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[JimboM12]

For the last couple "deep" forts I've made (10-15z reaching and sometimes merging with the first cavern), I've installed a plant drop chute, to deliver the plants grown in my above-ground farm and underground farm in the first soil layer down to the plant stockpile and brewery, ~10z or so.
Using the principles behind the mine-cart quantum stockpile and the "coinstar" danger rooms, it delivers the plants to a 1 tile stockpile set to give to a barrel-enabled stockpile. The system usually works beautifully; the plants are picked then brought to a small stockpile and dumped, and when it reaches the end a lazy peasant moping around the dining room will come and pick-up a barrel and collect the plant. At least that's how it usually happens...

But then there's the side effect. It breaks limbs and cracks skulls and, annihilates small children and cats. While I'm happy it helps keep the cats under control
and trains doctors, I'm a sad panda when it sends half my workforce to the hospital . Not to mention when Urist McCaringmother throws a fit because she blocked a falling bundle of pig tails using her baby.

So, I've come to ask suggestions as to how to make this process safer.

[StruckDown]

Featherwood minecarts might help.

[wierd]

Redundant raising bridges.

Reduntant, because there is floor underneath.

Basically, in the "drop zone", you cover up the opening the dwarves go through to get the produce with a raised bridge during the drop. This prevents them being inside.

Over the top, set a pathing penalty zone to discourage Urist McDumbass from deciding that the dropchute landing area is a great shortcut to the dining hall.

Link the drop shoot drop bridge with the same lever that blocks the landing bay access, so that on the same throw, it drops the goods and seals the room 10z down.

These measures won't prevent the adorable kittehs from deciding the death chute is a great place to play, (especially since there is a stockpile there!) But it should help keep Urist McDumbass out.

[Vattic]

I was going to post similar wierd , but I'd worry about dwarves getting locked on the wrong side of the bridge.

[Backfill]

I'm thinking a retractable bridge on the z-level above the actual stockpile.

Wait until the dumping task is done and all the stuff lands on the bridge, then pull the lever to retract the bridge and have it all harmlessly plop on the stockpile the floor down.

I dunno how the fort is laid out, but dump chutes in my forts all land in a dead-end pit dwarves have to go out of their way to be in, so never had much of problem with crap from the chute killing anybody. You could just dig a sump, where the stockpile is in it's own separate room where dorfs have to go down a thing of stairs or so to grab what they need, rather then having it fall in the middle of a busy foyer or barracks or meeting hall or whatever.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Redundant raising bridges.

Reduntant, because there is floor underneath.

Basically, in the "drop zone", you cover up the opening the dwarves go through to get the produce with a raised bridge during the drop. This prevents them being inside.

Over the top, set a pathing penalty zone to discourage Urist McDumbass from deciding that the dropchute landing area is a great shortcut to the dining hall.

Link the drop shoot drop bridge with the same lever that blocks the landing bay access, so that on the same throw, it drops the goods and seals the room 10z down.

These measures won't prevent the adorable kittehs from deciding the death chute is a great place to play, (especially since there is a stockpile there!) But it should help keep Urist McDumbass out.

Raising bridges will kill dwarves who are on the wrong tiles via atom-smashing, such as a dwarf standing on the "wall" tile.

[Catsup]

i dont think drop chutes for food are a good idea. If you use a safety hatch or bridge above the collection zone, then that will cause the food to rot if not microed frequently to drop it in. Setting it on auto with some kind of repeater represents "less" but still existing risk of masses of plants falling on dwarves.

Plant harvesting is the job of children that are normally sent to a child-smasher, there is no reason to increase the efficiency for them as they do nothing anyway (assuming you keep your dwarves occupied, no one else will harvest). In fact i've even heard suggestions in the past of making plant harvesting LESS efficient to keep your children occupied more (so they make less friends).

[Kumquat]

This is an interesting engineering problem but after a little while of pondering I think I have a solution.

Put a hatch cover on Z-1 and link it to a citizen-triggered pressure plate in the corridor that accesses it. Keep the 1-tile plant stockpile as 'take from everywhere'.

As a load of veg falls from above it'll land on the hatch. Now a free hauler will go to pick up something to deposit it in the collecting stockpile but this will trigger the pressure plate and the whole pile will fall off the hatch cover and onto the stockpile. The downside of this scheme however is the job cancellation spammage. With enough pots and stuff it is highly unlikely that this will land on anyone.

Linking another similar pressure plate on the sole approach to the stockpile itself might make the solution idiot or even dwarf-proof, so that anyone going to loot the stockpile triggers the hatch as well before reaching danger zone, although I'm not quite sure about if multiple linked pressure plates work that way.

[Catsup]

@kumquat

a interesting design but there is still the small chance that whoever going to pick up the plant gets a plant to the head from above since the hatch will likely not close in time by the time their in the collection area. This assumes of course that 1 dwarf is doing the job, and if multiple dwarves step on a plate linked to the hatch will not close at all.

A way around this may be the use of a NOT gate power by a animal (its somewhere on the wiki) linked to a second hatch and also the plate that opens the first. The hatch will be normally open for plants to drop through until the pressure plate of the first gate is active, at which it will close while the first one opens.

i havent used advanced logic gate systems but this is just an idea.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Wheelbarrows can allow only 1, 2, or 3 dwarves at a time to bring items to the stockpile.

[EBannion]

In a somewhat related note, I thought I had a necromancer invasion happening until I realised that my refuse pit garbage dump zone was in a spot that could potentially have two holes to throw refuse into, and the bones that broke a couple dwarves' legs weren't attacking them, they were dropped in the wrong hole.

Dwarves are the universe's perfect expression of Murphy's law.

[Lav]

I would suggest two retracting bridges or hatches above the chute terminal point, one on z+1 and another on z+2. Connect them to a repeater so that when upper bridge/hatch is open, the lower is always closed, and when lower is open, the upper is always closed. This way, whatever is dropped into the chute will be stopped by one of the two bridges, and whatever dwarf is taking items from the collection zone will be bombarded by items from only a single z-level drop.

Can dwarves be damaged by items that fall only one z-level? Even if they can, they will still take much less damage than they otherwise would.

[SharkForce]

why not just have a minecart route that doesn't run through occupied areas? send it down with plants, send it back up with seeds.

[Catsup]

minecart routes would work, though i still think its more work than just letting the children harvest and letting haulers haul seeds (unless you have a extremely massive farming industry with long hauling distances). Setting minecarts to guided will make them safe completely so there is no need to build another route away from your making areas of travel for the transportation (though you do need ramps for transversing Z levels).

[SuicideJunkie]

What if you were to put a water hose at the bottom of the chute?
Plants drop down, and are then pushed by the water onto a stockpile.  The water gets removed by a pump on the level above, and cycled back around to push more food around.

The drop zone should be inaccessible due to the flow, and the sideways moving food and water should not hurt the dwarves.