Ok, thanks for the info then.
I quite followed this thread from the start but obviously I could skip or forget some stuff people mentioned.
Still I had a lot of creative fun while thinking about my design.
And thinking about it, most of it still remains useful:
- Dumping carts onto rails, or having them move from the track directly to the stockpile should save some micromanagement of creating many hauling routes with one minecart each.
- Having the minecarts being moved inside wheelbarrows should make their hauling MUCH faster. They are very heavy when full and dwarves move at about 1/10 speed when hauling full minecart. With wheelbarrow they would move at full speed.
The part you missed was webber's method back from #318:
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.
He states in post #323 that he retested in 34.09, still worked. As stated, there was some comment back then that dwarf mode and arena seem to treat this differently. Could just be different physics, or maybe carrying a minecart to a track ("installing" the minecart) is also safe like guiding/riding, even though hauling it to a stockpile at the top isn't.
Kudos for figuring out how to fill larger magma reservoirs in an automated, no-human-input manner though. Although I think magma pistons are possibly still the simplest/fastest solutions for that. Minecarts are great for 4/7s or 6/7s for magma workshops, either with the above method or with a track.
For some reason one of my minecarts is dropping everything it carries on a certain ramp and then continuing onto its destination, the ramp is not a stop on any route, the minecart freely travels to the actual route every time. I have no idea why, the ramp is set up properly and all the track around it is as well, is there some maximum speed for going down ramps?
Possibly/probably, I don't think anyone gave a definitive answer with good data yet. It's not necessarily the reason for why your items spill though. You could be missing tracks somewhere, it could be going too fast at that point, or it could be something else entirely.
Will occupants be injured if they ride in a minecart that falls a large distance? I want to know if I can build drop-pods into hell. Alternatively, will a cart hitting a floor grate eject their contents through it?
IIRC cart-stasis was verified, yes, so long drops should be safe. Try it out.
(maybe with a non-lethal drop distance at first)
You can basically use SE,WS,NW, and NE up ramps to create a 2x2 ramp that would relatively go straight up without having to travel horizontally. Might not be roller friendly though.
Basically this would be an helicoidal track?
Yes.