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[khearn]

Minecarts will lose all forward speed when you drop them down a chute (but not if you let them fly forward and land on the track).  Carts that land on rollers get pushed by the rollers.  Carts that land on ramps do not roll down the ramp

So it sounds like you could make a parabolic "shaft" to let a cart fall a long way and still have forward momentum at the bottom.

Code: [Select]

Side view
XXXXXXXXXX   X = wall
___  XXXXX   _ = track
XXX   XXXX
XXXX   XXX
XXXX   XXX
XXXXX   XX
XXXXX   XX
XXXXX   XX
XXXXXX   X
XXXXXX   X
XXXXXX   X
XXXXXX   X
XXXXXX   X
XXXXXX____
XXXXXXXXXX

Exact path of the shaft would depend on the initial speed of the cart, but as long as it doesn't contact the walls on the way down, it sounds like it would continue rolling when it hit the tracks at the bottom.

[Keldane]

Minecart-related question! Has anyone else had issues with minecarts brought with them at embark? I brought ten to my current fort, but only one has ever been listed as available for use.

[Broseph Stalin]

Minecart-related question! Has anyone else had issues with minecarts brought with them at embark? I brought ten to my current fort, but only one has ever been listed as available for use.

Are they the same type? I've noticed that if I have 5 silver and one platinum minecart (for density) it only shows a silver minecart and a platinum minecart.

[Keldane]

They are indeed all copper minecarts.

Additionally, forbidding the one that's already on a track causes no carts to be available. It's like the rest don't exist.

[Babylon]

So how are directions determined on carved tracks?  I want to set up minecarts to take stuff to/from my magma furnaces, and the one way ramps thing is worrying me. 

[khearn]

I've got a spiral of carved ramps going all the way down to my magma forges, and the carts roll down nicely (once i put walls outside of the corners, and get guided all the way back up. No problems, once I learned how to designate engraved tracks over ramps (you have to draw beyond the ramp to get it to be NS instead of just N for example).

[blue sam3]

So, I made a rapid cart deployment system, for when you need ridiculously small numbers of cats packed into a corridor NOW. Essentially, carts are driven into the top and each is caught by a door at a different point (note: there will be issues if you try to load carts faster than the delay time in the logic unit) then, at the pull of a single lever, all of the doors open, allowing all of the minecarts to fall, accelerating all the way, to the output track at the bottom. It's pretty dense, with one cart every four squares (plus a few for the edges, whatever you're using as a loading structure and 14 in the logic unit), and tiles in two dimensions (can be placed immediately next to each other and every four squares behind/below). As the logic units only move when something happens, there shouldn't be any significant lag except in loading (and in launching, but I don't think you'll notice it behind the lag from the carts themselves). It isn't combat tested yet, but it will be whenever I finish producing enough iron minecarts and weapons to fill them with to attract some goblins to come a-visiting.

Overall structure (side view):

Code: [Select]

RDWWRDWWRDWWRDWWRD
WRDWWRDWWRDWWRDWWR
WWRDWWRDWWRDWWRDWW
WWWRDWWRDWWRDWWRDW
RDWWRDWWRDWWRDWWRD
WRDWWRDWWRDWWRDWWR
WWRDWWRDWWRDWWRDWW
WWWRDWWRDWWRDWWRDW
RDWWRDWWRDWWRDWWRD
WRDWWRDWWRDWWRDWWR
WWRDWWRDWWRDWWRDWW
WWWRDWWRDWWRDWWRDW
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Legend (Above only):
R = ramp
D = door
W = wall
T = track

Basic unit:

HOLDING SYSTEM (side view):

Code: [Select]

TTTTTTiTR2WW
WWWWWWWWWR1W
WWWWWWWWWWRX
WWWWWWWWWWWR

CONTROL (top view):

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWWWWWWW
WATER->I1aXW
WATER->WWWWWW
WATER->IA2bXW
WATER->WWWWWW
WATER->IB3cXW
WWWWWWWWWWWWW
Legend (Basic Unit):

W = wall
R = ramp
T = track
A,B,... = door linked to plate a,b,... and also to release lever in holding system
I = door linked to plate i
1,2,... = bridge linked to plate a,b,...
X = door linked to release lever

[se5a]

Haven't gotten exact data but 10 rollers at highest setting will accelerate a cart from a standstill to climb at least 8 ramps.  I would have found the maximum, but I dug into the aquifer from the bottom while expanding my ramp.

Just a dwarf pushing it is NOT enough, and it will come back and smash him, though people said that guiding it works. 

EDIT: this is with ordinary carved ramps that go both directions. 1 way ramps do not seem to be necessary or helpful.

EDIT 2: well I feel stupid, I meant 10 rollers, not one roller.  1 roller at highest rolls a cart up 1 (but not 2) ramps.  I suspect each roller gives about a ramp's worth of impulse.

EDIT 3: weird, unable to replicate that result in another fortress.  This time 10 rollers on highest lift it up 1 and only 1 ramp.  The only difference I can see is that this ramp is N/S with S uphill while the other was E/W with W uphill.  They are two way ramps, which didn't matter last time I tried this.

EDIT 4: E/W ramps only get one ramp of lift too.  Using one way ramps prevents carts from climbing at all (I think).

so one roller on a 1z ramp itself should be sufficient to keep the cart moving. thanks.
I think I need to make a macro to dig a shaft down, then another to lay track& rollers
anyone else done this yet?


wonder if we couldn't code a macro creater that would allow you to input the size of the shaft you want, then have it output the macro for you to stick in the folder.

[Sadrice]

You can place rollers on top of ramps.  I haven't verified, but I suspect that's the easiest way to get a caet to go uphill.

[jwest23]

The only way I've ever been able to get a roller onto a ramp was if it was part of a roller chain of two or more, where one was on flat ground.

Is there some secret to it that I'm missing?

[Martin]

Can anyone improve on this system for filling carts with liquid?



The cart runs over a grate laid over a hole, not a grate laid over track laid over a hole. The cart can pass over several grates guided by walls before rerailing itself.

The floodgate can be opened to refill the cistern when it's empty, but if you leave it open all the time, you end up with overflow that pushes the cart off the track.

I would simply automate it using pressure plates to keep the cistern filled (put a plate on the 2nd right water tile to open the floodgate if it's lower than 5/7) and one under the tracks to activate the pump when the cart passes. It'll take fiddling, but you should be able to time it out so that the pump turns on just as the cart arrives. If you only have it activate the top pump, that will limit the amount of water that comes out to as little as 7/7 units by leaving the water reservoir for the top pump at only one tile. Then you can use a 2nd pressure plate, either in that one tile, or on the track after the cart passes to activate the lower pump to refill the top reservoir. I think the key to overfilling the track area is to physically limit the amount of water that the top pump can push.


You could also raise the track one more level up (with one more pump layer) so that there's always 7/7 capacity between the track and the cistern to soak up any excess water.

[webber]

Can anyone improve on this system for filling carts with liquid?

Why do you fill the cart from upper z-level? It just needs to be submerged into a tile of water. I think you can remove the second pump and replace the wall under it with wall grate. Also I`d try to use a wall grate from other side instead of floor grate to avoid gaps in the tracks, and the water would flow from left to right, not from top to bottom, but I`m not sure how the flow would affect minecart.
Also I`m thinking about a big cistern of water with rollers on the bottom and some doors and pressure plates to prevent or minimize leakage when minecart enters and leaves.

Does crashed fluid cart send a shotgun style?  Are obsidian collides possible?

Hmm. If we make two parallel tracks, set two stops with drop order and launch two minecarts with water and magma simultaneously... And if the drop point is hanging in the air...
Automated cave-ins?

[Martin]

To get the timing just right, you could use doors on each track to stop the cart on a roller, and then with a single trigger open both doors simultaneously.


The problem I think though is that if tracks are treated like floors, wouldn't the created obsidian stay on the dump tile by attaching to the floors/tracks?


Alternatively, do falling objects fall at a fixed rate, or do they accelerate? If they accelerate, you could drop one component (say magma) from a height, and the other component (water) from lower, and have the higher component by virtue of the higher velocity overtake the lower one, creating the obsidian, which is now one or more z-levels below the tracks. That'd be a hell of a timing exercise.

[webber]

If they accelerate, you could drop one component (say magma) from a height, and the other component (water) from lower, and have the higher component by virtue of the higher velocity overtake the lower one

Hey, that won`t work even IRL! Gravitational acceleration is a constant, and air resistance is what only matters, but I don`t think it is calculated in DF So we must find some hard way to mix fluids in air, or just drop them to be mixed directly on target.

[Martin]

That will indeed work IRL.


It won't work if you drop them both at the same time, but if you drop the higher object and then right before it reaches the lower, drop the lower object. The velocity of the higher object will indeed cause it to collide as the bottom object cannot accelerate faster than the upper object, given that they both continue to accelerate at the same rate. That's true even if the upper object has achieved terminal velocity, provided it can overtake the lower before it has time to achieve terminal velocity (assuming the same terminal velocity).