Print

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

[Vanaheimer]

Dwarven paratroopers?

Para troopers, bombers, shock troops (high speed rail out to the battlefield), armoured vehicles...

[Talvieno]

I am very hopeful that minecarts will splatter anyone inside who happens to fall 20 z's. If the cart also landed on a sloped surface, it might be able to propel the cart back to its point of origin, resetting the trap. Imagine minecart traps... little would be more brutal, mechanical, ingenious or disaster-prone.

[Girlinhat]

By the laws of physics, an item cannot fall far enough to gain momentum to push it back to its original height.

By the laws of dwarf, a falling cart should gain enough momentum to reach the top of the map.

[Gizogin]

By the laws of physics, an item cannot fall far enough to gain momentum to push it back to its original height.

In the absence of friction and air resistance, it cannot fail to reach its own height again. 
mgh₁ = mgh₂, if there is no nonconservative work.

I have no idea if this applies to minecarts; I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[wierd]

I know.... picture it!


A 100 wide, 300 long corridor.

Every tile is a track. Every square is an intersection.

Carts plow through the matrix at breakneck speeds.  They *barely* miss each other as they zoom through the gibbinator. After passing one direction, they round a corner, and blast through the other way. After making a complete "scan" of the course, it follows the track down several z levels to replenish speed, ramps up to the top of the fortress, then dives back down into the start of the gibbinator at full speed.

Spacing between the carts is just enough to prevent fatal multicart pileups.

Oh, it will be beautiful... I can hardly wait!

[Vanaheimer]

By the laws of physics, an item cannot fall far enough to gain momentum to push it back to its original height.

In the absence of friction and air resistance, it cannot fail to reach its own height again. 
mgh₁ = mgh₂, if there is no nonconservative work.

I have no idea if this applies to minecarts; I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

But there is no such things a frictionless surface, or an area with no air resistance or other outside forces. Even in the middle of space an object will not move freely in a straight line forever.

[Talvieno]

By the laws of physics, an item cannot fall far enough to gain momentum to push it back to its original height.

By the laws of dwarf, a falling cart should gain enough momentum to reach the top of the map.

Well, of course. But there has to be some method of getting it back up, right? And that method will reset the trap.

Also, Gizogin is completely correct.

I also get the feeling that items on the tracks (i.e. corpses) will probably slow or halt the carts... making quantum stockpiles a good insta-brake system.

Ninja'd:

By the laws of physics, an item cannot fall far enough to gain momentum to push it back to its original height.

In the absence of friction and air resistance, it cannot fail to reach its own height again. 
mgh₁ = mgh₂, if there is no nonconservative work.

I have no idea if this applies to minecarts; I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

But there is no such things a frictionless surface, or an area with no air resistance or other outside forces. Even in the middle of space an object will not move freely in a straight line forever.

Theoretically. It was meant theoretically.

[Gizogin]

The most recent devlog confirms that minecarts will slow down on flat tracks, so it seems perpetual-motion minecarts are out of the question.  At the very least, they'll be more difficult.

[wierd]

This implies that the cart's inertia mass remains the same.

Take for instance, a plunging empty cart hits a straight away through a waterfall. It picks up additional mass. It then immediatey plunges again, gaining momentum. At the bottom, it impacts an empty cart, impacting many times the empty cart's inertial requirements, sending it faster than the loaded cart.  The loaded cart then dumps the water, becoming the new empty cart. The cart we sent hauling is possible to have sufficient energy to return to the point of origin.

[Urist Da Vinci]

...but you may well see parabolic unit paths when creatures are unfortunate enough to take flight without wings.

Bridgeapults may change from a popular myth to being actually useful. Cave-ins might also become more hilarious and devastating than they currently are.

Falling items in dwarf fortress currently can't collide with creatures to cause damage. If minecarts become an exception to this rule, I predict awesome "drop 50 megatons of lead minecarts on their heads" style traps. You wouldn't even need a set of tracks, just a hatch.

If falling/projectile minecarts cause damage, what happens to 100 minecarts on a bridgeapult? Carpet-bombing.

EDIT: I hate how the other game keeps creeping into thoughts while considering minecart systems. At least we have some design goals to work towards.

[Talvieno]

This implies that the cart's inertia mass remains the same.

Take for instance, a plunging empty cart hits a straight away through a waterfall. It picks up additional mass. It then immediatey plunges again, gaining momentum. At the bottom, it impacts an empty cart, impacting many times the empty cart's inertial requirements, sending it faster than the loaded cart.  The loaded cart then dumps the water, becoming the new empty cart. The cart we sent hauling is possible to have sufficient energy to return to the point of origin.

Very dwarfily said... But what would it accomplish? And how would you get the loaded cart to dump the water?

Ninja'd:

...but you may well see parabolic unit paths when creatures are unfortunate enough to take flight without wings.

Bridgeapults may change from a popular myth to being actually useful. Cave-ins might also become more hilarious and devastating than they currently are.

Falling items in minecraft Dwarf Fortress currently can't collide with creatures to cause damage. If minecarts become an exception to this rule, I predict awesome "drop 50 megatons of lead minecarts on their heads" style traps. You wouldn't even need a set of tracks, just a hatch.

If falling/projectile minecarts cause damage, what happens to 100 minecarts on a bridgeapult? Carpet-bombing.

Fixed that for you.   It should also be interesting to get the minecarts onto the bridge... I predict a minecart-chute where you can drop them from above onto the desired target. This assuming, of course, that the minecarts can't be hauled onto a bridge.

[FearfulJesuit]

Well, depending on whether or not weight has any effect on it and whether a minecart can unload itself (probably not), you could produce the equivalent of perpetual motion minecarts by using perpetual-motion-provided water at the tops of hills, filling up minecarts which then unload as they go down, but thus creating enough inertia to make it up a bigger hill.

[Talvieno]

Well, depending on whether or not weight has any effect on it and whether a minecart can unload itself (probably not), you could produce the equivalent of perpetual motion minecarts by using perpetual-motion-provided water at the tops of hills, filling up minecarts which then unload as they go down, but thus creating enough inertia to make it up a bigger hill.

Objects of different weights fall at the same speed. Galileo proved that, if I recall correctly. I've also got the strong suspicion that minecarts will have to be unloaded by dwarves while at a full-stop.


I'm worried about dwarves wandering onto the tracks... >.>

[FearfulJesuit]

Well, depending on whether or not weight has any effect on it and whether a minecart can unload itself (probably not), you could produce the equivalent of perpetual motion minecarts by using perpetual-motion-provided water at the tops of hills, filling up minecarts which then unload as they go down, but thus creating enough inertia to make it up a bigger hill.

Objects of different weights fall at the same speed. Galileo proved that, if I recall correctly. I've also got the strong suspicion that minecarts will have to be unloaded by dwarves while at a full-stop.


I'm worried about dwarves wandering onto the tracks... >.>

Oh...right.

[Talvieno]

Hey, don't feel bad. It's all just conjecture, until Toady actually releases something we can test with.