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[bombzero]

wow... it will be nice once dwarves/adventurer companions know that they are on fire... though that means no more boozeslposions. (yes alcohol doesn't explode in game blablabla.)

[NW_Kohaku]

Toady, will there be mechanism powered carts? Will we be able to link the carts to a waterwheel or whatever?

Do you perhaps mean powered gears that could propel minecarts that run into them, such as pushing carts up ramps, from which they could use the roll downhill as momentum so that you could move carts without using animal power? 

Having wooden axles that transfer power from waterwheels somehow driving minecarts on the move would be basically impossible as a direct means of power transfer, as Cruxador said.

Powered gears used to push objects would also be unusual for the time period, but waterwheel-powered gears are at least possible with that level of technology, and automatically pushed carts would have a coolness factor that would tickle my personal fancy, at the very least.

[Garath]

I worked on a farm for a few months.
it's not compatible with DF as it is now..

[Dae]

Toady, will there be mechanism powered carts? Will we be able to link the carts to a waterwheel or whatever?

Do you perhaps mean powered gears that could propel minecarts that run into them, such as pushing carts up ramps, from which they could use the roll downhill as momentum so that you could move carts without using animal power? 

Having wooden axles that transfer power from waterwheels somehow driving minecarts on the move would be basically impossible as a direct means of power transfer, as Cruxador said.

Powered gears used to push objects would also be unusual for the time period, but waterwheel-powered gears are at least possible with that level of technology, and automatically pushed carts would have a coolness factor that would tickle my personal fancy, at the very least.

I wondered if in the middle ages someone thought of using a spring as a way of storing energy, perhaps even for the purpose of selling it. For example you'd have in times of peace 60 slaves cranking massive springs to their minimum volume, you then block it and haul it to another city where it can be used to power windmill or to quickly recharge a siege weapon... I have close to none physics background but it's one of the most dwarven things I could ever imagine.

[Langdon]

Having wooden axles that transfer power from waterwheels somehow driving minecarts on the move would be basically impossible as a direct means of power transfer, as Cruxador said.

Powered gears used to push objects would also be unusual for the time period, but waterwheel-powered gears are at least possible with that level of technology, and automatically pushed carts would have a coolness factor that would tickle my personal fancy, at the very least.

I'm thinking something like how San Francisco cable cars work - cars hook to a cable that runs underneath the rail, being pulled by a large spool/drum situated on one end of the track (driven by the powered axle). In DF terms, we might have "powered" tracks that we can assume have a combination of gears/cables to pull carts in this fashion.

Or even how modern rollercoasters work - a section of track is geared to pull/propel carts up to the top of a ramp, then gravity does the rest.

[Starne]

I think what people are getting at when the mention powered minecarts is something similar to what rollercoasters use. In DF terms, this would be a windmill, waterwheel, or even some kind of turny-spinny thing turned by animals or Dwarves(I forget what those are called) powering a system of ropes or more likely chains connected to hooks on the carts.

A good example of this system that has been used a lot in reality would be to use a system of chains(or ropes) and winches to pull carts up an incline, then letting gravity take them back down.

Say you're building some kind of mega-construction on the surface, but your (stone of choice) deposits are deep underground. You set up a waterwheel 'power-station' on the surface, and connect it to a line of minecarts. System pulls carts loaded with stone to surface, and gravity takes carts loaded with food and booze down to the miners.

This would also allow a player to use minecarts to move large amounts of material long distances without relying on Dwarf-power, animal power, or dangerous(and sometimes impractical) gravity-based setups.


All of that said, when I first read the DevBlog mentioning minecarts, my mind was filled with 'OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod', in the Space-Core's voice, of course. 

Edit: Langdon beat me to it.

[Putnam]

The walk-powered mill would be a treadmill.

[NW_Kohaku]

Having wooden axles that transfer power from waterwheels somehow driving minecarts on the move would be basically impossible as a direct means of power transfer, as Cruxador said.

Powered gears used to push objects would also be unusual for the time period, but waterwheel-powered gears are at least possible with that level of technology, and automatically pushed carts would have a coolness factor that would tickle my personal fancy, at the very least.

I'm thinking something like how San Francisco cable cars work - cars hook to a cable that runs underneath the rail, being pulled by a large spool/drum situated on one end of the track (driven by the powered axle). In DF terms, we might have "powered" tracks that we can assume have a combination of gears/cables to pull carts in this fashion.

Or even how modern rollercoasters work - a section of track is geared to pull/propel carts up to the top of a ramp, then gravity does the rest.

Yes, basically, I was just explaining that the same concept behind "modern rollercoasters" is well within the technological boundaries dwarves are already using.  You could even have the flywheel (11th century Egyptians had them, although they used them for controlling the speed of a thresher, not mine carts, obviously) that propels the minecart on an incline, so that it can slide out of the gear if a minecart is barreling past at a faster rate than the flywheel is spinning, and then let itself slide back in when the cart has passed to prevent the gears from grinding from going too fast.  Simply putting successive sets of powered flywheels up the ramps would be able to propel mine carts up ramps.

Then, you could simply set up your carts on an automated circuit - collecting wood at the surface, rolling downhill to the furnace areas to dump the cargo, then being powered back up to the surface again.

[Farmerbob]

Man, I really need to stop reading the devlog.  I've generated probably the most badass world I've ever seen, but now I don't want to start srsfort for fear of missing out on new potential awesomeness. 

Why does Toady have to keep adding stuff I want so bad?

This is actually normal for post-large-releases.  Same thing has happened several times.

Big release followed by several small bugfixes and adjustment releases.

It won't be too much longer before Toady starts to work on a big release again, I'd imagine.

[Farmerbob]

Toady, will there be mechanism powered carts? Will we be able to link the carts to a waterwheel or whatever?

Do you perhaps mean powered gears that could propel minecarts that run into them, such as pushing carts up ramps, from which they could use the roll downhill as momentum so that you could move carts without using animal power? 

Having wooden axles that transfer power from waterwheels somehow driving minecarts on the move would be basically impossible as a direct means of power transfer, as Cruxador said.

Powered gears used to push objects would also be unusual for the time period, but waterwheel-powered gears are at least possible with that level of technology, and automatically pushed carts would have a coolness factor that would tickle my personal fancy, at the very least.

Eh, not sure why it might be considered impossible to create a screw powered track system.

Rail - Screw - Rail

There is an assembly in the bottom of the cart that meshes with the mid-rail screw.

The mid rail screw rotates, which forces the cart to move one way or the other depending on the direction of rotation of the mid rail screw, which could be reversible with a simple gearbox.

Primitive and crude, but no more so than windmills and waterwheels powering screw pumps hundreds of tiles away.  The mid rail screw is just pushing a mine cart, rather than pumping water.

[NW_Kohaku]

Eh, not sure why it might be considered impossible to create a screw powered track system.

Yes, that is also a clever and valid idea.

[Farmerbob]

Eh, not sure why it might be considered impossible to create a screw powered track system.

Yes, that is also a clever and valid idea.

Not my idea, though I twisted it around a bit.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/screw-drive-vehicle.htm

[Cruxador]

This is a poor comparison because the only reason we don't have torches yet is that Toady hasn't yet done lighting. A better comparison would be individual tools, which actually are omitted for gameplay reasons.

Actually another reason is that we dont have a Fire-AI for dorfs

I'm pretty sure that's not directly related.

and lighting is a computational ball of yarn.

That's why Toady hasn't gotten to it yet, not why we don't have it.

Eh, not sure why it might be considered impossible to create a screw powered track system.

Rail - Screw - Rail

There is an assembly in the bottom of the cart that meshes with the mid-rail screw.

The mid rail screw rotates, which forces the cart to move one way or the other depending on the direction of rotation of the mid rail screw, which could be reversible with a simple gearbox.

Primitive and crude, but no more so than windmills and waterwheels powering screw pumps hundreds of tiles away.  The mid rail screw is just pushing a mine cart, rather than pumping water.

It would waste a lot of power on friction, and it would take a single huge screw which would be difficult to manufacture and which would break down a lot. It also wouldn't be able to handle turns.

[Farmerbob]

This is a poor comparison because the only reason we don't have torches yet is that Toady hasn't yet done lighting. A better comparison would be individual tools, which actually are omitted for gameplay reasons.

Actually another reason is that we dont have a Fire-AI for dorfs

I'm pretty sure that's not directly related.

and lighting is a computational ball of yarn.

That's why Toady hasn't gotten to it yet, not why we don't have it.

Eh, not sure why it might be considered impossible to create a screw powered track system.

Rail - Screw - Rail

There is an assembly in the bottom of the cart that meshes with the mid-rail screw.

The mid rail screw rotates, which forces the cart to move one way or the other depending on the direction of rotation of the mid rail screw, which could be reversible with a simple gearbox.

Primitive and crude, but no more so than windmills and waterwheels powering screw pumps hundreds of tiles away.  The mid rail screw is just pushing a mine cart, rather than pumping water.

It would waste a lot of power on friction, and it would take a single huge screw which would be difficult to manufacture and which would break down a lot. It also wouldn't be able to handle turns.

Nah you simply design the system to make unpowered turns, and use lots of small screws with gearboxes here and there.

No more complex than what our dwarves already build for water/magma pumps really.

Of course wooden poles transferring thousands of horsepower across hundreds if not thousands of feet is pretty unrealistic.

There are a lot of things in DF that are modeled impressively.  Power generation and transfer is not one of those things (yet?) so I don't see why future tech stuff would need to be any more realistic than past stuff.

[NW_Kohaku]

It would waste a lot of power on friction, and it would take a single huge screw which would be difficult to manufacture and which would break down a lot. It also wouldn't be able to handle turns.

Nah you simply design the system to make unpowered turns, and use lots of small screws with gearboxes here and there.

You can just line up screws one after another, no different from pump stacks.  And unpowered turns could be facilitated by driving it up a ramp, and then letting it go back down a ramp to build a little momentum to get it by to the next chain of screws.  (The same goes for the wheels.)