Print

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

[EveryZig]

Rails can be put on constructed floors, I think, and there's nothing stopping you putting those outside.

You can't put them on constructed floors, but they can go outside.

Will it be possible to deploy tracks on build/smothed surfaces? Will dwarves use Minecarts as a form of public transport?

You can carve them whereever you can detail, and you can place them whereever you can construct floors.

That seems to imply you can place them as a type of constructed floor.

[cephalo]

FB are HUGE. Minecarts are not going to do jack shit about them.

One of the devlogs says that the damage will occur according to the mass of the cart and its contents and also speed. We don't actually know how much mass a cart can be loaded down with. There may not even be a limit. Image a cart sized thing with the mass of a mountain hitting something at 120 mph!

[Deon]

I hope it's possible. But I don't think that if you build your special entrance consisting of rails only, and you OPEN it into your fortress to make invaders to path inside, and you try not to let them inside, and you time the minecarts and their load, and you have a few of those, and... yeah, I don't think that it's a bad idea that it WORKS. It will take a lot more labor than just to dump magma on invaders, which is much more deadly than a few heavy minecarts.

[Nexii Malthus]

It will take a lot more labor than just to dump magma on invaders, which is much more deadly than a few heavy minecarts.

I find it very bothersome and time intensive to move usable amounts of magma around, than to use some imagination and have fun creating a minecart system. Especially with the significant production speed up that minecarts bring for normal usage that we haven't seen in a long while.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

Thus far, I haven't heard anything about minecarts being triggerable through pressure plates and the like. As far as I understand, minecarts usually stand on an even piece of track until a dwarf or beast of burden pushes it, either pushing it for a certain distance or until it goes downhill. I have not heard anything about launching devices that can be linked to mechanism.

Thus, if you want your fortress defenses to be minecart based, you effectively make them dependent on the goodwill and cooperation of your dwarves. Considering my experiences with the simple act of pulling a lever, I do not see any great potential for success in this - it would probably be more like the goblins kill the entire fortress with the last dwarf sending the minecarts flying into the empty space before the burning fortress...

Yours,
Deathworks

[Exponent]

Thus far, I haven't heard anything about minecarts being triggerable through pressure plates and the like. As far as I understand, minecarts usually stand on an even piece of track until a dwarf or beast of burden pushes it, either pushing it for a certain distance or until it goes downhill. I have not heard anything about launching devices that can be linked to mechanism.

Rollers can be powered by mechanisms, which can of course be disabled via mechanical means.  And you can (probably) get a cart to stop on top of a disengaged roller by gently rolling it forward through the roller and bumping into a closed door/floodgate immediately next to it.  When you're ready to go, open the door/floodgate, engage the roller, and presto!  Automoving cart away!

Some special care might be needed with the gentle rolling to get the cart in place, as well as the timing on opening the door and engaging the roller, but I'm sure that sufficiently tenacious people will be able to make it work.  It might not even requite much tenacity.

[cephalo]

You can also use retractable bridges for cart sorting so you could have loaded carts making circuits until you need them and then extend a bridge to change course.

[CodexDraco]

1. Put mine cart on a ramp, stopped by a bridge.
2. Link bridge to pressure plate.
3. Fun.

[Tharwen]

Rails can be put on constructed floors, I think, and there's nothing stopping you putting those outside.

You can't put them on constructed floors, but they can go outside.

Will it be possible to deploy tracks on build/smothed surfaces? Will dwarves use Minecarts as a form of public transport?

You can carve them whereever you can detail, and you can place them whereever you can construct floors.

That seems to imply you can place them as a type of constructed floor.

Perhaps a 'minecart track' is in fact a 'floor with tracks attached'. It's a bit of a shame really, because I was really looking forward to creating this:

[i2amroy]

FB are HUGE. Minecarts are not going to do jack shit about them.

So I just need to make sure to load the previous FB bodies into the mine carts that I use as weapons!
(Which will work great until I use them against the necromancer siege, then I'll suddenly have like 8 zombie FB's rise up against me.)

Seriously though I've sort of got to agree with Deon here. The amount of work required to set up a mine cart death system probably validates it's use. It's no different the bringing magma up from the deaths of the earth to barbecue your enemies, lots of work, but lots of !!FUN!! when you pull it off.

[Agdune]

What's all this about mining carts? Dwarf fortress doesn't have mining carts does it?

*checks the dev log for the first time in a month or so*

HOLY CRAP HAULING IMPROVMENTS OH MY GOD

I remember voting for that even before eternal voting existed. Oh man, hauling has been my biggest pain in DF since I started playing it in version 0.21. Group hugs everyone!

[Oliolli]

Group hugs everyone!

*waves knife*

Don't come closer! Do not come any closer! I'm warning you!

[loose nut]

"Too good"? What the hell else would I use minecarts for?

Okay, maybe I'll set up little outdoor smelters to process their native platinum payloads. Technically, that's two uses, isn't it?

[EveryZig]

Platinum payloads?
Mine carts are for holding rocks, silly. Rocks like SLADE.

[King Mir]

My guess is there's going to need to be an opening in your fortress's defences to even be able to get the deathcart rolling. I may be wrong, though.

That said, I'd imagine it would be a difficult task to even get enemies standing on the track.

You can issolate your mine cart loading station from the rest of the track with either a cliff, since mine carts will continue rolling on a track when they land (a roller or ramp on the land site may be necessary), or a pond, since mine carts can go under water.

I'd be no harder to get enemies to stand on the track than getting them to stand on a trap, though mine carts should work against trap-avoid creatures.