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Yes, Minecarts have improved the game.

No, Minecarts have made the game worse off.

Maybe, Minecarts just need to be improved first.

Remove Minecarts from the game, there is no way it can be improved.

[Buttery_Mess]

I can think of lots of great, legitimate uses for minecarts. The trouble is that they're such a pain in the arse to set up. The very purpose for which minecarts are most useful; going up and down very long distances; is also a very time consuming and finicky thing to set up. I'm currently building the main body of my fort just above the magma sea, which for anyone who has tried this knows, requires dwarfs to make very long paths up and down a lot. But to set up minecart to aid with this without first establishing a fairly strong fort at the surface and without halting construction of the fort below is tough, because it's really quite a pain to do.

I don't know, maybe I'll have a go when I get back to playing that fort. I just don't think I'm used to using minecarts yet.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I like using them to send wood downstairs. I often have a wood stockpile aboveground, a inecart track leading to a pit, and then the pit falls next to my wood stockpile. (That way, dwarves don't get hurt when grabbing wood to make beds with.)

[Triaxx2]

Personally, I find they've made life easier for a lot of things. With Workshops down 20z in the stone (mountain embark) being able to shuttle it up to the trading stockpile in one easy motion and have it within a few steps of the trade depot, instead of 200 steps down.

And in the other direction, from the kitchen stockpiles to the hyper engraved, Legendary stockpile, minimizing the time delay between acquiring food and eating.

Minecarts for mining is really an interesting question. The trouble is that there are two ways to go about it. One is the manual hauling of a single mine cart under dwarf power. The second is using dozens of medium speed rollers to send them cascading upwards in a helix then having them pushed back downstairs.

The latter is very space consuming, the former removes one dwarf from any other function.

However,  what I've worked out is a 3x3 stair case double helix. The upper end consists of a short track across, with two stops. One is lowest friction, but dumps, the latter is the highest friction no dump. This ensures that the cart does not come off the track no matter how it arrives. Each track consists of one 5 tile long side, which is level, then a 3 tile long 'short' side, with ramp, floor, ramp. This breaks up the three ramp launch problem. Plus the center can be a pick up point. This wraps all the way around the stair case, down to the bottom of where you're mining.

[misko27]

Personally, I prefer the octo helix proposed by someone, it was awesome, 8 minecarts, 4 going up, 4 going down, and a staircase, all in a 5x5 space. Utter Genius.

[Sutremaine]

4 going up, 4 going down

I don't get that part.

[WanderingKid]

4 going up, 4 going down

I don't get that part.

Guided maybe?  I can't see an easy way to power that.

[orius]

This breaks up the three ramp launch problem.

What is this three ramp launch problem you speak of?

[Sutremaine]

Guided maybe?  I can't see an easy way to power that.

The wiki says that guided minecarts can pass each other safely on the same track (haven't got around to trying it yet). If that's true, then you'd only need a 2x2 space and you could have as many minecarts as you wanted on it.

[misko27]

This Thread explains it.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=112238.msg3405015;topicseen#msg3405015

[Triaxx2]

Three ramps are the minimum necessary to achieve flight and three in a row will cause it to launch off the track, if you set it to be pushed back down.

[celem]

I use minecarts a lot, even for mining operations.  Its not necessarily better than a wheelbarrow fleet, its more work to setup.  But the idea is so dwarfy it has a beard.

My central stair column is surrounded by a spiraling minecart ramp which handles the vertical parts with stops per floor supplying the industries there.  On a mining level theres also a stop.  I do a grid search pattern and begin by running rails in the 4 cardinal directions away from the stairs as i mine, stone hauling disabled, everything stays where it drops.  Once my first 4 are done and the lines are in i start the branch tunnels.  By making sure my labours are set right i can have teams of dwarves arrive at each station and take all the jobs there, since the stations are very seperated (being nesw) then burrows stops them crossing sites to haul/push elsewhere.  This way dwarves arrive and grab wheelbarrows from small stockpile by each station, fetch nearby stone, load minecart from the pile, kick it, repeat.  Empties the level nicely to a quantum pile right next to the station on my vertical line.  Micromanagement heavy but fun.

I also do use multiple carts on 1 line a lot, it would be nice to have 2 on one route, but that i usually solve with just a cloned route.  Im trying to come up with a design just now to delay a cart if it catches up with the previous one, its in its infancy.

[FearfulJesuit]

I honestly think that they're a wonderful concept that needs to be improved. I really can't help but reiterate a previously made point: that minecarts are simply so time-consuming to set up that mining is a pain no matter how you go about it. Most of my forts use a lot of wheelbarrows.

I feel like the best way this could be improved would be with some better designations, and perhaps with combining a couple of jobs. Right now, getting minecarts around requires you to fool around with stockpiles; making tracks isn't much better. It would be less realistic, but more fun (lowercase) and more game-like if miners could dig out minecart tracks the same way they dug out staircases or hallways, with no need for engravers. Likewise, you could have a special designated "dig" job that would be exactly like regular digging, except that you would be able to say "alright, now I've designated us to dig out this 20x20 area; any and all iron ore, coal or flux need to go in that minecart." Then you would link the dig designation to the minecart, tell it which ores, and tell the minecart how full it would need to be before being sent off. At the other end, it would just dump into a quantum stockpile in the magma forge area, the normal way, with a stop. Or it could link to a stockpile. Alternatively, or in addition, I think it would be a good idea to treat minecart stops like stockpiles in that one could assign them wheelbarrows. As a downside, the stops might be bigger, but as noted it's time-consuming to constantly expand minecart tracks if you're working in a large quarry. Wheelbarrows assigned to the track stop won't stop that problem per se, but they will mitigate it, because ore can be carried efficiently from further away to the minecart.

To be fair, neither of these proposals will do very much to help non-mining uses of minecarts. However, it's clear that Toady intended them as a mining tool first and foremost, and in light of that, we need to think about how to make mining with minecarts a better experience.

I'm going to put this post in Suggestions...

[celem]

Well thought out post

As someone whos struggles and uses them despite the issues i'd agree with most of these.  A dig designate that also tags useful stuff for a minecart may be a little much, but i wouldnt mind a dig designate that crossed regular dig and engrave tracks.  All mine are done by engraving, i have all my useless dwarves as engravers, some with considerable skill since i prevent parties by smoothing everything.

Its very cool to see a squad of miners blasting up the map cutting a tunnel followed 5 tiles behind by engravers smoothing and another 5 back again by track cutters.  Real community work from our dwarves who are normaly sucky at collaborating properly.  Issue with this is the jobs are not the same speed and the squads spread out.

It can be done and works, but its time consuming and designation heavy even before you get to the nightmare that is configuring your routes, stops and conditions.  I persevere though, one level now has 23 seperate track lines, i plan to move all of the levels stones to a single tile 1 step from the stair

[knutor]

Putting stone heavy tracks in, in the same patch that limited stone to twenty five percent, wasn't a very bright decision. 

Other than that, I like them.  Its very Dwarfy to have carts and tracks. 

As for minecarts, themselves changing the game for the better?  I voted #4.  Removal.  Could just be my frustration adapting to them, or my self proclaimed, very bad, lurning curve, but I cannot see a reason to have them, or a reason to use them.

Now wheelbarrels and hauling bins/barrels(if done right), improve the game. But minecarts, themselves... Debatable, at best.  Minecart omission, shows possibility.  As of right now [34.11] the code is borked.  We remove the rail, and the area once covered in rail REMAINS painted L traffic.  That to me is borked code. 

So yea, in DF's current state, removal is the very best answer.  I can think of no other, suitable reply.  Sincerely, Knutor

[Sutremaine]

This Thread explains it.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=112238.msg3405015;topicseen#msg3405015

Oh, okay then. Four ramps, each of which shuttles up and down. The second design has six ramps, in two separate helixes. If I'm reading the design correctly, there's room for a tile of flat track for each ramp. Last time I tried using a ramp-only track the only places for stops were at the very top and the very bottom. Anywhere else, and the cart would roll away as soon as it was placed.

Having your central 'staircase' also serving as your (guided!) minecart route is... moderately safe. I've had a couple of nasty accidents but no deaths. I can't say if accidents are more likely at the edges than they are at the centre, which has more places to dodge to.