

I just an entire toasted sandwich.

Please  to type the verbs in your sentences.

[Rose]

My hope is that tracks and minecarts will appear.

Called it.

[Ves]

How much information do you keep on the Dwarf Fortress creatures that don't have a counterpart in the real world? For example, one of the listed goals for hauling is to have animals chained to minecarts. Assuming (perhaps incorrectly) this will be done via some kind of [CART_HAULER] token, is it just a case of opening up the subterranean creature raws and adding it to whatever makes sense based on body structure and size, or is there a Secret Toady Bestiary that already has this sort of information contained within it?

[thvaz]

How much information do you keep on the Dwarf Fortress creatures that don't have a counterpart in the real world? For example, one of the listed goals for hauling is to have animals chained to minecarts. Assuming (perhaps incorrectly) this will be done via some kind of [CART_HAULER] token, is it just a case of opening up the subterranean creature raws and adding it to whatever makes sense based on body structure and size, or is there a Secret Toady Bestiary that already has this sort of information contained within it?

Or he will use the system already in place for wagon haulers, or he will add the new tag to the raws.

[tHe_silent_H]

Along with minecarts, can we expect the dwarves to use wheelbarrows, handcarts, horse/OX/(other load bearing domestic animal)carts, as well as backpacks. do you plan on giving paved roads a speed increase to these transports(inc wagons).

[zwei]

Along with minecarts, can we expect the dwarves to use wheelbarrows, handcarts, horse/OX/(other load bearing domestic animal)carts, as well as backpacks. do you plan on giving paved roads a speed increase to these transports(inc wagons).

I would really like for ordinary dwarves to wear backpack into which they will store their property when they do not have storage space for it in their room.

[yarr]

Hey Toady,

I know you are currently working on wheelbarrows and tracks and stuff (which is very nice of course) but is there any chance of seeing the standing production orders idea implented too? I guess it only made 3rd place or so in the eternal vote thing but I like that idea very much

(1288)    Standing production orders
Suggester    ...so you never run out of booze. Such as: Produce BOOZE if(PLANTS > 100 && DRINK < 100)

[Cruxador]

That's a suggestion-question, yarr. And you can be sure that he's aware of the forerunners of the ESV. I think he saved the top fifteen when he decided he'd finally start implementing them, ~2 years ago.