Print

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

[Untelligent]

Since "rollers" increase the speed of carts, will they require power of some form to operate?

I thought it would be fairly obvious that they would. The only way rollers wouldn't run on wind/water power would be if Toady added in a completely new and awesome way of powering things that nobody saw coming in the next twenty hours or so (donkey treadmill?).

[Footkerchief]

Since "rollers" increase the speed of carts, will they require power of some form to operate? It would be pretty hard (well, impossible) to justify a mechanism that adds energy to something like that without requiring energy input, so I'm curious if wind/water power was or is being considered for their operation. Personally, I'd be interested in them requiring power, since if you have to actually significantly worry about whether or not your minecarts can make it up a certain number of z-levels, it adds an element of gravitational logistics to how players plan their fortresses, which would be nice since right now dwarves have no more trouble moving stuff/themselves across the z-axis than they do on the other axes.

Devlog explicitly says (emphasis mine):

There are powered "rollers" placed in strips that increase the speed of minecarts

I don't see another way to read "powered" in context.

[MrWiggles]

This'll add a nice natural depth of complication for fort construction if you want to indulge in cargo carts.

There's going to have to be Utility Levels for forts, where there are power axel and mine cart rails.

[G-Flex]

Since "rollers" increase the speed of carts, will they require power of some form to operate? It would be pretty hard (well, impossible) to justify a mechanism that adds energy to something like that without requiring energy input, so I'm curious if wind/water power was or is being considered for their operation. Personally, I'd be interested in them requiring power, since if you have to actually significantly worry about whether or not your minecarts can make it up a certain number of z-levels, it adds an element of gravitational logistics to how players plan their fortresses, which would be nice since right now dwarves have no more trouble moving stuff/themselves across the z-axis than they do on the other axes.

Devlog explicitly says (emphasis mine):

There are powered "rollers" placed in strips that increase the speed of minecarts

I don't see another way to read "powered" in context.

I do: Skipping over the word accidentally when you read it. So there.

Seriously, I just missed that one word. Whoops. I'll de-green the text now.

[NW_Kohaku]

As a dedicated follower of DF, all I can think is "what the fuck?"  I know Toady can really tear through new features sometimes, but he's been working on mine carts for four days and he's already got physics and collisions and stuff.

Inspiration and motivation often come in bursts.  Like other kinds of drugs, though, they tend to be followed by a crash.  Often, you get a few days or a week or two of furious activity followed by a couple weeks of "ugh... I don't even wanna get out of bed."

At least, that's how it works for the other artistic types and coders I know.


Anyway, this devpage update is glorious.  That's basically everything I could want out of these minecarts - drawbridges can shut the "doors" for minecarts, accelerators, brakes, and pressure plates so that we can play with automated systems.

If we just get track switches, we can make carts into circuit boards! 

I feel a need to just wallow around in this news like a cat.

[Quatch]

If a cart leaves the track, and subsequently lands on another track, will it regain on-track satus? e.g. A cart jumps a ramp over a gorge and lands on a new track, which it continues on, unharmed.

Will building destroyers destroy tracks? Carts? Carts in-flight-as-missiles?

Please send us carts!

Also, I received my crayon donation reward last week (Dwarf riding a war-giant-armadillo!!). It came with a pin. Anyone else get one?

[Jacob/Lee]

Carts with items inside that burst into flame on contact with outside air? (credit to Necro910, he said this but with animals instead of items)

[Footkerchief]

I do: Skipping over the word accidentally when you read it. So there.

That's what you get for not reading each devlog five times through like me!  I almost wish I was kidding.

[Shinotsa]

You know the developer is having fun when he starts making sound effects for a game in ASCII. I can only imagine what sounds he was making when the leaning tower of carts came tumbling down.

Hopefully without things like sponsorship animals to bog development down we'll see more innovative additions to the game, like minecarts, from the next release.

[Kogut]

Dwarf Fortress has perpetual motion machines, so by default there cannot be either friction or air resistance 

No, there is additional possibility - it is possible to produce energy from nothing (what happens in water batteries and organelles of underground plants).

About slaves, maybe some civs could make use of them?

Unlikely that it is high priority (see The Magnificent Mermaid Farming Nerf).

[Urist McDepravity]

I just hope this system could be decently automated, so you design it once and then it does cargo-moving w/out any player involvement. Well, except for these traffic accidents, it seems.

[Putnam]

it is possible to produce energy from nothing (what happens in water batteries and organelles of underground plants).

what

[Jacob/Lee]

About slaves, maybe some civs could make use of them?

Unlikely that it is high priority (see The Magnificent Mermaid Farming Nerf).

What was this? (don't smite me, Footkerchief )

[G-Flex]

it is possible to produce energy from nothing (what happens in water batteries and organelles of underground plants).

what

Kogut is very, very wrong.

There's no such thing as a "water battery", and energy never comes from nothing.

"Water batteries" are batteries with some fuel in them that isn't water ("fuel" in this case being anything with chemical/electrical potential that is used up). You sort of "refresh" them by adding more water, but you can only do so so many times, because the potential is not in the water itself. It's just misleading marketing on part of those producing them, or misleading scientific/tech journalism.

I have no idea what he's talking about regarding plant organelles, but if plant biochemistry violated the principles of thermodynamics then we'd sure as hell know about it by now.

[Footkerchief]

it is possible to produce energy from nothing (what happens in water batteries and organelles of underground plants).

what

Kogut is very, very wrong.

There's no such thing as a "water battery", and energy never comes from nothing.

"Water batteries" are batteries with some fuel in them that isn't water ("fuel" in this case being anything with chemical/electrical potential that is used up). You sort of "refresh" them by adding more water, but you can only do so so many times, because the potential is not in the water itself. It's just misleading marketing on part of those producing them, or misleading scientific/tech journalism.

I have no idea what he's talking about regarding plant organelles, but if plant biochemistry violated the principles of thermodynamics then we'd sure as hell know about it by now.

Kogut might have meant in-game perpetual motion waterwheels and cave plants.