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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.

[Triaxx2]

I don't actually build mining cart tracks further than the stairs. The reasoning being that it's unreasonably time consuming to send an engraver down 30z just to engrave track that will get used once and forgotten. Instead, the stair case has a hollowed out area beside it, that becomes a stone stockpile with 3 wheel barrows. Then dwarves can haul all that quarried stone there, and only have to travel a short distance to the mine cart, which doesn't use wheel barrows. Then it gets sent up and by the time it's back the barrows have filled in what it emptied. One of the reasons for the double helix is that I can have two mine carts hauling up initially, which is 10 stones at a time up to the craftdwarves or masons workshops. Alternatively, if I mine into a metal vein, I can have one track continue hauling stone up to the workshops, while the second goes down to the forges, without any additional hassle.

One other thought is that Track has given us another way to train the occasionally slow moving Engraving skill that much faster to legendary, than smoothing everything. And less hazardous than if you engrave everything and suddenly realize that you need to expand, which will inevitably be straight through masterwork.

And yes, they are stone heavy, but blocks can be used for track construction as well.

[orius]

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.

That explains why the minecarts derail off the ramps that keep going down until they're leveled off to prevent punching through a cavern roof or the magma sea.

They're somewhat useful I guess for mining, but I haven't bothered much with other industries.  Minecarts have a stupid high capacity, so it takes a long time for them to fill with much of the stuff that gets produced in a fort (I assume though that people are probably setting them to be moved after a certain time period rather than a certain capacity).  It's a stupid high capacity unless boulders are taken into consideration in which case it's only 5 and people are saying in this topic that it's inefficient.  I'm thinking instead maybe the boulder themselves are just too damn big in comparison.

[Triaxx2]

One stone has a weight of 10,000. Which suggests that mine carts have a carrying capacity of 50,000. Of course this means that you've got to have quite a large crafting industry to get it filled within a relatively normal amount of time. Not that it's hard given how quickly you can produce the necessary 500 goblets.

[Sutremaine]

One stone has a volume of 10000. Actual weight is dependent on density.

Minecarts have a listed capacity of 500000 (it's in the raws). For some reason this is divided by ten to determine the container's actual capacity.

[omniclasm]

The only way I could see them being useful is if there was a way to set up a minecart elevator, in which you park it say -50z levels, and it goes up to +10z levels in the same way a well works. At least then it would be far easier to use for magma purposes, among others, and would have a benefit besides making quantum stockpiles super easy.

[gazoko]

Me and my quantum stack of logs, deep, deep underground say they are for the better.

[celem]

Yes i make good use of them now in my logging camp too.  My fort is 2x5 across mountain and forested biomes.  Tower atop main mountain fort now recieves all wood from a walled logging camp deep into the forest.  Minecarts by elevated rail.  Im not certain how many logs they carry but it fills fast enough that i dont care enough to check, works as i wanted, win.

[Hyndis]

Minecarts are like the "new" military system (even though its not quite new anymore).

They are extremely complicated and the learning curve is a vertical cliff that menaces with spikes, but once you figure out how to use them, they're amazing.

The industrial section of my fortress looks like an actual factory. I've got tracks on the floor going everywhere, minecarts being guided by dwarves all over the place, delivering goods right next to workshops. I no longer need to build large numbers of workshops to get a lot of work done. I just build a few extremely efficient workshops.

My stockpile space has also shrunk dramatically. No longer do I need to dig out huge rooms for storage. Clever usage of minecarts, stockpiles, and linking means nearly everything in the fortress is stored in quantum space.

Moving large amounts of materials long distances is also nearly instant. My lumber farms and obsidian mines can get their wood and stone to my workshops incredibly quickly and with a minimum of labor. What took 5 dwarves each a minute to do now takes only a single dwarf 15 seconds to do. Its a huge labor saving system.

Getting ammo to the frontlines can be done without endangering civilians, or blocks can be sent over to megaprojects directly from the mason workshops in the heart of the fortress. Its the closest thing a dwarf has to teleportation.



And this isn't even to speak of the nearly endless military applications of minecarts!

[WanderingKid]

One thing to note, and something I've been messing around with down in my "Mine it ALL!" layers (ahem, marble), is you can setup a route with NO TRACK (ie: no waiting) and just have one dwarf move five stones at a time.  It's relatively quick to setup a stockpile (I'd like to be able to 'copy' settings from a previous one but oh well) and I use primarily wooden minecarts.  They eventually find a track you carved earlier and can keep things moving that way.

I haven't decided if it's better or not yet, but so far it seems to be working reasonably well.  It seems to work better to have 5 dwarves carry a stone to the nearby stockpile, 5 more labors to put each stone into the cart, and have one dwarf haul the cart at the speed of a sloth then to have 5 dwarves moving at twice sloth speed, particularly when you get away from the center stair.

[wuphonsreach]

dfhack has a "copystock" command which copies whatever you have the "q" cursor over into the custom stockpile settings. 

[WanderingKid]

dfhack has a "copystock" command which copies whatever you have the "q" cursor over into the custom stockpile settings.

Handy, thanks.

[mnjiman]

Thank you to everyone who gave their input on whether or not Minecarts have been a positive or negative addition to the game.

By the looks of it what has been said so far, the majority are happy with Minecarts, while others are waiting for changes to be applied to minecarts to improve them.

[etgfrog]

I'd say we've yet to see what minecarts can really do for a fortress, if set up right, the basic minecart system can ferry materials in between workshop areas, quantum stockpile, defense in various forms and replacement for pumps...

[Azure]

Had a thought on minimizing the fuss with using minecarts in quarries/high z-volume tree farms

Have each z-level have a fleet of wheelbarrows to lug the materials to the central drop shaft.
set minecart track right by stockpile. make 5+ routes. have a track stop dump into drop shaft.
Put a drop shaft near the center of each z-levels quarry/tree farm punching all the way to the distribution center+1.all the goods should land on a hatch cover.
Periodically flip the hatch, unlock the access door and have a ton of minecart routes shooting supplies up to the fort via powered rail.
This'd let you do minimal work even if it's a 40+ z-level quarry/tree farm. You'd only have to set up one track to the main fort and let you keep a bunch of dedicated raildwarves to keep the fort supplied with rock and wood.

[Sutremaine]

if set up right, the basic minecart system can ferry materials in between workshop areas, quantum stockpile, defense in various forms and replacement for pumps...

Both for fluid transportation and fluid logic.