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[Pinstar]

In my current fort, I'm finding a severe lack of weapons-grade metals...thus far only finding veins of zinc and lead.

That has me thinking of alternative strategies for defenses (besides marksdwarves).

Reading on the wiki that lead minecarts are really freaking heavy and thus really deadly...I have determined that I want to use minecart based weaponry.
I have *never* worked with minecarts before, so this is all new to me. So I have some minecart newbie questions.

1. How many z-levels of a ramp would an empty lead minecart need to travel down to reach really good killing power? Can rollers be used to decrease the height needed?
2. Is there a way to tie several minecarts to a switch so all I would need to do is throw a lever and all the minecarts would speed down their ramps?
3. Would it be possible to have a melee dwarf (decked out in arms and armor) be a passenger riding one of these minecarts, letting the minecart mow down foes and come to a safe stop at the end without harming the soldier (so he can pop out and finish off any survivors?). If so, how would I command them to ride the minecart down?
4. Can a caravan travel along constructed minecart tracks? (Presumeably without deadly lead minecarts zooming down them)
5. If a Minecart is traveling at high speed and the track they are running under suddenly stops for a few squares and then resumes in the same direction, will they continue their forward movement without crashing or spilling their contents.
6. If a minecart hits a creature with a passenger inside it, will it stop and hurl the passenger out? What if it is full of materials?
7. Does the weight of carried materials impact the deadliness of a minecart for the purposes of running foes over (not for using it as a shotgun)
8. If there is debris on a minecart track (body parts, weapons/armor/corpses) will they derail a mining cart or be knocked out of the way? (or ignored)?
9. Can a dwarf guide a minecart back up a heavy incline if given enough time to push it?
10. Is it possible to put living non-dwarf passengers in carts (Cats? Captured goblins?)

[Andrakon]

1. How many z-levels of a ramp would an empty lead minecart need to travel down to reach really good killing power? Can rollers be used to decrease the height needed?

1. 3-4 z-levels of ramps would work for good killing power and a roller could do it from the same z-level with no ramps at all. A good idea is have a long hallway that serves as your entrance that you can run the minecart through constantly and have rollers in there somewhere. And have your dwarves in a burrow so they don't try to path through the area. You would probably want a way to collect the minecart when you throw a switch. Usually a hatch over a hole on the track somewhere can do this.

2. Is there a way to tie several minecarts to a switch so all I would need to do is throw a lever and all the minecarts would speed down their ramps?

2. Yes I did this recently. Put your minecarts each on their own hatched open hole 1 z-level over a ramp with tracks on it. Give each minecart their own route and stop in the H menu and put the stops on top of the hatches. Empty out the stops push conditions completely so it is blank. Assign the cart to the stop with v. The dwarves will haul the cart on top of the hatch, make sure you connected the hatches to their triggers before you do this. You can have the lever hooked up to all of them if they are far enough apart, or you can have it open the first one and then allow that minecart to run over a pressure plate after a few tracks that activates the next one and so on and so on. I prefer to do it that way so the spacing between carts is well managed.

3. Would it be possible to have a melee dwarf (decked out in arms and armor) be a passenger riding one of these minecarts, letting the minecart mow down foes and come to a safe stop at the end without harming the soldier (so he can pop out and finish off any survivors?). If so, how would I command them to ride the minecart down?

3. Doable but you don't want to drop the cart down any z-levels. When you set up the route and stop (under H) you can find a option to push, or ride in the cart. Good luck making sure the proper dwarf actually gets in the cart though. You are more likely to get some random civilian in there.

4. Can a caravan travel along constructed minecart tracks? (Presumeably without deadly lead minecarts zooming down them)

4. A caravans wagon will not pass tracks but they will pass bridges. You can use a bridge as a track for short distances.

5. If a Minecart is traveling at high speed and the track they are running under suddenly stops for a few squares and then resumes in the same direction, will they continue their forward movement without crashing or spilling their contents.

5. I think the minecart could spill its contents but only if it is going really really fast. But you don't need to go that fast to make a minecart deadly. However filling it with xXSocksXx and intentionally making it spill its contents onto a siege can make a nice shotgun! XD

6. If a minecart hits a creature with a passenger inside it, will it stop and hurl the passenger out? What if it is full of materials?

6. There is a cart stop that you can build on the track. It can make the cart dump its contents whenever you want.

7. Does the weight of carried materials impact the deadliness of a minecart for the purposes of running foes over (not for using it as a shotgun)

7. Yes weight does affect the deadlyness but a lead minecart would be fine by itself. A wood minecart would be less deadly but probably still work most of the time.

8. If there is debris on a minecart track (body parts, weapons/armor/corpses) will they derail a mining cart or be knocked out of the way? (or ignored)?

8. From experience i know that debree on the track seems to be ignored. No need to worry about that giant mountain of rotten goblin corpses on the track lol!

9. Can a dwarf guide a minecart back up a heavy incline if given enough time to push it?

9. Yes but if you use an impulse ramp or several of them the cart can go up the ramps no problem. I got carts going from magma level to the surface with no power needed.

10. Is it possible to put living non-dwarf passengers in carts (Cats? Captured goblins?)

10. No idea actually :p

Hope I helped! Also look into impulse ramps, they are free propulsion that are easy to make that requires no power.

[Merendel]

10. Is it possible to put living non-dwarf passengers in carts (Cats? Captured goblins?)

10. No idea actually :p

You could do it if said passengers are in cages.  Unfortunatly your really just flinging the cages at the enemy, there just happens to be a passenger in the cage.  Otherwise no, no way to put a non dwarf in the cart in anything but pieces.

[vanatteveldt]

WanderingKid has some videos up where he shows a very intricate minecart system with automatic timing, safety stop, and a system to put carts back on track if they're thrown off after hitting an enemy (his track is on a ledge above magma to make sure undead stay dead). Very good watch:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129994.msg4606086#msg4606086 (plus earlier posts that show the design process)

[jcochran]

So far, no one in this thread has mentioned the ultimate method of using a minecart as a weapon .... impulse ramps.

With impulse ramps, you don't need to drop the minecart any Z levels to get up to absolutely insane speeds (about 2.7 tiles per tick) and moving along at that kind of speed, any minecart makes for a very deadly object. And no power needed.

[BoredVirulence]

So far, no one in this thread has mentioned the ultimate method of using a minecart as a weapon .... impulse ramps.

Pretty sure its because, lets be honest, its cheating. Its like how some people prefer not to use danger rooms.

Although, he makes a point. To me, its like a danger room, everyone should play with it once at least to see how laughably effective it is.

[Larix]

3. Would it be possible to have a melee dwarf (decked out in arms and armor) be a passenger riding one of these minecarts, letting the minecart mow down foes and come to a safe stop at the end without harming the soldier (so he can pop out and finish off any survivors?). If so, how would I command them to ride the minecart down?

Not in any realistic fashion. "Push vehicle" (which includes riding) is a civilian job, so you'd have to carefully restrict access to the carts to your squad, put them off duty when you want the cart pushed and mobilise them while in the cart so they won't - as civilians - run in panic from enemies upon arrival. And you'd have to hope they didn't hit any particularly large foes. In my experience, carts colliding with heavy creatures can sometimes lose their "cargo"; a rider thrown out of the cart like this suffers one 'collision' attack, which is frequently harmless, but can with some bad luck incapacitate or outright kill.

4. Can a caravan travel along constructed minecart tracks? (Presumeably without deadly lead minecarts zooming down them)

No. Tracks are among the things that are counted as caravan obstacles. Carts can roll over bridges without further friction (they get treated as straight track) and caravans can use bridges, so you can simply replace a bit of straight track with a bridge and the caravan can pass the route. Carts will roll over ordinary floor in a straight line, too, but will lose speed fairly fast.

9. Can a dwarf guide a minecart back up a heavy incline if given enough time to push it?

A dwarf guiding a minecart moves at normal walking speed. They can push a cart right up a hundred-level ramp without slowing down, with complete disregard of the cart's weight. EDIT: the dwarf will only properly _guide_ the cart if there's an unbroken track connection on the route. If not, they will _haul_ the cart, which is an abominably slow process.

When working with autonomous carts, always remember to have an 'off' switch. That's quite simple when using rollers, but really needs remembering before building anything based on impulse ramps. Retracting bridges, doors, track stops and hatches can all be used to catch an errant minecart that won't stop by itself.

[Pinstar]

So far, no one in this thread has mentioned the ultimate method of using a minecart as a weapon .... impulse ramps.

Pretty sure its because, lets be honest, its cheating. Its like how some people prefer not to use danger rooms.

Although, he makes a point. To me, its like a danger room, everyone should play with it once at least to see how laughably effective it is.

This is my line of thinking too. I don't like cheating and exploiting bugs.

What would happen in this setup

M|                                                <----z+1
~__=====|     |======             <----z


M: Minecart over hatch
~: Powered Roller
__: Lowered bridge
=:Normal track
|     |=3 tile wide road

Lever linked to hatch and bridge which would open the hatch and bridge with the pull of the lever.
What I'm unsure of is
1. How many rollers would I need to get the cart up to killing speed?
2. What happens when it hits the 3 trackless, but otherwise flat, road tiles?
3. Would my dwarves automatically haul the released minecart back into position? Or would I have to manually rebuild it?
4. How many tiles past the road would the cart remain a deadly projectile?
5. Would having/not having those track tiles on the opposite side of the road impact its effectiveness as a weapon?

[jcochran]

Lever linked to hatch and bridge which would open the hatch and bridge with the pull of the lever.
What I'm unsure of is
1. How many rollers would I need to get the cart up to killing speed?

Not gonna happen unless your foes are quite weak. The maximum speed you'll get from rollers is 50,000 (100,000 is one tile/tick). The speed you can get from rollers isn't even enough to derail the minecart if it hits a curve. Mind, even an extremely fast minecart (approx 250,000 or so) isn't a one shot kill of a forgotten beast or other megabeast. So whatever method you decide to work with, expect a need to hit 'em multiple times in rapid succession. If you wish to avoid impulse ramps, then make your weapon quite tall having the minecarts travel down multiple ramps until they hit bottom, then smash into the foes. Use rollers to get the minecarts back to the top where they can do it again.

2. What happens when it hits the 3 trackless, but otherwise flat, road tiles?

It acts as if those three tiles have 200 friction each (for comparison, a track segment has 10 friction. A "low friction" track stop has 50, and a "medium friction" track stop has 500.)

3. Would my dwarves automatically haul the released minecart back into position? Or would I have to manually rebuild it?

Ick. That depends. If you have just one minecart and have a route defined for that minecart, then yes, the dwarves will haul it back. But if you have multiple minecarts, then you can't use a route definition and the dwarves won't haul it back. In fact, if the minecart isn't forbidden, it's quite possible that the dwarves will haul the minecart to the nearest stockpile capable of holding minecarts.

4. How many tiles past the road would the cart remain a deadly projectile?

That depends entirely upon how weak the foe is. How fast the minecart is moving. And how lucky you are are regards the RNG.

5. Would having/not having those track tiles on the opposite side of the road impact its effectiveness as a weapon?

How about you build something and find out?

[Larix]

Lever linked to hatch and bridge which would open the hatch and bridge with the pull of the lever.

Hmm, bridges either raise or retract when receiving an 'on' signal. To start/stop a cart on a single lever flip, the easiest way would be to set it on an active roller pushing against a lever-operated door. When the door is closed, the cart stays in place, once the door opens, the cart goes through. If you want extra safety against building destroyers, use a raising bridge instead of a door to hold back the cart. It will take longer to react to a lever pull, but can't be smashed by angry trolls (although a troll smashing your door and getting a face full of minecart for its trouble isn't exactly unwelcome).

1. How many rollers would I need to get the cart up to killing speed?

Roller length is largely irrelevant, to accelerate a cart to the roller's nominal speed, a single tile is enough. "Highest" speed is already the default setting. As long as you use heavy carts, the effect on not-gargantuan creatures should be decent. A heavyweight cart often sends smaller/lighter opponents flying, which can cause all kinds of nasty damage, but with roller-accelerated carts, you usually need a bunch of hits to wear down a foe.

2. What happens when it hits the 3 trackless, but otherwise flat, road tiles?

It passes in a straight line. As far as i know, possible passengers or cargo should stay in the cart. The cart will experience more deceleration on non-track tiles, but the effect will be comparatively small when looking at a mere three tiles.

3. Would my dwarves automatically haul the released minecart back into position? Or would I have to manually rebuild it?

As soon as a minecart stops, dwarfs will go and drag it to an appropriate route stop. They will not check if that location is actually safe for placing a minecart - they might place it on an active roller or throw it into the hole under an open hatch cover.

4. How many tiles past the road would the cart remain a deadly projectile?
5. Would having/not having those track tiles on the opposite side of the road impact its effectiveness as a weapon?

With a max speed roller, friction isn't a big issue. The cart could go over 1000 tiles (a complete embark map is about 200 long/wide) in a straight line along track, about 60 tiles over non-track floor.

And i agree with jcochran - build it and try it out. Building things is always much more fun (or FUN, or !!fun!!) than just talking about them.

[Bumber]

2. Yes I did this recently. Put your minecarts each on their own hatched open hole 1 z-level over a ramp with tracks on it. Give each minecart their own route and stop in the H menu and put the stops on top of the hatches.

Wouldn't minecart stockpiles work just as well? Less clutter in the route menu.

[WanderingKid]

Thanks for the shout out Van.

Minecart weapon systems have a number of inherit problems.  The first one is... they hit things.  A mine cart that hits things will, eventually, stop unless power is constantly applied (via roller, gravity, or impulse ramp, which is a gravity trick).  That's problem one.

Problem two is building destroyers (particularly titans/megas) like to EAT rollers, and won't get in the way of your carts when they do it if they do it from the side.

Problem three is you need to make it self-returning, so that the same cart constantly paths else you end up with a one shot wonder that probably won't hit much.

Without impulse ramps, it's VERY difficult, if nigh impossible, to keep yourself protected from problems one and two.

If you're looking for a bug-free way to use minecart weapons, rams are out, water shotguns are out (that's a bug too, afaik), magma dumpers are out (enemies won't path over magma)... well, you can't, not really.  If you're careful about usage roller-driven minecarts along the entire pathing with return tracks that you only allow standard sieges into would work.  Be careful about your dwarves love of goblinite though, they LOVE to get into those places.

[Snaake]

Thanks for the shout out Van.

Minecart weapon systems have a number of inherit problems.  The first one is... they hit things.  A mine cart that hits things will, eventually, stop unless power is constantly applied (via roller, gravity, or impulse ramp, which is a gravity trick).  That's problem one.

Problem two is building destroyers (particularly titans/megas) like to EAT rollers, and won't get in the way of your carts when they do it if they do it from the side.

Problem three is you need to make it self-returning, so that the same cart constantly paths else you end up with a one shot wonder that probably won't hit much.

Without impulse ramps, it's VERY difficult, if nigh impossible, to keep yourself protected from problems one and two.

If you're looking for a bug-free way to use minecart weapons, rams are out, water shotguns are out (that's a bug too, afaik), magma dumpers are out (enemies won't path over magma)... well, you can't, not really.  If you're careful about usage roller-driven minecarts along the entire pathing with return tracks that you only allow standard sieges into would work.  Be careful about your dwarves love of goblinite though, they LOVE to get into those places.

I'd say it's more like ramming has limited use, but you'll definitely need a multi-cart system, and a multi-z ramp down to get speed if you're not using impulse ramps (which will probably get fixed sooner or later). Ramping it down a few z isn't actually any harder than impulse ramps, most people just prefer the latter even for initial speed buildup because it's nice to have your design on one 1 z-level, I guess. Of course for keeping the minecart at high speed while on the grinder, you need them (or rollers, which are vulnerable to building destroyers, as noted above).

Minecarts could be used to dump magma into a "drowning chamber" type entrance, but of course it's a slower process than just retracting a bridge above and doing it instantly. You could make goblins cower in terror as the non-magma floor space of a room slowly shrinks around them... I don't really know what you mean with a "magma dumper", WanderingKid?

And yes, water shotguns are a bug/exploit, but other ammo can still be quite deadly. Like serrated disks (green glass for mass production), or double shotguns with 100 cave crocs or >200 cave crocs + saltwater crocs (if you're really lucky with animals). The problem with them is the long time it takes to load, but what's stopping you from loading an entire magazine full in advance. It's not a doomsday weapon that'll eradicate an entire troupe of clown in seconds, but it's definitely still deadly enough for regular invaders.

[vanatteveldt]

Without impulse ramps, it's VERY difficult, if nigh impossible, to keep yourself protected from problems one and two.

Ultimately, the challenge in dwarf fortress is your own. Whether using a game features is an exploit or a feat of engineering is a fairly subjective question, since it depends on some sort of view of what is 'intended' by the developer (or Armok himself). Many people shun cage traps (or at leads corridors full of them) because they are perceived as overeffective and take some of the challenge. Similarly, the invulnerability of constructed walls and raised bridges are seen by some as too easy or even an exploit against building destroyers (who seem designed to be able to knock down odors). OTOH, many people are fine with using dfhack features if they are seen as 'fixing' some bug such as ghostly merchants and hospital overstocking.

Personally, I think many of the minecart designs I see people proposing are great feats of dwarven engineering. Solving the riddle of "an effective minecart grinder without impulse ramps" is another interesting engineering challenge. And frankly, if that makes the system less invulnerable/automatic, I would see that as a good thing in most fortresses, just another source of fun to be had.

(then again, in the single pick challenge the whole point is seeing if we can flourish in a seemingly impossible embark. Sources of fun are not exactly scarce, there :-). Trying a "single pick challenge in an evil embark without holing yourself up" is a different order of magnitude, really)

[Pinstar]

Without impulse ramps, it's VERY difficult, if nigh impossible, to keep yourself protected from problems one and two.

Ultimately, the challenge in dwarf fortress is your own. Whether using a game features is an exploit or a feat of engineering is a fairly subjective question, since it depends on some sort of view of what is 'intended' by the developer (or Armok himself). Many people shun cage traps (or at leads corridors full of them) because they are perceived as overeffective and take some of the challenge. Similarly, the invulnerability of constructed walls and raised bridges are seen by some as too easy or even an exploit against building destroyers (who seem designed to be able to knock down odors). OTOH, many people are fine with using dfhack features if they are seen as 'fixing' some bug such as ghostly merchants and hospital overstocking.

Personally, I think many of the minecart designs I see people proposing are great feats of dwarven engineering. Solving the riddle of "an effective minecart grinder without impulse ramps" is another interesting engineering challenge. And frankly, if that makes the system less invulnerable/automatic, I would see that as a good thing in most fortresses, just another source of fun to be had.

(then again, in the single pick challenge the whole point is seeing if we can flourish in a seemingly impossible embark. Sources of fun are not exactly scarce, there :-). Trying a "single pick challenge in an evil embark without holing yourself up" is a different order of magnitude, really)

Vanatteveldt hit the nail on the head in terms of my mindset.

I think based on the feedback from this thread and info from the wiki, I am ready to do a !Science! and put a new design into practice to see if it works. If it does, I will share my results here. If anything, it will encourage me to learn both minecarts AND machinery/power...both of which I've been avoiding up until now.