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[flameaway]

So I was messing about with non newtonian minecarts stuff and I wanted to see if I could build 3x3 elevator that will move a cart up an arbitrary number of z-levels.

Works great. 

But it's probably more useful in other ways.

Basic idea is to use only track ramps with impulse ramps orthogonal to the central stairshaft and use the corner ramps to move up a z-level and redirect the cart 90 degrees.

A typical level looks like this:

NE = NE track Ramp
X = Central Up/Down stairwell

NE NE SW
      X

There is always a channeled opening over the corner track ramps. None over the others.

The designation will rotate around the central shaft in 90 degree increments in the direction you want the cart to go.

Note: corners must connect correctly - that is, the track must actually go around the corner, or the thing won't work.

You can wire it up a whole bunch of different ways. Spin a cart three quarters of the way around on one z-level for example.

Pretty useful.

Starts getting interesting when you recycle the same cart by dropping it back down to the bottom and into the circuit again...

Cycles really fast.

But the really cool thing is that you can jam more than one cart in there.  Instead of an elevator you have a rotating magazine.  Like a gatling gun. I'm still messing about with this thing but it looks like one cart per z-level works most smoothly.  (game starts acting weird when you jam too many carts in,  I ended up with a cart that endlessly rubber banded to the same position.  The thing was dangerous. It killed a dwarf before I could forbid it)
 
I put a meeting hall zone in front of a four level magazine with two empty lead mine carts spinning and tossed the mine carts through about twenty dwarves.  Impressive carnage.  Tossed the mine carts over fifty tiles with no track. (carts consistently follow the same path on multiple firings. Interestingly the path is not perfectly straight.  On my practice range the cart shifted one tile left during it's path to the edge of the map.  That's one tile left on a magazine that cycles a cart clockwise through it's machinery across a fifty tile range.  Haven't tested yet to see if a counter-clockwise magazine wanders to the right.  Interesting vector stuff happening though.)

Currently setting one up to fire rock blocks through a fortification.  Since these things have a small footprint within a single z-level, you can set them up like seige engines.  Three in a diagonal line will cover a three wide entry hallway. (won't path as open to wagons, but will to theives... and elves.    )

How about seige engines that you can control from a lever in the dining hall and that fire multi shot bursts...

(How many blocks does a mine cart hold anyway?)  Take that times the number of carts in one magazine, then times three...  I bet it comes up to a lot of blunt object damage.

{Caveat.  If a dwarf wanders into an operating magazine... It'll mix master 'em.  Then all the little friends that follow along to pick up the copper pick the first dwarf dropped.  I sat and watched it kill about twenty of my dwarves.  Yes, I was laughing.}

Plus you can put these things in a corner, unlike a siege engine.

BTW.  The magazine ejects the cart on a parabolic arc.  You can put a diverter plate at the top to keep the cart on the exit level.

Or you can also use it as a mortar to fire over your own walls into the gobbos.  Put a hatch there and you can do either one.

Another BTW.

If a cart is left on the track before the thing starts up - they endlessly swap positions, like a newton's cradle.  Might be handy if you were trying to create a water gun that only used one cart but cycled fairly quickly. (water pumped directly into a magazine kills it.)  I start and stop mine with a 1x1 bridge over the recycle channel.

I'm not DF adept enough yet to load this thing on the fly.  I'm setting up a cart loading station.

What I'd really like to do is hook one of these things to an aquifer and see how fast it pumps water.

Yet another BTW.

Since this thing costs essentially nothing to build, (I set one up before summer after embarking) and there seems to be no decernible loss of FPS why not leave one running as the single tile wide entrance into your fort.  This thing will eat an entire seige.  The magazine paths as open... Once gobbos stop being gobbos and become bodies, the carts stop hitting them.  So bodies pile up endlesslly.  Quantum graveyard...

Final BTW

This exploit is gonna be nerfed.

*Edit:

I forgot to mention that while I was playing with this magazine I came up with a repeater that cycles every nine ticks.  I haven't started into Dwarfputing yet.  (Until last week, I thought it was dwarfputting - that would be fun.) So I'm not really able to test it intelligently.

To get the repeater just counterpoise two impulse track ramps. For example a NE firing into a SE will do the trick.  For longer repeats, a regular track of arbitrary length can be placed between them (not tested, drag would probably overcome the accerleration provided by the impulse track ramps).  Cheap 'n easy.  I haven't actually tried to put pressure plates on the thing.  I just watched it cycle and drooled with delight.   Not really even sure if pressure plates will be able to detect the cart (I'm guessing the cart doesn't even touch the tracks), in which case it would be useful as a back and forth gobbo smasher.  Lots of hits, happening with a cart that can't derail.

EDIT #2

Okay trying to post a DF live record of a test shot. Not having any success.  Could use some help from someone familiar doing so. 

It might be that I'm not allowed to post attachments because my account is brand new.

Here's a text map of the layout I put together to show you folks.

hh = channel/open space
X   = central stairway
xx = wall
cf = constructed floor (the diverter plate, placement is crucial)
Capitalized directions are indicated track ramps.

z-2

SW
NE  NE SW
       X

z-1

hh
xx   xx  hh
N     X   SE
NW SW NW

hh
NE  X
hh

z+1

hh
cf (directly above NE ramp below)
hh

I put a wall on either side of the ramps at z0 (one of the walls covers the down stairway into the machine to prevent dwarven casualties.  A single tile bridge goes over the northern-most channel, with a floodgate directly to the north of that. Hook up the bridge to a lever, same with flood gate.  Use the route menu to designate a minecart to the route/stop you create on the single tile bridge.

Pull the bridge lever, watch the thing spin.

Pull the flood gate lever, watch the cart fly.

Closing the bridge re-enables the track stop and a dwarf will safely collect the minecart/projectile and restore it to the bridge. (as long as the floodgate remains open, the path into the machine is covered by a wall)

This is a three level version, because I'm sitting on an aquifer that I haven't broached yet.  So I moved the cart all the way around to its desired course in one z - level (z-1). However, if you build a deeper one you can follow the one direction change per z-level that I described in my first post.

Someone please build one of these and verify, since I guess I can't upload video or images yet. Very easy to set up.  Needs a floodgate, six mechanisms, a few rocks and a bit of time.

Edit #3

I'd like to thank everyone for their patience while I learned how to use the internet.

 http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2481-earliermagazinebuild

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2479-magazinetest

These are two different builds.  I happened to have a movie of my original test run of two carts going into a 'magazine'.

No firing sequence for the two minecart movie, sorry.  Works the same as the second movie just with double the carts.

[Sutremaine]

So what you've got here is a long spiral-shaped track with just enough flat bits to support acceleration ramps?

[Nopkar]

I believe you sir have just made the first true dwarven blender/siege engine...Internet for you

[flameaway]

"So what you've got here is a long spiral-shaped track with just enough flat bits to support acceleration ramps?"

Pretty much, although, the route is not really spiral shaped unless you are using it as an elevator.  When you path the cart back down onto an impulse ramp firing into the circuit it becomes like one of those Crazy straws, if the straw's ends connected to each other.

So if you set it up as a magazine, like I described, the cart just runs through the track endlessly.  Until you pull the trigger, or a goblin steps on a pressure plate.

I didn't describe any of the firing infrastructure because it''s straight forward.  Put a floodgate as 'the wall' the cart hits before it drops back down into the machines guts.  Open the floodgate and the cart/s path over the recycle channel and out into the goblins.  You can also path the cart across the machine at the top - like across the stairway that runs down into the machine.

It's also very, er... energetic.  Build one and watch it work.  Put a lever at the bottom somewhere off the track path, order it pulled and watch one cart kill your entire fortress.  After its all said and done, the cart will still be spinning. Good way to get rid of annoying legendary cheesemakers and other worthless gits noble dwarves.

[Nopkar]

I have yet to really mess with carts but I'd love a short video tutorial.

I'm almost certain I understand the concept but reinforcement never hurt anyone.

[Sutremaine]

I built something slightly similar in that it abuses the properties of corner ramps to get more travel out of a minecart, but it still uses powered rollers. That one was forced into a spiral shape to make the power supply more efficient, but corner ramps don't really care what their overall arrangement is so long as they connect to their neighbours.

That one splattered a lot of dwarves during the initial testing and building. The cart moves at one tick per level for most of the trip and falls back to the bottom via the access stairwell, and that makes for rather a mess if somebody gets the bright idea to try and haul the cart.

Edit again: "That one was forced into a spiral shape to make the power supply more efficient"... Well, it doesn't need to be a 2x2 spiral from top to bottom, so long as the rollers can be placed so they're next to the 1x1 power shaft. But 'spiral-shaped' is more descriptive than 'crazy-straw-shaped'.

[flameaway]

I'll set up a quick magazine at the embark I'm using now.

Then I'll see if I can figure out how to upload video of the magazine in action.

I just figured out how to use the DF record function (never really needed it before)  However, whenever I play back a video it is really jumpy and hard to watch.  Is this typical or just because I have a crappy computer? (serious question, I don't want to post a buggy piece of crap video)

To learn how to use minecarts start with a stretch of track with a wall running along one side.  put different ramps down and have a handy dwarf give a push and observe the different effects. Setting up routing is a bit difficult at first but simple enough if you just start with one stop and a stretch of track.

Another thing that helps is to realize the the naming of the ramps is a bit odd, at least to me, but perfectly logical.  So a NE ramp comes from the north and pushes to the east. But it only pushes if a wall is to the north.  Otherwise it just moves the cart around an eastward corner and up if there is an opening.

[CaptApollo12]

I made 3 water thrower repeaters that took water from a river and threw it at my 3 wide entrance. You can make a wagon entrance using a minecart defence btw, but I am more interested in the possibility to completely isolate myself from the outside while still having windmill power. Because minecarts can move through gear assemblys you could have a series of deadly gold minecarts spinning at high velocitys in circles to smash into any trapavoid flying building destroyer that tries to path into your fortress from above. Of coarse the windmills will be destroyed in that case, requiring maybe two areas to draw power from with a preferable path between them filled with the minecarts.

[Eoganachta]

PTW.
Could you upload images of the set up? Something like this needs to be added to the wiki.

[CaptApollo12]

Myself or OP? The wiki has really basic stuff I know.

[flameaway]

I edited my original post, including a ASCII map of the build I did as a demonstration.

I guess I'm not able to upload actual images or movies yet. Either that or I simply don't understand how to use the features on this message board.

Really it could be either one...

[Sutremaine]

This message board doesn't do attachments. You have to put the file somewhere else and then link to it.

[flameaway]

Ah okay, let me see what I can do. That will make things a lot easier.  Frustrating to have to do ASCII maps.

Ah! I just found DF Map Archive.

I'll figure out how to post there and link here.

Thanks for the tip.

[flameaway]

Okay here is a movie of my magazine setup and the firing of a single wooden minecart.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2479-magazinetest

{put this in my original post}

[zubb2]

Wow thats cool.

I used somthing similer to this for minecraft.

The one in minecraft could't be used to destroy entire seiges though, just an elavator.

Very neat stuff, I never have the patience for things like this.

All the socks to you.