Print

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

[612DwarfAvenue]

It sounds like minecarts are projectiles.

Oh, they will be when we're done with them!

[Socializator]

Weaponization aside, I wonder what will be the  impact on the industry and storage. (in the good sense of course!)

- If minecarts are going to be needed to haul ores, boulders, rock and other bulk materials efficiently, then this might lead to quite different layout for "buffer" metal ore stockpiles - instead of typical square it might be more efficient to create long line-ish stockpile with tracks all along the sides.
- Is there going to be special job "cart operator" or each dwarf will use the cart when he needs to?
- Can the carts collide? Would be great to have hauling accidents and stuff If no, then all will be quite simple - you just lay one lane and carts will go in both directions, different speeds, all on that one track. But if they can, then this gets interesting. Each direction will need its track, but also you would have to take care and not mix too fast and too slow traffic (how efficient brakers dwarfs/animals are?). And there would have to be some sort of logic for junctions to disallow entering in wrong direction and to give right to traffic coming from e.g. right hand side etc... Stuff gets complicated for implementation. Probably wont going to happen, but one can always play OpenTTD :-)
- Will the carts have their depot where they will return? Feeding stations were already mentioned, I guess this is the equivalent? Or will they accumulate at the workshops instead? If only one cart is allowed per tile, those depots might get huuuuuuge sufficiently dwarfy.

so many possibilities!

[Chronas]

I wonder if toady will include machine powered acceleration rails and lever operated track switches.
This will allow the creation of the first dwarvern synchotron.
Combine a massive amount of accelerators into a circuit before toggling into a rail directed at the nearest goblin invader.
Hopefully there will be enough force behind the collision that his remains will be propelled away as gamma radiation.

[Gauteamus]

I wonder if dwarf children will play chicken on the tracks - would open up a whole new area of bad thoughts.

[NW_Kohaku]

I wonder if dwarf children will play chicken on the tracks - would open up a whole new area of bad thoughts.

Was displeased to learn her son was weeded out by Dwarven Natural Selection for being too slow to realize his body was also rather slow.

[MrWiggles]

Yea, I dont think path finding in its current form will be able to understand that rails are bad place to walk over, or be able to understand traffic controlled intersections.

So that'll be fun.

Maybe rails will be marked off as 'unwalkable', though I dont suspect that'll happen. I bet they'll be something similar to axels.

[NW_Kohaku]

There's always the traffic designations.  It's not going to stop them from running across the tracks when they need to, but it should minimize it. 

Alternately, we could build things like elevated sidewalks over the railways. Or make "subway" minecart areas that we restrict access to traversing. 

[werechicken]

Will the weight of the cart affect downhill acceleration? If so then lead could finally have a use.
I'm guessing we'll be seeing fortresses with very high ramps at the entrance.

[Thief^]

Will the weight of the cart affect downhill acceleration? If so then lead could finally have a use.
I'm guessing we'll be seeing fortresses with very high ramps at the entrance.

Except weight doesn't affect gravity-induced acceleration...

[NW_Kohaku]

Will the weight of the cart affect downhill acceleration? If so then lead could finally have a use.
I'm guessing we'll be seeing fortresses with very high ramps at the entrance.

Except weight doesn't affect gravity-induced acceleration...

And it potentially increases the amount of friction, and as such, would make carts slower.

[RedKing]

I'm already picturing the first dwarven Large Hadron Collider. In this case, the hadrons are really, really large. As in, minecart-sized. 

Also, I'm thinking minecarts filled with forgotten beast blood. I tend to build my entrances at the top of a ramp down to "ground level" anyways, now I could just build a track into the ramp to send plague bombs into oncoming sieges.

Alternately, battlements over the main gate with floor grates and tracks leading to a sudden wall stop. Fling the cart down the track, it stops and crashes right over the floor grate, and presto....automated equivalent of the whole "pouring sewage/boiling oil/assorted nastiness on your enemies" thing.

Here's another thought: if you build your carts out of something magma-safe (say, nickel, steel or bauxite), could you fill it up with bars of a lower temp metal, send it down a magma-submerged track, and have it come out the other side as a cart full of molten metal? Like a mobile crucible?

Add to the murder hole idea above, and you could pull a Khal Drogo on invaders and crown them all in gold.

[Eagleon]

Will the weight of the cart affect downhill acceleration? If so then lead could finally have a use.
I'm guessing we'll be seeing fortresses with very high ramps at the entrance.

Except weight doesn't affect gravity-induced acceleration...

And it potentially increases the amount of friction, and as such, would make carts slower.

It should affect momentum, though. Heavier carts should travel further and do a lot more carnage upon hitting a creature. This begs the question, do carts just stop abruptly at the end if they're going at speed, without damage? Doesn't seem Fun. Maybe have smaller items flung out ahead of a stopped cart, and gradually they'd get damaged and lose speed more as it happened more often. Better quality carts could withstand this better, be lighter by themselves, and have less spillage upon hitting a stop. Though I guess dwarves could come up with some sort of braking system.

[RedKing]

I wondering how the "carts going uphill" thing will work. Some kind of pump-handle arrangement on the cart itself (woohoo, another use for Pump Operator skill), or a powered track in and of itself (maybe requiring chains and mechanisms for every X tiles of track) that could be hooked into a power distribution system?

The idea of windmill-powered, chain-driven cart pulley systems is very enticing. Not the least because it would seem to set up the basic code needed for things like elevators, cargo lifts, dumbwaiters, etc. Also because unmanned carts have a lot more applications. Unless you want to turn carts into kamikaze vehicles (or if contents don't take damage from a crash, then drop pods as suggested above).

Okay, admittedly the idea of an ear-splitting warcry followed by several large, heavy carts flying out of holes in the fortress wall and crushing hapless goblins before disgorging a crack team of assault dwarves...is also very enticing. 


Animal-pulled carts are exciting too, as it points the way towards development of cavalry troops. My polar bear hussars can't wait forever...

[Malarauko]

You know what blows my mind about this update though? It is going to happen in the next month or two. This is something we will see soon. Its like this game constantly institutes changes that offer you new ways to play. Minecraft kinda did the same but rarely did it offer something world changing and it didn't come close to matching the complexity of DF.

[RedKing]

You know what blows my mind about this update though? It is going to happen in the next month or two.

Well, that more a hope than a guarantee. Sometimes these things turn into months and months of fixing unexpected bugs or Toady figuring out that he has to rewrite an entire chunk of structure to accomodate changes (like rewriting how personal appearance data was stored in order to accomodate vampires and zombies and syndromes). I'm hopeful, but not optimistic.