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[Drazinononda]

Now, I need to go retest this, but it was possible to setup a minecart with no track down in the mining area, get it loaded, and have a dorf just path it straight up the stairway system via guide.  So yes, I have gotten some pretty good use out of guided carts.  Just without rails of any kind.

That's not guiding, that's carrying.

[WanderingKid]

Now, I need to go retest this, but it was possible to setup a minecart with no track down in the mining area, get it loaded, and have a dorf just path it straight up the stairway system via guide.  So yes, I have gotten some pretty good use out of guided carts.  Just without rails of any kind.

That's not guiding, that's carrying.

True, but still happy with 5:1 ratio of moving rocks. 

[WanderingKid]

Now, I need to go retest this, but it was possible to setup a minecart with no track down in the mining area, get it loaded, and have a dorf just path it straight up the stairway system via guide.  So yes, I have gotten some pretty good use out of guided carts.  Just without rails of any kind.

That's not guiding, that's carrying.

True, but I'm happy enough with the 5:1 rock carrying ratio. 

[callisto8413]

1. Tried to program a track - could not really figure it out.

2. And when I did realize what they did - realized that they really were not useful due to the nature of how I had designed my Fortress. 

Stockpiles for raw material, workshops, and piles dealing with finished products were just not THAT far part.  I always have secondary workstations, kitchens, dining rooms, hospitals being added as I go deeper.  There is always stockpiles and shops near the mining areas - tracks and minecarts become less and LESS useful as the Fortress matures.  You might say that 'minor' Fortresses are created every few levels down - so miners don't have to go all the way up to their bedrooms and quarters.  Planned, or otherwise, that's what happens.  Even without barrows I get a populace that ends up spending much of its life either on the surface, just under the surface in the older chambers (with glass roofs and windows), or working its way deeper and deeper into the earth. And minecarts just never enter into it.   

[Sutremaine]

Minecarts are much better for horizontally-built fortress. With those you can push the minecarts between areas with long walking distances, but with the more efficient vertically-built fortress you have to guide the minecart through the short connecting route you made on the way down. This'd be alright if dwarves weren't occasionally incapable of dodging guided carts on ramps.

[chris_strain]

I tend to ignore them when my fort is small. Once I start getting over 60 dorfs I'll use them to reduce hauler usage. In a fort with horizontal sprawl I'll use them to move materials across the fort instead of bunching all my industries together. On more compact vertical forts I'll build in a small spiral ramp with powered rollers to quickly shunt things up from below. I always use rollers powered by one for or another so my haulers only have to load the cart and give it a kick. I never have them guide/ride the carts.

[TripJack]

only really use them for magma moving myself

[Krevsin]

I use them for spraying enemies with magma and when I design modular fortresses. I find them incredibly useful for hauling purposes if I design the fortress with minecart hauling in mind.

[Porpoisepower]

Really useful, for hauling materials between stockpiles and shops. For mining operations, it may be neccessary to build staging stock piles. As you go.  Carving track is actually really fast... and doesn't require any metals you might want to make into other things.

[SuicideJunkie]

I only really use minecarts as garbage trucks.  (and magma hauling)

Dorfs swarm the goblinite grinder and toss all the tailings into a minecart along with all the worn socks.
Once full, somebody gives it a push, and it rolls along over to the shaft down to the magma sea for incineration.
I've got a timed pressure plate on the track so that the safety hatch at the bottom of the shaft opens just as the items are incoming, and then closes up to prevent invasions.