Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[darkrider2]

Once I get around to it, I'm going to build a secondary fort next to my primary one, it will house all of my military, and it will be supplied entirely by minecarts coming out of the primary fort. The minecarts will be suspended on bridges and never touch the ground outside.

But other than that, yeah I just use wheelbarrows for everything, though I kinda wonder why we can only use three wheelbarrows to a stockpile.

[King Mir]

EDIT: I imagine using roller-coaster style jumps via ramps that sent the cart flying in the air over a chasm could fulfill my requirement of allowing cart movement, but blocking dwarves.  Are minecart ramp-jumping physics reliable enough to make this a consistent system?

If you want minecarts to move but block dwarves you just do this:
(side view)

Code: [Select]

=== ===           = - track     _ - floor     O - wall (not needed)
  O_O
Minecart will pass over 1 tile long channel without any problems. The only exception is when the channel is directly next to the track stop from which the dwarves push the cart - in this case the minecart will fall into the channel, so you need to have at least one tile of track before the channel.

I use this to effectively block all my tracks from dwarves passing through them, so no risk of anyone getting hit by minecart.
My usual track looks like this:
(side view)

Code: [Select]

S= ============== =S           

S - track stop     = - track

Why not this simpler system?

Code: [Select]

== O
 O==

And btw, for keeping fliers from entering the system, one can build this:

Code: [Select]

== O ==
 O\=/O
. Then, fill the lower level with water.

[darkrider2]

Minecarts travel through water? So I could supply an underwater city completely using minecarts?

[melphel]

They will operate while submerged, but they lose momentum from being in a liquid.  You will need rollers to get them to ascend out of the water.  Also, if it is 6/7 liquid or deeper and the cart isn't full, it will fill with liquid...something to keep in mind before running them through magma.

[King Mir]

Minecarts travel through water? So I could supply an underwater city completely using minecarts?

No, because an underwater city with access to the water would flood from the water pressure. Flood completely, because air doesn't have pressure.

[Sabreur]

Minecarts travel through water? So I could supply an underwater city completely using minecarts?

No, because an underwater city with access to the water would flood from the water pressure. Flood completely, because air doesn't have pressure.

Just use an airlock.  Minecarts path over bridges like they were tracks, so you can make an airlock out of two bridges and a pump.  Minecart goes in, close the outer bridge, pump the water out, open the inner bridge, retrieve the goodies from the minecart.  Depending on how much supplies you bring in from the outside, it might be wise to have several airlocks set up... and a way to seal them off quickly in case you accidentally open the bridges in the wrong order.

[King Mir]

That could work. Of course, you'd need a reservoir or map edge to pump the water to.

[Anathema]

Well the airlock needn't be big, we could be talking about a single tile, and no pumping is required anywhere in it. You need merely open the outer bridge and let the water fill the airlock as the minecart rolls out, then close the outer, open the inner, and let about 7/7 of water spill into the fort and quickly dry. Naturally it's dwarfier with a system of pumps and a reservoir, just saying it's not strictly necessary.

Also even if you do want to evacuate the water quickly with a pump, you don't need a map edge or reservoir, I think a pump can force it back out into the ocean (the back end of the pump forms a solid wall that wouldn't allow the ocean back in, just take care no one breaks the pump in a tantrum..).

[darkrider2]

Do rollers and machinery in general work underwater? Cause that could theoretically keep the minecart moving while completely submerged. I think the wiki says --- oh no, they only stop working if they are frozen, though I'm not sure if submerged rollers have been tested yet.

[Sutremaine]

Perhaps you could automate the airlocks by using pressure plates on the track. If you could judge the speed correctly, the inner doors of the airlock could open while the minecart is in the airlock and the outer doors are shut. Then you'd get your minecart, which has been moving at a steady speed the whole time, and as much water as fits in the airlock.

[darkrider2]

Perhaps you could automate the airlocks by using pressure plates on the track. If you could judge the speed correctly, the inner doors of the airlock could open while the minecart is in the airlock and the outer doors are shut. Then you'd get your minecart, which has been moving at a steady speed the whole time, and as much water as fits in the airlock.

Hell, that would be useful above ground too.

[Urist_McArathos]

Perhaps you could automate the airlocks by using pressure plates on the track. If you could judge the speed correctly, the inner doors of the airlock could open while the minecart is in the airlock and the outer doors are shut. Then you'd get your minecart, which has been moving at a steady speed the whole time, and as much water as fits in the airlock.

This, plus have your minecart stop and dump its supplies on arrival; use a floor grate on the spot where it dumps, and the supplies will stay on the ground but the gathered water will fall down into a channel.  You can then pump the water back into the ocean.  Bonus: you can link this to the airlock to pump out any water that enters with the minecart, thus ensuring a dry underwater city supplied by minecarts.

Also, in the interests of ‼SCIENCE‼, you should use this same minecart system to send new migrants to the underwater city to see if dwarves drown while riding a submerged cart.  We already know they aren't hurt by riding a cart full of magma, so maybe when new arrivals come they can ride the cart (and supplies) under the ocean and arrive in style in your city.  The bonus there?  No babies will ever arrive in the city, since mothers won't carry them into the cart.

[King Mir]

Also even if you do want to evacuate the water quickly with a pump, you don't need a map edge or reservoir, I think a pump can force it back out into the ocean (the back end of the pump forms a solid wall that wouldn't allow the ocean back in, just take care no one breaks the pump in a tantrum..).

I don't think that would work. Pumps don't pump water if the water has nowhere to go. It can pump through a 7/7 tile of water, but only if the water can flow out somewhere else, on the same level or lower. The ocean is a map edge, but it has equilibrium mechanisms that will cause it to overflow if more water is added to it. The same mechanism should prevent pumping water in from the side.

Perhaps you could automate the airlocks by using pressure plates on the track. If you could judge the speed correctly, the inner doors of the airlock could open while the minecart is in the airlock and the outer doors are shut. Then you'd get your minecart, which has been moving at a steady speed the whole time, and as much water as fits in the airlock.

Or, if you you could put a roller after the pressure plate, the that the cart will ram the bridge until it opens. No tricky timing required.

[melphel]

Also, in the interests of ‼SCIENCE‼, you should use this same minecart system to send new migrants to the underwater city to see if dwarves drown while riding a submerged cart.  We already know they aren't hurt by riding a cart full of magma, so maybe when new arrivals come they can ride the cart (and supplies) under the ocean and arrive in style in your city.  The bonus there?  No babies will ever arrive in the city, since mothers won't carry them into the cart.

Dwarves won't ride in a cart if the track is submerged, through they will guide it (which still drowns them).  I suppose the carts could still be used to bring supplies, but it may require several rollers underwater, which would be an endeavour by itself.

As far as practical applications for minecarts go, they can be used as a more power efficient alternative to the pump stack when bringing up magma.  Rollers spaced every 3 levels on a double helix (one up, one down) can automatically bring up magma covering the bottom layer of the track for only 9 power per 3 zlevels (as opposed to 10 power per 1 zlevel with pumps).  Carts use fewer parts too, pumps would take 3 blocks, 3 corkscrews, and 3 pipes per 3 zlevels (all magma safe), whereas minecarts use 2 wood, 2 mechanisms, and one rope with only 2 mechanism and 1 rope being magma safe for the bottom level (or no parts at all if you forgo automation and don't power it).  Mining out the spiral takes arguably as much work as prep for a pump stack, and may not require any mining or track if you just manually pump magma into some carts and haul them up to empty them into one tile (it's enough if you just want to power a forge).  Carts don't have anywhere near the output of pumps, but they can move your forge levels up to the rest of the fort and provide magma for closed-system magma traps.

Or more practical than that, use rollers as mass divers for a literal "railgun."  Just accelerate carts back and forth across your entrance to bowl over goblins.

[andyman564]

i tried a cart based "pump stack". it was micromanagement hell to ensure the little bastards didn't overfill the channels. however it was quicker to setup and nowhere near as laggy as a stack using actual pumps.