Well, tracks are surprisingly easy to make (I'm designing in my head halls filled with automatic mazes of minecarts resembling something from a Zelda dungeon... because the thought of an overabundance of crossing paths amuses me), but I haven't quite got minecarts running on my fort for lack of spare time this week. I'm looking forward to seeing how tracks and/or carts affect trade caravan wagons, if at all (I would expect them to, but maybe this is for now a way to protect your trade depot with minimal danger to the caravan wagons? I'll find out, because I'd rather play with it than read the forums).
I do, however, have a bug report up on mantis, for what it's worth.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=5903 (I know, this isn't a bug reporting thread, but I figured that after Mantis itself the next best place to mention issues is somewhere directly related to the release.)
(Okay, I admit it, I'm lazy, only thought to mention the bug on the forums after I'd stayed up as late as possible with my job to get up for in the morning... still trying to be helpful here.)
At any rate, it strikes me that for fortress mode this whole minecart/hauling thing, along with the miscellaneous improvements/features that've come with it, could be for fortress mode a bigger change (once the kinks are smoothed out) than 0.34.01 with the necromancers that only show up if you're unlucky and the evil biomes that players not up for the challenge avoid rather than seek. (Hey, I'll get there eventually.)
Toady, for what it's worth, you continue to amaze me with this game. Keep it up! (Please and thank you!)
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And because I can't resist talking to people who ninja me:
Shouldn't clay reactions produce more stuff now that stone produces more blocks? Bricks are totally pointless atm. This is a shame; clay currently serves no purpose. It's just a waste of charcoal.
Bricks aren't pointless if they multiply the quantity of stone you have to build with. Of course, you get less stone than you would before with well-trained miners, so it kinda rounds out in the end -- ordinary stone has been penalized, but bricks now have a reason to exist because they compensate for that penalty.
Agreed that clay stuff should be more interesting/useful. It's on the long list of things you can make for no reason but to sell (or satisfy the occassional wild mandate), which isn't typically an issue with a self-sustaining fort in which you can sell whatever you happen to get in your production cycle that you don't need.