DF2014 Talk:Minecart

Track stops

Since this has needed scrubbing three times already:

In the game as is, track stops can only be edited at build time. Once the order has been placed, the player can no longer directly see or change the parameters. To change the settings of a track stop, you have to deconstruct it and re-build it with the desired settings. I've verified this as behaviour of unmodded DF 40.24.

There's apparently a DFHack command that allows editing existing track stops. This is not standard functionality and should be mentioned as DFHack-specific, if at all.--Larix (talk) 13:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Physics, "numbers behind the scenes"

Since dwarven pushes demonstrably 'port carts to the middle of the next tile, and the checkpoint effect to the very end of them, i'm reasonably certain that the various "middle of the previous/current/next tile" effects mentioned are simple misinterpretations of the game's data dumps:

I suspect that in the data dumps cited in the thread about the minecart speed spreadsheet, an exact-number tile location of, say "120" is not the "start" but the middle of a tile, and the sub-locations that are actually part of the tile are those which "round" to 120, i.e. those from 119,50001 to 120,5. I find this much more intuitive than talking about how ramps/holes/rollers affect carts from the "middle of the previous tile", when a closer inspection would show that the carts are actually displayed in the relevant feature's tile at that point. Since this is really a question of interpretation of programme-internal data which are invisible in the game proper, i've taken the liberty to only mention the observable effects.--Larix (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Pragmatic calculations

Classic high school physics effectively analyzes a lot of minecart problems. This is already casually alluded to in the article, but IMO could be spelled out more blatantly for those who might not find the connections obvious. DF minecart physics approximate ds/dt = v and dv/dt = a from which follows energy conservation dE/dt = 0 where E = ∫ a ds - v²/2. --Crcr (talk) 13:24, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Movement of large items like furniture?

I'm planning my next fortress and wanted to make a sort of 'service elevator' that moves items up and down floors en-masse.

I was wondering how this would work with furniture. How many beds, for example, will fit in a minecart? What about mechanisms etc? I wouldn't want to bottleneck the whole system with large furniture items.

I could work it out myself if I had the volume value for each item, but I can't find them. I've had a really good dig through the raws.

I can't test it right now because I'm at work, daydreaming and doodling about the next chance I'll get to play...

Landing Cradle

I've figured out a way to negate falling damage, but this needs independent verification and a clearer explanation of the physics behind it before it can be organized into the article. I have a cart with a forward velocity of 180k falling from 23 tiles landing on a valid down ramp followed immediately by a valid up ramp. Friction is added only from the up ramp, z vel becomes positive, and the next tile becomes checkpointed. Placing a floor over the checkpoint tile will level out z vel, and the cart will continue horizontally at derailing speed. Uzu Bash (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

I can confirm - that landing on a ramp (a functional one that actually provides acceleration) keeps a rider safe. I simply set up a plain old impulse ramp with adjacent wall in the landing spot and got dwarfs to land without combat report after flights of 15z and 7z apex height. Two dwarfs were hurt verifying that such a landing is very much not safe otherwise. Adding some more ramps with the same acceleration direction also allows a safe landing, so it appears that it's the touching down onto a ramp (and not e.g. checkpoint weirdness) what prevents the collision with the cart.--Larix (talk) 22:25, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Weights of Different Carts

What is the point of this section? It provides no useful information.– unsigned comment by 35.191.2.124

Example weights are useful information for anyone trying to set proper weight triggers on pressure plates to automate minecart routing.--Loci (talk) 19:36, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Can strange moods even produce minecarts, though? Strange mood article suggests no, and if not, bismuth should be removed. --Fleeting Frames (talk) 10:10, 17 November 2019 (UTC)