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[Hurkyl]

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.

I don't understand this comment: I thought a dwarf taking one step on a ramp (thus moving 1 Z level and one tile laterally) took the same amount of time as simply moving one tile laterally or moving one tile up/down a staircase.

[AmpsterMan]

So using the information found in this thread, I have started construction on a fortress with minecarts in mind. The fortress consists of ramps instead of stairwells to cross the major levels in the fortress. The major thoroughfares are three wide hallways with a track in the middle. All my carts are set to Guide to avoid injuries. The fortress is somewhat decentralized by design, there are multiple mess halls in different apartment blocks all scattered around everywhere. I use.minecarts to brinh food, booze and wood from the surface underground, and deep underground I have huge stockpiles for stone, wood, ores etc. It's quite fun actually!

[Tally]

I decided to set up a new fortress on a volcano. 'Extreme cliffs' appeared to be far more appropriate than I imagined, to the point; I didn't even start with a wagon because there was no room. The first caravan that came by took an entire season to navigate the cliff face downward on its way out. And, perhaps most importantly, I had to dig down 20-some Zs to get to soil for my farm. Needless to say, a minecart seemed almost necessary. I decided this would be the perfect time to figure out how to work powered systems as well, and... an in-game year later and I still don't have the whole thing set up (the track is done, but the rollers and the power system take forever to set up). It doesn't help that I chose windmills as my power source. So terribly inefficient.


Plus side, I don't feel nearly as intimidated by the power grid as I used to be. It feels more flexible when you fool around with it and fail it, and I feel like a power grid with a water turbine at the heart of it all wouldn't be a far-fetched idea.


I'm intrigued to see what other power sources may crop up in future versions. Geothermal power based off magma would feel quite dwarfy to me.

[clem131]

So using the information found in this thread, I have started construction on a fortress with minecarts in mind. The fortress consists of ramps instead of stairwells to cross the major levels in the fortress. The major thoroughfares are three wide hallways with a track in the middle. All my carts are set to Guide to avoid injuries. The fortress is somewhat decentralized by design, there are multiple mess halls in different apartment blocks all scattered around everywhere. I use.minecarts to brinh food, booze and wood from the surface underground, and deep underground I have huge stockpiles for stone, wood, ores etc. It's quite fun actually!

So, your dwarves go up and down through the same ramps used by minecarts? My problem is usually that when I have finally set up the basics and I start digging towards magma it's a lot more efficient to press d-i-enter and then > until level -29 rather than digging a set of staggered ramps one level at a time. Plus there is a lot of micromanagement involved and it takes years to fully set up. I'm still sticking to manual hauling with wheelbarrows when necessary, I don't know if I'm missing something here.

[maluraq]

So, your dwarves go up and down through the same ramps used by minecarts? My problem is usually that when I have finally set up the basics and I start digging towards magma it's a lot more efficient to press d-i-enter and then > until level -29 rather than digging a set of staggered ramps one level at a time.

I had the same problem until I realized how easy it is to script (designate ramps, layer down, move over) repeat.

[Trollhammaren]

I can never figure out how people end up replying to one random almost one year to one decade old thread like it was last replied to today. While you're here, can you describe your method? Did you actually read threads all the way back to Nov 2012 and found this one more than anything inspired a burning need to reply about the ease of scripting?

On topic since it's up now: As has been the sentiment in the thread, minecarts can be crazy useful for mining when your forges are very far from the ore, at the magma sea, or near the surface, when you're strip-mining, but only if you plan ahead. Have a central minecart route pre-built that goes straight to the smelters and expand a loading station from there. When you must have several dwarves working the forges at all times (going for an all weapon metal artifact moods game), this is a cool and easy static mechanism for keeping the ore flowing and automatically quantum stockpiled near a smelter to avoid unnecessary ore hauling trips which take a LOT of time... use wheelbarrows to transport ore to loading station stockpiles on the level of the ore and minecarts to transport it across levels and quantum stockpile.

[mek42]

I learned a lot from this thread.  Glad it  was rezzed.

[superbob]

On topic, I made extensive use of minecarts in my obsidian farming operation. I built stairwells beneath the obsidian casting chamber, leading 2 z-levels down to a room with designated obsidian stockpiles with tracks running through them and trackstops in the middle. I put hatch covers over the stairs before filling the chamber with magma, then I'd have dwarves fish them out of obsidian rubble and place in nearby stockpile. I also had to re-dig the upped downward stairwell.

First I'd make a 44x44x2 squares worth of obsidian, then I'd mine it out, burrow a bunch of dwarves to move the obsidian to the stockpile beneath the chamber and finally assign minecarts to the hauling routes linked to the stockpiles to move all the obsidian many z-levels up and sideways from the obsidian generator.

This was a significant improvement over manual or wheelbarrow-assisted hauling, also resulted in multiple fatalities due to silly dwarves crossing paths with speeding carts filled with obsidian. The size of the operation called for a nearby well, hospital, dining hall and dormitory, all equipped with masterwork obsidian furniture of course.

[flameaway]

I don't know, I find them pretty useful.  Especially once you realize that a dwarf with a wheelbarrow can wheelbarrow around a loaded mine-cart full of 'whatever' at full dwarf speed.

So, for example, I'll make oodles of blocks.   When it comes time to move the block laden carts, I'll set up a mine-cart stockpile close to where I plan to build. I'll set this stockpile to use three wheelbarrows.  Once the wheelbarrows populate the stockpile; I destroy the pertinent mine-cart hauling routes, forbid any mine-cart I don't want moved and watch my dwarves move 83 blocks, in a wheelbarrow, each trip. Right up and down the central stairwell...  All in the time it takes one dwarf to run back and forth to the same location.

That's hella useful, way faster than a dump haul or setting up a bunch of track.  Exploityish though...

Oddly enough, this method is less useful for moving flux or other ores. This is because a mine-cart will only hold 5 stones, so the multiplier is significantly smaller.  However, it's still approximately five times faster than moving the whole layer with wheelbarrows.

No track necessary.

Helps to think of mine-carts as mobile stockpiles.

This can't be new...?

{Edits -- taking a stab at punctuation.}

[UnlawfullyDeranged]

I don't suppose you've tried moving magma this way (minecart in a wheelbarrow)? I've heard from secondary and further removed sources, but not yet from the horse's mouth.

[flameaway]

Haven't tried moving magma that specific way yet (haven't really needed to. I usually just let 'flow' take it's course).  Really can't see why it wouldn't work, though.  You can load a cart with magma and a dwarf can get in and ride without getting crispified.  So I can't imagine why it would make any difference what is loaded in the mining cart, the wheel barrow should carry it, no prob.

Someone that knows better is welcome to correct me though.

Since you asked, and I have easy access to magma in my current fort, I'll see what happens when I load a few carts (made from magma safe material, of course) with magma.  There's some magma stuff I've been wanting to try anyway.

{I'll prolly end up killing my fort...}

What fun!

[Di]

The point of this thread was not about minecarts being useless. They're invaluable in every area but mining.

Magma hauling indeed works. Someone has even come up with an automated version:
1) Set up a stockpile for minecarts only.
2) Build a trackstop tacking from it and dumping into a magma moat.
3) Build three-tile long medium rollers in moat. The exit ramp should be covered by rollers.
4) Place second minecart stockpile so that cart exiting moat would stop on it.
5) Place third cartpile where you need carts to be hauled assign wheelbarrows and set it to take from the second.

[flameaway]

Di,

The point seemed to be that mine carts are fairly useless for their intended purpose -- hauling. The prevailing attitude is that setting up track and routes is more trouble than it is worth from a hauling perspective.
 
However it is not true that track is necessary and mine-cart hauling without track is not slower than other hauling methods. Mine-carts are the fastest haulers even without using complex track setups. 

Therefore mine-carts are incredibly useful for easy and fast hauling. It's just that extensive track setup doesn't need to be included in this process; and  it likely slows hauling unless you have a fort specifically designed to use track and carts in an automated way.

[JAFANZ]

The point of this thread was not about minecarts being useless. They're invaluable in every area but mining.

Magma hauling indeed works. Someone has even come up with an automated version:
1) Set up a stockpile for minecarts only.
2) Build a trackstop tacking from it and dumping into a magma moat.
3) Build three-tile long medium rollers in moat. The exit ramp should be covered by rollers.
4) Place second minecart stockpile so that cart exiting moat would stop on it.
5) Place third cartpile where you need carts to be hauled assign wheelbarrows and set it to take from the second.

Umm... Why the magma in step 3???

[WanderingKid]

Flameaway, not sure if you saw this post, but it doesn't take long to build a massive hauler down to the magma layer once you're familiar with track layouts.  It can even be done without an ounce of power for rollers.  The biggest problem with tracks is the idea of 1 cart/track, which I generated a solution for.  Check this out:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129676.0