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[The Grackle]

Is there any way to get dwarves to always ride minecarts whenever possible, even if they aren't doing a hauling job, and even if there's nothing in the minecart? It would save a lot of time to line the halls with tracks and have dwarves simply take a cart instead of walking.

Sort of. You can set the mine cart to leave a stop in zero days even when empty. Anyone with a hauling job will jump on it and take off.  But a dwarf pathing to some other job won't use a cart to get where he's going faster. 

[flieroflight]

Hmm, when levels and plates activate rollers, have a clip system where there are loaded carts in a line all on rollers bhind the main accelerator cannon, with pressure plates in the barrel area linked to the rollers.

something like

[4][3][2][1]\\\\\[][][][][][]F____p4_p3_p2_p1_________

where [] is a roller with
\ is a down ramp
f is a fortification, _ is floor
and p is pressure plate
the numbers denote which plates are linked to which rollers

[Burmalay]

Is there any way to get dwarves to always ride minecarts whenever possible, even if they aren't doing a hauling job, and even if there's nothing in the minecart? It would save a lot of time to line the halls with tracks and have dwarves simply take a cart instead of walking.

Sort of. You can set the mine cart to leave a stop in zero days even when empty. Anyone with a hauling job will jump on it and take off.  But a dwarf pathing to some other job won't use a cart to get where he's going faster.

You can make a locked room where you move your squad, lock door & then make them "free" & set to ride minecarts. So you can load any of dorf into a minecart.

I think I misunderstand something =)

[webber]

I have been reading this thread for a while, but I might have missed a post or two, so I apologize if this was already asked/answered, but has anyone already used minecarts to bring magma from the magma sea to the surface to create magma based workshops and furnaces? If the answer is yes, how long did it take, and was it considerably easier than putting together a pump stack or creating a small colony closer to the magma sea?

I filled a small room with magma, dropped 3 minecarts in it, sealed the room from the magma sea with a small cave-in, drained it from magma and assigned the magma-filled minecarts to a small track on a surface, one by one. The track had a track stop with a dump order. All three minecarts, containing six units of magma, were without any incident transported to surface manually.
 
But:

If you pick up a magma cart or pick up the magma[833] stack, fiery death ensues.

...and I think I need to test my method again in 34.09.

[mdqp]

I have been reading this thread for a while, but I might have missed a post or two, so I apologize if this was already asked/answered, but has anyone already used minecarts to bring magma from the magma sea to the surface to create magma based workshops and furnaces? If the answer is yes, how long did it take, and was it considerably easier than putting together a pump stack or creating a small colony closer to the magma sea?

I filled a small room with magma, dropped 3 minecarts in it, sealed the room from the magma sea with a small cave-in, drained it from magma and assigned the magma-filled minecarts to a small track on a surface, one by one. The track had a track stop with a dump order. All three minecarts, containing six units of magma, were without any incident transported to surface manually.
 
But:

If you pick up a magma cart or pick up the magma[833] stack, fiery death ensues.

...and I think I need to test my method again in 34.09.

I see. It sounds like it can be troublesome, but worthwhile, thanks. I'll have to do some testing myself.

[Urist Da Vinci]

...

If you pick up a magma cart or pick up the magma[833] stack, fiery death ensues.

...and I think I need to test my method again in 34.09.

I see. It sounds like it can be troublesome, but worthwhile, thanks. I'll have to do some testing myself.

Re-tested. It seems that riding a cart full of magma doesn't subject you to the temperature of the contents. Neither does standing on the same tile as the cart. Presumably guideing the cart is also safe.

Hauling the cart, by picking it up with my dwarf's right hand, causes the fat to melt off the right hand, and then other body parts. Bleeding to death soon happens.

[therealmarauder]

Not that this is a rant thread,  but the way the mine carts operate is totally different from how wheelbarrows work; more than one person loads a mine cart, and they do it haphazardly, so for every stone I want to load I get someone walking 200 tiles just to get to a stone, move it ten squares, and then STOPPING AND WALKING AWAY. The mine carts ought to act like workshops - one dwarf operates it at a time, including loading it and guiding or riding it, and the dwarf keeps operating it until the mine cart has nothing left to do or the dwarf gets hungry. I would not mind having one dwarf load the mine cart if it would help clean up the horrible mess of haphazard hauling tasks.

I hope Toady gets that. The wheelbarrows and bin-hauling let one dwarf pick up a number of things consecutively, but the selection of hauling tasks needs to be fixed.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Not that this is a rant thread,  but the way the mine carts operate is totally different from how wheelbarrows work; more than one person loads a mine cart, and they do it haphazardly, so for every stone I want to load I get someone walking 200 tiles just to get to a stone, move it ten squares, and then STOPPING AND WALKING AWAY. The mine carts ought to act like workshops - one dwarf operates it at a time, including loading it and guiding or riding it, and the dwarf keeps operating it until the mine cart has nothing left to do or the dwarf gets hungry. I would not mind having one dwarf load the mine cart if it would help clean up the horrible mess of haphazard hauling tasks.

I hope Toady gets that. The wheelbarrows and bin-hauling let one dwarf pick up a number of things consecutively, but the selection of hauling tasks needs to be fixed.

Burrows?

[webber]

Hauling the cart, by picking it up with my dwarf's right hand, causes the fat to melt off the right hand, and then other body parts. Bleeding to death soon happens.

Re-tested too. My mechanic just hauled the cart all the way from magma level to surface, and she is unscratched. The cart is listed in inventory as "hauled".

[Girlinhat]

Stockpiles help.  Set a small stone stockpile for whatever stone you're digging up, and set the cart to take from stockpile.  Then dwarves will wheelbarrow stone to the pile quickly, and then move from the pile to the cart - they will NOT put items from the ground into the cart, ONLY from the stockpile.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Hauling the cart, by picking it up with my dwarf's right hand, causes the fat to melt off the right hand, and then other body parts. Bleeding to death soon happens.

Re-tested too. My mechanic just hauled the cart all the way from magma level to surface, and she is unscratched. The cart is listed in inventory as "hauled".

Then we may have proven that the implementation of carts in fort mode and in the arena (adv mode?) is slightly different.

It's good that we can take cartloads of magma from the depths to the surface, as this makes pumpstacks unnecessary for magma workshops.

[webber]

Then we may have proven that the implementation of carts in fort mode and in the arena (adv mode?) is slightly different.

It's good that we can take cartloads of magma from the depths to the surface, as this makes pumpstacks unnecessary for magma workshops.

Hmm. The implementation might be similar... just... I think dwarves do not use hands when hauling something big in fortess mode. "Hauled" is just a slot for big objects, and it doesn`t actually use or touch any body parts.

[TerryDactyl]

A simple repeater - inspired by the 'particle accelerator' seen above.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

┌─┐. ║
^  ,  rgg
└─┘L║
where ^ is a pressure place on a loop track, r is a roller, and g's are both gear assemblies. ║ is a power source from elsewhere. L - lever toggles power to the circuit (disables gear).

Generates a pulse configurable to various speeds.

Edit:Cart paths too quickly around the track. Pressure plate never turns 'off'. This can be solved by making the loop wider such that the cart takes 100 ticks to path around;

[Urist Da Vinci]

Some testing suggests that we could build a dwarf-powered long distance cart launcher by having a dwarf kick a heavy cart into a light cart, because the kicking appears to set the cart's velocity, while when two carts collide it appears that (one of) the moving cart(s) will stop, and the other cart assumes all momentum and gains a speed proportional to its mass. Further research is required.

[GoldenShadow]

II'm trying to figure out how to get a minecart to fill up with magma without it getting stuck and without needing power. There is no way to get any power down where I need it for rollers. I Have the cart dip through a 1 tile ramp channel. It works fine when its empty, but when it is full of magma, it gets stuck. If I pour magma onto a cart from above, does that fill it up too?