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[Urist Mchateselves]

What the title says.

[anewaname]

According to the DF wiki:

Guide: the dwarf will steadily walk the cart to its destination while seemingly ignoring all laws of physics. While being guided by a dwarf, minecarts will:
    Ignore the weight of any and all items inside.
    Ignore active working rollers.
    Will not collide with other guided carts even when a full frontal collision would be expected.
    Will ascend ramps with ease like a crundle scaling a cliff.

But, if the dwarf lets go of the cart because of a threat, things can happen.

[Urist Mchateselves]

I seem to have lost countless dwarves to guided minecarts. Perhaps I set some routes to push on accident?

[Wolfkey]

I had issues in the of dwarves dropping minecarts to harvest crops, maybe that is a cause of the issue?

[Urist Mchateselves]

I tried a brand new elevator design and dwarves are STILL being crushed, even though I marked the tracks as “no traffic” zones. All of the routes are on “guide”. Unless dwarves are releasing their minecarts mid-voyage and letting them careen down the tracks then the only possible conclusion is that guided minecarts can in fact collide with and kill creatures. Maybe I can check combat report locations to see where the collisions are taking place but if there aren’t any problem with the tracks themselves then this probably needs to be reported on the bug tracker.

[Wolfkey]

Maybe try putting track stops on the elevators so the dropped minecarts stop before they hit anything?

[Urist Mchateselves]

”Minecart elevator” is a loose term, there’s no mechanism here, just my dwarves guiding minecarts up and down a set a of spiraling ramps.

[anewaname]

Try a text search of gamelog.txt for "Push track vehicle" and check for job interruptions. If dwarfs are dropping their carts, it will be there.

What is the other pathway your dwarfs use to travel up and down? If it is a single up/down stairs, dwarfs may use the minecart ramps just because sometimes the stairs were blocked when they chose their pathing, regardless of traffic zoning.

[Urist Mchateselves]

The main path is a 3x3 square of stairs, which is also closer to the centre of the fortress. Many cats have also perished by minecart by the wall. I’ll check the location of the collisions and gamelog.txt to see what caused all of this. Thanks for the advice.

[Urist Mchateselves]

So I checked the announcements and there are indeed two recent job cancelations which coincide with the accidents of 2 dwarves, (precisely, a short downhill distance from the impact locations). The reasons for the cancelations are listed as "job item lost or destroyed" for some reason. Since the minecarts in question are most certainly not destroyed, what else could have caused these cancelations?

[Salmeuk]

in truth, any number of things. dwarves will cancel jobs for any old reason in my experience.

One of the main reasons for fortress labor slowdowns are faraway jobs (100+ tiles distance) that are repeatedly cancelled, causing multiple dwarves to attempt to reach the job site, fail, and trigger the process all over again in some other dwarf. So that's why I am aware of how often they cancel their intended work, however, I have yet to find a consistent method of preventing these cancellations except to limit the walk time between bedrooms, taverns, temples, and the jobs sites. With less commute time there is less chance for cancellation and wasted labor.

Perhaps you could employ a similar strategy with your minecarts. but tbh, I would only use 'guide' on flat terrain.. alternatively you could build a series of plateaus into your ramp such that the dwarves, when cancelling their guide task, are more likely to leave your cart on a flat portion of track.

[Urist Mchateselves]

Maybe I can add track stops with high friction to some of the tracks to automatically stop any stray cart?

[Urist Mchateselves]

Maybe I can add track stops with high friction to some of the tracks to automatically stop any stray cart?

It worked! Not one dwarf or pet has been crushed by a stray minecart, despite multiple guide cancelations! However, these cancelations still slow down the workflow considerably, since a dwarf then has to pick up the affected minecart and carry it to its destination on foot. The cancelation reason is cited as "job item lost or destroyed". Can anyone explain what is causing this?

[anewaname]

With hauling jobs, "job item lost or destroyed" usually means the target item has moved or been Task-locked by another dwarf (most commonly by dwarfs competing for booze or by water moving an item). In the context of a Guide Minecart job, it can only mean that the minecart was the item lost or destroyed.

Looking closer at that wiki statement "Will ascend ramps with ease like a crundle scaling a cliff", it doesn't indicate what happens when descending ramps and maybe that is what has been happening, but maybe there is another reason this is happening...

When there is only one pathway and units are going in different directions, one of the units will "go prone" or something like that so the other can pass by, but maybe the minecart is complicating the situation and the dwarf loses control of the cart then. What about adding a single up/down staircase adjacent to the minecart track so cats returning from the depths will go straight up those stairs instead of up the ramps? Adding traffic restrictions to the stairs to keep dwarfs off them.

[Urist Mchateselves]

The entire track is restricted. The first design I attempted did possess a central staircase, but the cancellations happened anyway. No idea what’s causing the minecarts to become lost.