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[toast]

As the title said...what is the fastest/most efficient way to move ore or other materials from deep in the ground to the surface or near surface?

I've been playing with mine carts, and although I can't make them work the way I want, I also feel that by the time I get a system designed that runs deep enough to be of any use, my dorfs could have just hauled the stuff by hand. And frankly I don't want to take the time designating out a minecart elevator.

So what am I missing here?

[StagnantSoul]

A straight up and down staircase works really fast, with an ore stockpile right beside it's top.

[utunnels]

The painful part is I always encounter underground lakes while digging down, so I have to make detours.
So maybe you'd better build your workshops underground instead of trying to move the ores up.

[BurnedToast]

A few stockpiles set to only take ore, with 3 wheelbarrows each (3 is the max). Dwarves with wheelbarrows move at normal speed even with ore, and wheelbarrows can (somehow) go up and down stairs with no problems.

Alternately, just dump it from the stock screen. each piece of ore is very very slow to move, but if you've got 50+ dwarves doing it at once it all gets moved at a reasonable pace.

It makes me a little sad (but also somehow feels appropriate) that minecarts aren't ever really worth using as actual minecarts, so instead everyone uses them to crush invaders or launch magma from a magma cannon or whatever.

[StagnantSoul]

I normally set a ton of dwarves to hauling, one stockpile set to three wheelbarrows, one set to zero.

[smeeprocket]

Why not minecarts. They are awesome, and fun to build.

[StagnantSoul]

Boo, minecarts. I only say that because I don't feel like working with them.

[§k]

I build the fort deep. An embark usually has around 100 layers. The main fort is located around 40~50. Then theres relatively easy access to everything. Howver, the first month is usually spent in digging an exploratory tunnel to the bottom and look around 3 caverns for place to fit in the fort.

[Aranador]

I fund using smaller stockpiles for specific ores, with 3 wheelbarrows a pile, to be the best way to gather the loose ore.  Using mine carts to then move it from the collector piles to the storage location.  Basically a quantum pile somewhere, often near to the appropriate smelter.

[Bumber]

Is there some way you could use wheelbarrows with ore-filled minecarts?

[smeeprocket]

a minecart would be well worth the trouble of setting it up, tbh. You don't have to get stupid fancy with automation or accelerated tracks, just the basics.

[Azated]

The problem with minecarts is that mining zones are constantly changing, so you've got to reroute the tracks every so often or else wheelbarrows become so much more viable.

[Mechanixm]

I prefer to use several 2x3 Stone Stockpiles of 3 wheelbarrows each, that feed into a quantum stockpile  The more 2x3 Stone Stockpiles you have, the more hauling jobs you can generate, so you can passively control how many dwarves are hauling stone based on your current demand.

Always use wheelbarrows to haul Stones, in my opinion.  Your dwarves haul Stones much much faster with wheelbarrows than otherwise.

You could also, have one set of Quantum stockpiles for Stone near the Surface, or wherever your Stone/Ore using Workshops are.  And then, create another Stone Quantum stockpile deep underground where you're mining your ore.  Then, have the Surface QSP Take from the Deep QSP.

I wrote a guide on it if you're interested.

[StagnantSoul]

I saw one design with a lever and bridge system, one at the bottom, a raising bridge, launches stone upwards, onto another bridge, and this goes on all the way to the surface. I don't remember how well it worked though.

[Codyo]

I don't like using minecarts as there doesn't seem to be a way to have your dwarves intuitively use them. They have to take objects that have already been hauled to a workshop or a stockpile, unless I'm missing something.