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[iceball3]

Doctor Urist McBrown: If my calculations are correct, when this minecart hits 88 tiles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.

An entire hour to get the minecraft across 80 tiles? Sounds awfully slow...

[EvilTwin]

Anyone tried tunneling a cart through the map edge?

That would either not work (coordinates properly clipped, tunneling would never occur on the map edge), or crash the game (coordinates not properly clipped). My guess is that it would just not work.

Anyway, I haven't read the entire thread, but in case this isn't in here yet, easy setup to move small amounts of magma from the bottom of the map to where you need them, most likely magma industry:

At the bottom (side view):

Code: [Select]

X=.WWW
XD_PP.
MMMMMMwhere X is stairs, = is rails  with a non dumping track stop pointing towards the empty space (period), D is a door, underscore are floor bars, PP is a pump, manually pumping magma (M) onto the floor bars.

You would need a way for the dwarves to access the pump to operate it. Now what you do is, you set up a route with one stop being the track stop on top of these rails, the other stop being a track stop somewhere accessible that dumps into the tile that you want to dump to. Set it up so that the cart is "Guided <direction the tracks don't go> when empty" on the dump stop and "Pushed <direction of the hole> when empty","Guided <direction the tracks don't go> when full" on the magma track stop. This will cause the dwarves to haul the full cart to where you want it and the empty one to the lower stop, where they kick it down the hole onto the floor bars.
You should lock the door, that way they can't access it when empty and in the magma filling spot. Now have a dwarf operate the pump manually, filling up the cart with magma. (Note that magma that doesn't fit in the cart will be partially destroyed due to a bug with pumps).
When the cart is full, which should be after one revolution of the pump, and once the magma has drained off the floor bars, you unlock the door. Now a dwarf will either place the cart on the lower stop and try to "guide it north" or whatever, which will result in him hauling it to the upper stop by hand since there is no valid connection, or he will do that directly.
Either way, the cart will be placed on the dumping track stop, and you can repeat this process.[/code]

[urick]

If you minecart dump onto a stockpile, the stockpile is not counted as holding the goods, right? When I was testing a minecart dump stockpile would feed workshops happily but seemed to be ignored for hauling to other pile jobs. This is handy, but makes minecart chaining (cart to dump to cart to dump) hard, correct?

Did you set the workshop to take from the pile? I think this 'claims' the pile so it doesn't get used as a source for other tasks. Also, I hypothesize that there is something about the hauling setup that links that pile as a destination only for the hauling route. Are you saying that you tried setting other piles to 'take' from that one?

I had to have a pile for the cart to dump into, otherwise the dwarves would just pick it right up, placing it back in the pile to get carted back to the dump spot, around and around. So they do 'know' it is in a stockpile.

"That thing is so cool, Urist! It goes down the track, and dumps it all right there! Hey, let's do that AGAIN!"

Got my stone going into a 2-tile stockpile, one tile for stone and one for wheelbarrow; minecart takes it all when full and dumps it into a 1-tile stockpile next to the masons shop. (Which is just next door at the moment; but hey, minecarts)

[Urist Da Vinci]

I tested minecart teleportation in the arena using carts accelerated by dwarves to faster than 1-tile-per-tick speeds.

I've been able to duplicate the teleport effect, but only when the cart isn't occupied (the dwarf jumps out at the last moment) and the cart is also not touching the ground. The easiest way to get a cart to not touch the ground is to have it drive off a cliff at high speed, and place a pillar a specific distance from the cliff that the cart is known to "hop" across during a single tick.

[TerryDactyl]

Maybe that little bit of a drop is just-enough to push the velocity vector into quantum hyperbole?

[denito]

Doesn't the quantum tunneling effect also imply carts should be able to tunnel through each other if both are moving > 0.5 tiles per tick?  Not sure how that's useful, unless you want to put two carts on a cyclotron trap whizzing through each other in opposite directions.

[Tryble]

Using the method outlined in this post, I tried a fairly simple spiral ramp design, with the center tile being gear assembly/vertical axle to provide power to rollers.

The test ramp I had was only 5z deep, but the one roller I installed at the bottom was able to throw my minecarts (empty wood or boulder-filled iron, didn't seem to matter much) all the way to the top of the ramp.  Another test later on a 10z high ramp had a single roller get a cart from the bottom all the way to the top again, but only just.

Automated vertical transport from the deeps to the surface should be fairly simple.  A spiral ramp with enough power (roughly 15~ish power per 10z levels, depending on just how far you can get a single roller to throw a cart) should be plenty sufficient to get a minecart from the lowest levels to the surface.


That is unless of course the 34.10 changes muss the process up somewhere.

[TerryDactyl]

Cartfall Trap

While there are certainly more lethal ways to use carts, I have designed a 'cartfall' trap as a way to soften up an incoming force before they reach my military, who always appreciates the experience of live combat. The trap is simple: a cart rests on a hatch, directly above a pressure plate, on top of a track. The pressure plate is set to trigger on creature, as well as on the presence of said cart. In case said creature is squished to pulp, the cart holds the plate down - closing a bridge and preventing retreat. Enemies are forced to path through the fortress and whatever traps remain.

[Martin]

Bit more math:

I'm testing cart routes that break pathing. The simplest solution is a single tile pit that the cart needs to fly over, which non-fliers cannot. Simple enough. Setup:

= track (200 long, straight line)
. pit
R roller moving west to east -->

Code: [Select]

R.===
Power off, but dwarf pushes: cart falls in pit
Lowest speed roller: cart falls in pit
Low speed roller: cart flies over pit and travels 19 tiles in a straight line in 100 ticks.
Medium speed roller: cart flies over pit and travels 29 ticks in a straight line in 100 ticks.

I'd like to be able to trigger drawbridges to protect against fliers, but bridges aren't toggleable in the right way. Doors and floodgates would work, but would be susceptible to flying building destroyers. That's fortunately a pretty small subset, but I get at least one pretty much every fortress - at least underground. I could add an inverter, but that's slow and would stretch the whole thing out in order to make the timing work.

[Urist Da Vinci]

...
I'd like to be able to trigger drawbridges to protect against fliers, but bridges aren't toggleable in the right way. Doors and floodgates would work, but would be susceptible to flying building destroyers. That's fortunately a pretty small subset, but I get at least one pretty much every fortress - at least underground. I could add an inverter, but that's slow and would stretch the whole thing out in order to make the timing work.

So, a pressure plate sends "open" and "close" signals. Open is sent when a cart passes over a plate, and close 100 ticks later.

Doors open and close on open and close signals respectively.

A drawbridge used as a door is raised in the open signal, blocking the path ("not the right way" according to you).

A retracting bridge used as a hatch is opened on the open signal, and building destroyers won't touch it.

A floor hatch, which can't be destroyed from below in certain situations, opens on the open signal.


So use a ramp, and a hatch or bridge covering the opening to seal the cart path.

[Martin]

Oh, right! I know that the hatch is secure, but I don't want to treat it as such. But the bridge is safe, and it would also serve as a switch if I needed. Let me ponder that. I'm trying to avoid ramps as much as possible, but that's a really good application. Thanks!


Oh, and more math. A single powered roller on 'low' speed will launch a cart over a 1 tile pit and still be able to make an unassisted turn one tile after the pit. It traveled 19 tiles in 100 ticks and continued on much further in a straight line, but if the path is nothing but turns, it goes a total of 17 tiles before stopping.

[Martin]

I have a correction to make. Dwarves (even my one-armed mason pushing bismuth bronze cart full of obsidian) do push carts hard enough to jump pits, but it needs to be set up right.

= track
. pit
S stop

Code: [Select]

S.=======
If the pit is right next to the stop, the tile you are pushing from, the cart will pit.

Code: [Select]

S=.======
If you have at least one tile of track before the pit, the cart will jump the pit.

Code: [Select]

S===.=.==
Even from several tiles back and two pits, the cart still jumps

Code: [Select]

S===
   =
   .
   =
   ===S
Even with a bend in the track the cart will make the jump.

I have to assume that Toady specifically coded the cart to pit itself in the first case, as there's nothing in the later cases that should make the cart faster.

[GoldenShadow]

We could use cart riding over a 1 tile pit as a way to make a 1 way entry for dwarves. They can get into a room, but can't get out.

Have Stop 1 set to ride. The cart jumps the pit, they arrive and they push the cart back to the starting point to reset it.

Only the dwarves with the vehicle hauling labor will eventually arrive in the inaccessible areas. you could use this to create burrows without needing burrows.

[osmo]

I've had a go at a 'MIRV minecart'. That is, a lead minecart containing three lead minecarts, each of them filled with galena. I let this one descend 24 ramps and then collide with a series of fortification rings. Different carts did indeed release their payload of ore at different layers of the fortifications, with some randomness over several attempts.

[Tryble]

Mind posting a screenshot?   I'm curious to see what the spread from something like that looks like.