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[runlvlzero]

I wonder if we'll get weird artifact mine carts made from strange moods, it sounds like they are being handled a little like barrels.

Sooooo

I'm thinking sperm whale tallow soap mine carts.

Kitten soap mine carts....

Rare gem mine carts.

With spikes...

[darklord92]

soap is already a bar material.

[runlvlzero]

I never make soap in my forts....

So would it just be a 'soap minecart'

I thought soap retained a description of what it was made from, like yak tallow soap bars, rock nut oil soap bars...

Also bars are totally used in artifacts as a base material all the time.

[Karakzon]

I'm expecting that one of the fluid/cart interactions is going to be friction while going through water. It would be seriously wierd if you could run carts at full speed underwater or in magma.

So yeah... rollers needed.

however: it would be seriously awesome if you made it all out of magma proof stuff and had a sealed minecart box option. Underwater/Magma shuttles anyone?

[dreadmullet]

This is a cat soap minecart. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality. It menaces with spikes of cat soap.

[runlvlzero]

This is a cat soap minecart. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality. It menaces with spikes of cat soap.

On the minecart is an image of dwarves and sperm whales in cat soap. The sperm whales are prostrating. On the minecart is an image of a cat, the cat is striking a menacing pose.

[Itnetlolor]

I wonder if anyone's going to work on a dwarven railgun using tracks made up of nearly nothing but rollers?

[Urist Da Vinci]

I wonder if anyone's going to work on a dwarven railgun using tracks made up of nearly nothing but rollers?

According to Toady, rollers only increase speed "up to a point". However, if gravity isn't capped, the ideal railgun involves a roller section followed by a steep drop, then the muzzle.

[Itnetlolor]

I wonder if anyone's going to work on a dwarven railgun using tracks made up of nearly nothing but rollers?

According to Toady, rollers only increase speed "up to a point". However, if gravity isn't capped, the ideal railgun involves a roller section followed by a steep drop, then the muzzle.

I think the guys that worked on DFHack can find the bit of code that can adjust the roller rates.

That aside, I can imagine this is a good method of clearing a decently sized party of clowns.

[Sadrice]

Dfhack does nothing to the code, it just edits the memory used by df.  It's highly unlikely that roller max speed is stored in memory, it's probably hard coded.  The speed of a given cart is probably kept in memory, though...

[Girlinhat]

It may be possible to use DFHack to progress a moving cart into a faster moving cart, but you'd probably suffer a massive FPS decay while you're utilizing this.  I wouldn't count on it at all.

However, what I would count on is some timing tests.  We need to determine the max speed of a roller and the max speed of a ramp, as well as the acceleration rate of ramps.  The dwarven railgun is very unlikely to be a huge ramp, but it's entirely more likely to be a long circular roller section ending in a very short ramp.  The rollers get it up to 750 speed and the ramp boosts it to the final terminal velocity of 780, for instance.

The actual design for a railgun will probably look more like this:

Code: [Select]

v Point C
#####
#v<<# <- Point B
#|#^#
#|#^#
#|#^#
#|#^#
#|#|# <- Point A
#|###
#|#
Arrows are rollers, | is a ramp/railway.
Point A: The cart is loaded in the barrel and sent on its way.
Point B: The cart makes the first turn, where the length of track from A to B relies on the velocity of the cart and the derailing speed of a turning cart.
Point C: The cart will make this turn directly at crash velocity.  Whatever the speed is needed for a cart to jump off the tracks on a corner, the cart should be moving that fast when it hits C.
Afterwards it goes over a few more rollers to reach final rolling speed, then down a few ramps to reach terminal velocity.

This will require some calculations to work right.  Since the cart should be at the derailing threshold by C, then it should be going at Derail - 3 when it hits B, because once it reaches B then it still has to go over 3 more rollers before it hits the gun barrel and terminal speed.  Thus, the big factor of science will be determining the length of rollers to place between A and B.  Too few rollers and you don't get terminal velocity, too many rollers and it jumps the track and jams the barrel.  There will need to be significant science made to determine the acceleration rate of different weights of cart - if they even have different speeds or not.

Coincidentally, if they do have different acceleration rates based on their weight, you can automate it.  Pressure plates on the level above could control a very small logic gate and a series of bridges.  If a cart is very light and accelerates quickly, then it could be allowed to moved very close to Point B, drop through an open bridge, and enter the barrel of the gun.  If it weighs more, then it will drop closer to A and have more rollers to bolster the speed.  If timed up just right, you could push any cart into the loader and it would automatically adjust for weight and fire it at maximum possible speed.

Of course, it's also possible that a solid lead minecart will travel just as quickly as a featherwood, so we can't make any assumptions that weight-triggers will be needed.

[KodKod]

I’ve been wracking my brain for a few days thinking of what fun can be orchestrated with minecarts when suddenly I was reminded of something.

Now we’ve got minecarts, people turning into animals, and an abundance of ‼SCIENCE‼ all round, Dwarf Fortress is really starting to resemble something else I enjoy.

[Talvieno]

Did a quick search of the thread (I've gotten behind, mainly from The Twelfth Bay) - it doesn't seem anyone's come up with corpse carts.


Assuming objects in minecarts are not in stasis: If you had a map divided down the middle between terrifying and neutral biomes, and decided to pile, say, twenty carts full of corpses and send it into an oncoming goblin siege, the corpse cart's corpses would resurrect sometime after reaching the other side, and in all likelihood attack the enemies in question. Corpses weaponized in the most Fun manner possible.

[Eric Blank]

Did a quick search of the thread (I've gotten behind, mainly from The Twelfth Bay) - it doesn't seem anyone's come up with corpse carts.


Assuming objects in minecarts are not in stasis: If you had a map divided down the middle between terrifying and neutral biomes, and decided to pile, say, twenty carts full of corpses and send it into an oncoming goblin siege, the corpse cart's corpses would resurrect sometime after reaching the other side, and in all likelihood attack the enemies in question. Corpses weaponized in the most Fun manner possible.

If that works, I daresay it may be one of the most awesome methods for weaponizing minecarts and zombies at the same time.

Alternatively, if units not a member of your fort can be coaxed into a cart without the need for cages, you could have drive-by necromancer summonings in your front yard.

[Mr Frog]

I think if you poked around DF.exe's data... codey... stuff (not the game's memory, but the actual executable file), you could probably locate the bit of code checking to see if a cart's over the roller's speed limit and change the value it's being compared to. Probably not worth the effort, and even then probably not that simple.

@Talvieno:

And now I'm sad that I didn't think of that.