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[Hyndis]

You could just build a ramp from one level to another. So long as a cart is being guided it will not fly out of control. To prevent a cart from flying out of control build a spiral ramp with alcoves in the wall, so if a cart does get out of control, it only goes down one level and then stops in the alcove.

Only carts being pushed or ridden can get out of control.

While a guided cart can possibly get out of control, this only happens if the dwarf is suddenly stopped from guiding the cart. I've only ever seen this happen if the dwarf is arrested for not meeting some insane demand while the dwarf is in the process of pushing the cart.

[doublestrafe]

link it to a hatch just above the landing zone and to an inverter[see wiki]

Um...I'm looking through the wiki, and I don't know what you're referring to. I don't see anything called an "inverter". There's a couple uses of the word in an article on building logic circuits, but it doesn't say what it is or how to build it, and it's described with sentences like "transmission gate logic can be accomplished by simply having an infinite water source in place of all +Vs, and infinite drainage for all grounds," which means absolutely nothing to me. Can you give me a more specific pointer?

[SharkForce]

link it to a hatch just above the landing zone and to an inverter[see wiki]

Um...I'm looking through the wiki, and I don't know what you're referring to. I don't see anything called an "inverter". There's a couple uses of the word in an article on building logic circuits, but it doesn't say what it is or how to build it, and it's described with sentences like "transmission gate logic can be accomplished by simply having an infinite water source in place of all +Vs, and infinite drainage for all grounds," which means absolutely nothing to me. Can you give me a more specific pointer?

an inverter is an electrical component that "inverts" a signal (ie changes 1 to 0, and 0 to 1). in dwarven terms, you want it to convert "triggered" to "not triggered".

for the sake of argument, suppose you have a device, Y, which you wish to always be turned on except for when a pressure plate, A, is triggered.

to accomplish this, you need a second pressure plate, B, which has something on top of it (water up to a certain depth is a reasonably easy solution... although also a potential source of FUN if you're not careful). B is the pressure plate which you actually connect to device Y. pressure plate A is, in fact, connected to a pair of doors, floodgates, hatches, or some mixture of those things. pressure plate B is in a small reservoir with both a drainage and filling end, blocked off at the drainage end by a floodgate, and always open at filling end. the filling end needs to have some sort of drainage area which water will flow to first instead of reaching the reservoir if that drainage are was open (this could be the same as the drainage area for the reservoir or not, it doesn't really matter, so long as it has infinite draining capacity). pressure plate A controls the floodgate/door/hatch which would allow water to drain away from the reservoir, as well as the floodgate/door/hatch which will drain water away before it can reach the reservoir with pressure plate B in it. as a result, stepping on pressure plate A will release the water from your reservoir containing pressure plate B, and will also prevent more water from reaching pressure plate B. the size of the reservoir can also be used to create a delay; if, for example, you have a pressure plate B set to function at 4/7 water or more, the reservoir must first drain to 4/7 before B deactivates (and the larger the reservoir is, the longer that takes). you could also use the diagonal trick (ie depressurize the water) to slow down the process further, if you wanted.

and that is how you make an inverter.

[doublestrafe]

Oh! So it's the name for the thing I came up with in my second reply in this topic. Way better name than "toilet tank."

[GreatWyrmGold]

Here's an idea I had:

Put a hatch 1 z-level above the bottom. Have a pressure plate on the only path to the QS, linked to the hatch. Better yet, replace the hatch with a retracting bridge.
When a dwarf comes to grab stuff, he'll trigger the stuff to drop. If you use a bridge, the 100-tick drop should save the dwarf, otherwise, the short distance will minimize injury. Also, make sure that it's worthless hauler dwarves and not the smiths who are moving the stuff.

[Reese]

Oh! So it's the name for the thing I came up with in my second reply in this topic. Way better name than "toilet tank."

Yeah, sorry, I was a bit rushed making the last reply.

Anyway, the idea is that the door closes about 100 ticks before the hatch opens, sealing off the area and preventing dwarf access; this should also minimize the likelihood that a dwarf would be on the target square AND it doesn't rely on dwarfs fetching stuff from the pile (which would break if the pile gets empty)

also a thing: don't work directly from the quantum pile, have a small stockpile directly next to the work shops that takes from the quantum pile and has a wheelbarrow assigned, that will keep your skilled dwarfs from having to enter the dangerous area (remove stone hauling tasks or assign them to a burrow that does not include the drop zone) and the dwarfs that do have to enter it will leave the target square faster thanks to the wheelbarrow.

[doublestrafe]

After three failed attempts, I finally got the pressure plate-in-the-path solution working. The plate is 19 steps away, so even my fastest dwarves shouldn't be able to reach the pile before it dumps. The only way anyone can get hurt, the way I see it, is if someone else triggers the plate while someone else is on the pile AND someone is dumping from above. That really, really shouldn't happen. And if it does, it's unlikely enough that it'll make a decent story, especially since stone dropped from 60z up is enough to cause dwarfsplosions. I mean, the first two deaths were before I knew that things-falling-on-your-head damage had been implemented, so rocks were landing in a narrow chamber between the workshops and the downstairs booze pile...

And yeah, the workshops have stockpiles that draw from the QS. I figured that out while I was working on making sure they don't haul the stone all the way back up to the upstairs ones.