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[Kogut]

I posted my own idea here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78517.msg2028383#msg2028383

[ikkonoishi]

I posted my own idea here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78517.msg2028383#msg2028383

So you started a new thread to post something after reading a thread discussing that topic? This thread is only 4 pages long. There isn't any need to try to split it yet.

[Kogut]

Because it contains many, many various ideas how to do it. And mine is not going to fix everything and add multiple pointless objects (top suggestion from ESV) but to fix small part of it.

[ikkonoishi]

Because it contains many, many various ideas how to do it. And mine is not going to fix everything and add multiple pointless objects (top suggestion from ESV) but to fix small part of it.

That is the entire purpose of the megathread concept. Everything related to a topic in one place. So we don't end up flooding the entire forum with discussions on one subject.

[Granite26]

And so that new playeers don't have to read 40 billion threads on the same subject, most covering the same ground, before being able to add something actually new to the discussion.

[NW_Kohaku]

Dunno, I could see some merit to that...  dwarfs treat the wheelbarrow as part of the stockpile?


It's micro, but not horrid micro, esp for mining...

I don't think it could.work for a repeat...

More like...  build it in the shaft, say 'fill' as a stockpile, then when you are done, say 'dump here' which sgould be close to where you want it...  i.e. your dump, or where you plan to build a stockpile....  makes a good addition to other options.

New stockpile setting:  max distance stockpile will pull an item from.

No micro unless you set it up for a one time haul.
You build the wheelbarrow up next to a craft shop, and increase the room size to include the craft shop.
Set the destination for the craft stockpile next to the depot.
Dwarves fill the wheelbarrow up with crafts till it is full, and then dump it at the destination. If it is set to repeat they then take it back to where it was before.

It basically acts as a one tile stockpile, but when it gets full it is emptied at another place.

The thing is, the "makes a mobile stockpile" role is basically the exact purpose of a minecart - wheelbarrows are meant to be just for normal hauling.  If you want to set up minecarts manually, that's one thing, but wheelbarrows should be different from minecarts if we are going to have both of them, especially if we already have to set down tracks for minecarts to follow.

I'd also say that it's better to just talk about how to give dwarves the AI capacity to realize when they need the minecart returned.  You can just set the little stations for the minecarts on the tracks, and let dwarves decide when they need a cart in that station. 

If you want to have a dedicated cargo route, you can set a minecart track from the furnaces to a central storage area or for raw materials to be shipped from the mines to the furnaces.

If you can do all this with wheelbarrows, what is the purpose of having a minecart at all, when minecarts involve tracks, and possibly even draft animals, which are a much greater material and logistical upfront capital cost, when you already put all the practical advantages of minecarts on wheelbarrows?  Even if you say that minecarts can carry more, it's not likely to be so much more that you can't just put in a fleet of wheelbarrows to compensate for the lack of hauling capacity.

Also, the objective should always be to reduce micromanagement of functions wherever it is even remotely possible.

[Granite26]

What IS the difference between a mine cart and a wheelbarrow?  Cart holds more and is on tracks. That's it.

The point is allowing micro of certain mass hquling jobs.  Everything else is implimentation details.

[NW_Kohaku]

Again, I don't think there's a reason to make wheelbarrows micromanagement of certain mass hauling jobs.  You shouldn't want micromanagement of certain mass hauling jobs, but if you're going to want it, the fact that you're laying down tracks for a minecart, anyway, makes that a much better place to put the micromanagement.

[Granite26]

Honestly, I think carts are a bad fit for DF.  No way to lay tracks that is at all efficient.

[NW_Kohaku]

Honestly, I think carts are a bad fit for DF.  No way to lay tracks that is at all efficient.

*sigh*

If you want to argue for why we shouldn't have minecarts, you shouldn't set up a front that you want to make wheelbarrows take their place beforehand, and just talk about why you don't want minecarts.  I still don't see why we can't have wheelbarrows performing the job of a backpack that carries multiple heavy items easily, since that's what the game most desperately needs, and having a fancy mobile stockpile is less useful than a backpack with a wheel.

Minecarts can handle those big repeat mass hauling jobs, since that's what minecarts are meant for.  Wheelbarrows are for carrying heavy things while being fairly mobile to respond to shifting needs to be in different areas.

Now then, as for minecarts in particular:

Hauling Improvements

• Being able to haul multiple small objects
• Having multiple dwarves involved with item hauling for a job
• Being able to move multiple objects with roughly the same destination at once
• Wheelbarrows to haul more objects than can be carried
• Minecarts
• Wooden, stone-carved and metal tracks
• Can be filled like stockpiles and moved between destinations
• Work animals to tow carts and haul objects

While I don't want to read too much into this, that at least means that Toady implicitly agrees that minecarts should go into the game, and require the ability to make tracks to make them run.  I'm no huge proponent of minecarts, but they're on the list, and so I felt like it was worth talking about how to make them more efficiently codable.

Now then, can you explain what you mean by "efficient"?  Efficient for what, exactly?

[Symmetry]

If we look elsewhere on that list we see lifts (elevators in american?).  I can see lifts working quite like minecarts in some respects, being useful for moving lots of items from one place to another.  In any case the mechanics of this kind of thing might be worth wondering about as it looks like there will be multiple applications.

It does seem that minecarts and other kinds of mass item movement would only really be useful if mining was changed to require rock to be hauled out as well as mined.  eg.  mining creates "broken rock" that can't be pathed through and has to be hauled away one bit at a time.
 
Otherwise the best use would be building a minecart in the middle of the battlefield to help dump socks, which is a little wrong.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, I've lobbied for slower mining and  a need to remove slag and mullock, and consolidate them as a type of wall if you cram enough into a single tile to remove them from the game's item tracking model. 

Eventually, a fortress would look like an anthill, with all the materials they dig out winding up in piles on the surface.  (Solves the quantum dumping issue by making a certain number of stones consolidate into a wall when the last stone is added into a tile.  To prevent extra checks, it only happens on the enterance of an item into the tile.)

We could wind up with something where minecarts dump mullock off a cliff, and it just piles up on the ground in a giant mound.

Eventually, though, you'd want to start backfilling all the holes in the earth you create, and just stuff your extra mullock in the empty mining shafts.

[Draco18s]

Eventually, a fortress would look like an anthill, with all the materials they dig out winding up in piles on the surface.  (Solves the quantum dumping issue by making a certain number of stones consolidate into a wall when the last stone is added into a tile.  To prevent extra checks, it only happens on the enterance of an item into the tile.)

Hilarious exploit:
If 7 stones become a "wall tile" that wall tile can then be dug out dropping.... 1 stone.

[NW_Kohaku]

Hilarious exploit:
If 7 stones become a "wall tile" that wall tile can then be dug out dropping.... 1 stone.

Part of the point of it is to make a sort of conservation of mass system in mining that weighs the entire "you can clear-cut a mountain with one pick in two years" thing down with having to actually move the stone instead of just walking through it.

Basically, the idea is that you "break" a wall by mining it into 7/7 mullock items or else maybe 6/7 mullock and 1 stone or rough gem or ore that is useful.  The mullock would sort of spill out to prevent reconsolidation, and prevent mining if there wasn't room to prevent consolidation.

(Note, I am not actually proposing a 7/7 system, which I see as just an artifact of previous map coding compression that should probably be phased out at some future point.)

If you throw mullock into a pile and it consolidates into a "consolidated mullock wall", then break that wall by mining it, it will just turn into 7 units of mullock again.

[Draco18s]

(Note, I am not actually proposing a 7/7 system, which I see as just an artifact of previous map coding compression that should probably be phased out at some future point.)

(Just as a note: Neither am I, it was a hypothetical number)

Anyway, thanks for the clarification.