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[rtg593]

I played around with automated QS and drop chutes the day it came out, but that's the most use I found for them.

Sand, clay, and wood are the only long distance material lines I set up, simply because those materials never move.

[Tfafalcon]

The problem is that mineral veins are mostly small and spread out all over the map. If the mineral system was reworked to link up veins across z-levels, then I can see minecarts becoming usefull. But right now there is not much of a point building the tracks if the vein will be cleared out by the time the tracks are finished, and the neighboring z-levels have their deposits in completely different areas.

[chewie]

[...]my fortress layout is so dedicated to rail, that's its damn near non-functional without it. I've swung to the opposite extreme.

Would you mind showing some screenshots of this? I'd love to see how that actually works out.

[Kestrel]

If your mining operation is large enough and separated from your smelters across a hundred z levels, minecarts are the way to go.  Even smaller cart routes are useful for this, and relatively simple to setup once you know how to use them. 

[dwarfhoplite]

I think they are most useful when you build horizontally and distances are long.

[maluraq]

I tend to use minecarts for automatic quantum dumps. Have a minecart zip wood up by the carpenter's workshop and dump it off saves space.

I have a number of these.  I have a minecart track in front of a mason's shop that only builds blocks, the cart fills with stone blocks and drives three tiles south to near the central stairway, and dumps them, then returns for more.  The pile is always nice and tidy and small and stocked with blocks for building uses.

The same thing can be done with all sorts of materials and production items.  Using mine carts to move stockpiles of ore into single-tile quantum dumps is very useful (compared to using the dump command and stealing all that dwarf power from other jobs).

[Broseph Stalin]

My fortress designs optimize efficiency by placing workshops adjacent to stockpiles and stacking levels vertically rather than expanding more than thirty urists in any given direction. For me to make any use of minecarts I'd have to deliberately make my fortresses less efficient and even then the minecarts aren't noticeably better than my current method.

[osmo]

I've been finding minecarts quite useful for hauling. For things like ore and flux stone, I set up a local stockpile with wheelbarrows that scoops up the material from a general area being excavated, the 'last mile' if you wish. Then the minecart picks the cargo up and takes it right next to the forges. Carving tracks is a fairly speedy process, so it's not that much of an imposition if you can cover a few veins or clusters with one track, and have a central spiral set up. Also minecarts have an enormous capacity for carrying all kinds of workshop output to the surface, where it's needed. That can be a problem in that it may take a long time for the carts to fill up, in which case a quick manual change of the hauling orders may be required. The fact that the carts can neatly dump their load in a quantum stockpile is a bonus.
Beyond hauling, they're good for selectively feeding atom smashers and condensing stockpiles. And new weapons, of course. Not always that practical ones, mind, but certainly entertaining.
I've been thinking about an automated, roller-powered hauling system with pressure plate selectors linked to bits of logic, lots of guiding drawbridges, and little cart bullet trains. I reckon it's possible, probably fun, but unlikely to be very practical for just getting stuff from point to point in an efficient manner.

My fortress designs optimize efficiency by placing workshops adjacent to stockpiles and stacking levels vertically rather than expanding more than thirty urists in any given direction. For me to make any use of minecarts I'd have to deliberately make my fortresses less efficient and even then the minecarts aren't noticeably better than my current method.

I do the same. The ore isn't necessarily close to your spine, though. And for other goods you're still talking about many hauling jobs that can be replaced with one.

[eataTREE]

It seems to me that minecarts and rail are most useful in connecting physically separated parts of your fort without increasing your hauling overhead to the point where your dwarves are overwhelmed with hauling labor. I don't use rail for hauling stuff around within my Industrial Complex, because everything is close together. But I use rail to haul logs down from the surface, then return the carts full of stone blocks for use in building on the surface. If you design your fort compactly and aren't planning on mining here but building there, I agree you don't need it.

[guitarxe]

I think although most people get that minecarts are designed to assist in hauling, not a lot of people set them up in a way to eliminate the need for almost all dedicated haulers, and instead try to use them as just another dwarf hauling things from point A to B.

A well set-up minecart system, like the one that Ross described, can eliminate the need to have lots of dedicated haulers and instead put those dwarves to more useful professions or the military.
Even a very simple track from one stockpile to another can replace many dwarves because of the sheer amount of things a minecart can carry, and how fast it goes on flat level.

Another good use for them is to safely bring stuff from the surface to your fort, because they can activate pressure plates that will raise and lower bridges.

[GhostDwemer]

My fortress designs optimize efficiency by placing workshops adjacent to stockpiles and stacking levels vertically rather than expanding more than thirty urists in any given direction. For me to make any use of minecarts I'd have to deliberately make my fortresses less efficient and even then the minecarts aren't noticeably better than my current method.

See, this is exactly the position I'm in. I think minecarts might be useful for horizontal forts, but I've never built one of those because it's less efficient. And with the way I design my worlds, magma is never more than 40 levels from the surface of any of my embarks. Automated quantum stockpiling and defense are the only things I can think of to actually use them for without, as you said, making my fort less efficient.

[FearfulJesuit]

I think what is true is that minecarts should be one of the last major pieces of infrastructure to go in. The fact is that until you have a fortress that isn't going to be blasted to pieces anytime soon, and isn't going to run out of booze or food quickly, wheelbarrows are quicker and much, much cheaper to produce.

The fact is that minecarts are a large investment requiring a lot of space, knowhow and resources to set up. It's not just the space; it's the designing you have to do, the carving the engravers have to do, and above all designing a structure to power the damn thing if you want it to go up as well as down. This requires engravers, mechanics, carpenters, and architects, and metalworkers if you want metal minecarts, and early on that's time, resources and dwarfpower that is much better used getting defenses, food and an economy going. In essence, the weaknesses of wheelbarrows will not become apparent for rather a long time, because minecarts are investments that will only pay back over a time span of months to years, while wheelbarrows pay off less, but pay off immediately.

That's what I think makes people misuse them. Minecarts cannot and should not be used for one-offs, or if they are you need to have a structural system in place that allows you to create extensions to the system quickly and easily. It is not wise to build a minecart system to empty two veins down to your forges 50 Z-Levels below. It might, however, be wise to plan a system that can be extended to any vein on any Z-Level quickly and cheaply, thus making mining anywhere less of a hassle. Minecarts have to be planned carefully, and the planner must keep in mind that if he wants a good minecart system it will have to pay for itself over the long term; he can very rarely make it pay for itself over the short.

[Kestrel]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think what is true is that minecarts should be one of the last major pieces of infrastructure to go in. The fact is that until you have a fortress that isn't going to be blasted to pieces anytime soon, and isn't going to run out of booze or food quickly, wheelbarrows are quicker and much, much cheaper to produce.

The fact is that minecarts are a large investment requiring a lot of space, knowhow and resources to set up. It's not just the space; it's the designing you have to do, the carving the engravers have to do, and above all designing a structure to power the damn thing if you want it to go up as well as down. This requires engravers, mechanics, carpenters, and architects, and metalworkers if you want metal minecarts, and early on that's time, resources and dwarfpower that is much better used getting defenses, food and an economy going. In essence, the weaknesses of wheelbarrows will not become apparent for rather a long time, because minecarts are investments that will only pay back over a time span of months to years, while wheelbarrows pay off less, but pay off immediately.

That's what I think makes people misuse them. Minecarts cannot and should not be used for one-offs, or if they are you need to have a structural system in place that allows you to create extensions to the system quickly and easily. It is not wise to build a minecart system to empty two veins down to your forges 50 Z-Levels below. It might, however, be wise to plan a system that can be extended to any vein on any Z-Level quickly and cheaply, thus making mining anywhere less of a hassle. Minecarts have to be planned carefully, and the planner must keep in mind that if he wants a good minecart system it will have to pay for itself over the long term; he can very rarely make it pay for itself over the short.

I totally disagree.  Most of the complaints about minecarts really seem to stem from the user's inability to adapt fortress designs to efficiently implement carts and tracks.

For instance, on an all-mining level, I've found it takes very little time to smooth and detail a track that merely collects ore and dumps it down a chute, only to land on or near an ore stockpile tens of z-levels below.  The time you save with tracks and chutes is substantial over strictly using wheelbarrows to carry the whole job.  They're also excellent at moving unwanted stone out of the way using the same method - loading from a stockpile and dumping down a chute. 

The common complaint "minecarts take too long to setup" is really overblown.  The setups are usually long because people are implementing needlessly overcomplicated systems.  Unless you plan on bringing things up from below (which I've never needed to do) there's no need for the usage of ramps or tracks that span z-levels. 

All that aside, carts hold such promise for Fun!  Think of all the great things you can do by combining carts and magma!

[osmo]

It's possible to guide a minecart across z-levels in a spiral with a 2x2 profile. This requires two tiles of movement per level, twice the distance of just moving across stairs. A minecart does, however, have five times the capacity of a wheelbarrow. Thus, provided you have the throughput to fill them regularly, using a minecart for hauling will always be more efficient in terms of dwarf-time than wheelbarrows or simple hauling, even in the worst case of your fortress being a rod.
Also they don't really require much infrastructure to run for hauling. It's extremely quick and easy to carve up a track for a simple much used hauling distance, and getting a whole system requires little more, namely a z-level crossing spiral. All that is required is a bit of engraving labour, with maybe some masonry and digging where needed, the minecarts themselves, and the track stops. Rollers do require quite a bit of infrastructure, but those are pretty pointless for hauling anyway unless you want to go the whole fully automated hog.
In my opinion the limiting factor for the usefulness of minecarts is less the fortress design than the overall hauling volume. If you're quite content with only producing things when needed and sticking to few workshops, using the capacity advantage of the carts is difficult. If you're fond of building big industrial complexes turning over an ever larger volume of goods, minecarts will help.

[GhostDwemer]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think what is true is that minecarts should be one of the last major pieces of infrastructure to go in. The fact is that until you have a fortress that isn't going to be blasted to pieces anytime soon, and isn't going to run out of booze or food quickly, wheelbarrows are quicker and much, much cheaper to produce.

The fact is that minecarts are a large investment requiring a lot of space, knowhow and resources to set up. It's not just the space; it's the designing you have to do, the carving the engravers have to do, and above all designing a structure to power the damn thing if you want it to go up as well as down. This requires engravers, mechanics, carpenters, and architects, and metalworkers if you want metal minecarts, and early on that's time, resources and dwarfpower that is much better used getting defenses, food and an economy going. In essence, the weaknesses of wheelbarrows will not become apparent for rather a long time, because minecarts are investments that will only pay back over a time span of months to years, while wheelbarrows pay off less, but pay off immediately.

That's what I think makes people misuse them. Minecarts cannot and should not be used for one-offs, or if they are you need to have a structural system in place that allows you to create extensions to the system quickly and easily. It is not wise to build a minecart system to empty two veins down to your forges 50 Z-Levels below. It might, however, be wise to plan a system that can be extended to any vein on any Z-Level quickly and cheaply, thus making mining anywhere less of a hassle. Minecarts have to be planned carefully, and the planner must keep in mind that if he wants a good minecart system it will have to pay for itself over the long term; he can very rarely make it pay for itself over the short.

I totally disagree.  Most of the complaints about minecarts really seem to stem from the user's inability to adapt fortress designs to efficiently implement carts and tracks.

For instance, on an all-mining level, I've found it takes very little time to smooth and detail a track that merely collects ore and dumps it down a chute, only to land on or near an ore stockpile tens of z-levels below.  The time you save with tracks and chutes is substantial over strictly using wheelbarrows to carry the whole job.  They're also excellent at moving unwanted stone out of the way using the same method - loading from a stockpile and dumping down a chute. 

The common complaint "minecarts take too long to setup" is really overblown.  The setups are usually long because people are implementing needlessly overcomplicated systems.  Unless you plan on bringing things up from below (which I've never needed to do) there's no need for the usage of ramps or tracks that span z-levels. 

All that aside, carts hold such promise for Fun!  Think of all the great things you can do by combining carts and magma!

Let's see some pictures of how you do it, then Kestrel. I bet my fort without carts is at least as efficient as your fort with carts and chutes. I mean, it's not that minecarts take too long to set up, it's that ore drops are so much more rare, what is the point in running a new cart rail to that vein of limonite that just yielded seven ores. Woo! I'm going to load up my cart with all seven ores and that's going to be so much faster than using wheelbarrows.

So let's see some pictures that show any minecart system is justified for ore hauling.