I spent a lot of time making 9x9 rooms completely self sufficient and that produced one kind of item. I was going to pit all my vampires into them. Opposite corners left-right where for one or two inputs. Opposite corners right-left where for outputs (dump zone next to hole). The idea was to isolate them forever. I had sand and clay on the level I built these on so my first two prison cells produced clay and glassware with only wood as an input. This was before minecarts and before I knew how to use dfhack to just drop magma into a square.
Not only did each cell need to produce it's own food, but also alcohol and everything else. When it became obvious that there would be too many jobs for one prisoner to complete in a reasonable amount of time I started designing the cells for two, then three.
The plan was to treat the entire fortress as one large prison. Only the initial dwarfs would be free.
When I moved onto other industries the entire thing became too unwieldy and I lost interest.
Now that we have minecarts I could probably work in one-way airlocks triggered only by moving carts. One of the biggest problems was moving finished goods around. It was impossible to build cells so that everyone got what they needed dropped in from the cell above. With carts I could space everything out and all on the same level.
I think this will be my next challenge. :-)
You have a couple of options:
- continue to dump stuff in from above, but using minecart quantum stockpilers instead of manual dumping. Runs really easily once it's set up
- use one-directional minecart airlocks (hatches, or more probably doors)
- simplest method: don't have a wall all the way around your different areas, instead have spots with 1-tile holes in the floor that the minecart jumps over. This is probably easier/less space consuming to do while also making certain that there's no path from one side to another.
To elaborate on that last one, the simplest setup is something like
++#++
S=.=S
++#++
+ for floor, # for wall, S for track stop (high/highest is needed to stop a pushed cart), and . is for "open space". = are tracks, of course.
Set the western track stop as stop 1 of a hauling route, have it filled with whatever needs to go West->East, with a push order east. A push is enough to make the cart jump the hole (if you leave 1 tile of track between the stop and the hole, and remember to remove the ramp from the hole), and the contents can be dumped by the track stop on the eastern side. You can also transport stuff East->West with the same route, with a bit of extra setup.
For another example, and to show you that you can have a bit longer route if you need to, my current fort's trash incinerator:
I was just fiddling with it, so let me explain: the wooden cart is sitting on a track top that just stops it. It refills with refuse from a stockpile off-picture, then gets pushed east. The iron minecart is sitting on another track stop (lowest friction) which dumps south. The hole is filled with 2/7 lava when the incinerator is in operation (brought in by an iron minecart hauled onto the spot where the iron minecart is in the picture, by a 2nd, temporary hauling route&stop with no orders). I built the track like this, and a separating wall, because I intend to also dump stuff in there from higher up, and was afraid of magma mist splashing up from the hole (it's only a 1-z drop). The cart jumps the gap just fine, even after a turn (which do have an extra friction cost beyond normal tracks).
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Topic: Prison Fort Challenge (Read 1351 times)