Minecart

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v50.13 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

Minecarts

A minecart is a tool intended for hauling, introduced in version 0.34.08. It can be made of wood at a carpenter's workshop or metal at a metalsmith's forge (using the metalcrafting labor.) Minecarts store up to five times as many items as wheelbarrows and are quite a bit faster than dwarves hauling objects by hand, but have the disadvantages of requiring a dedicated track network, a complex route planning phase, and the possibility of dwarves blundering into the path of carts filled with lead ore. Tracks may be carved into stone, or constructed; the latter allows above-ground routes, but these are more difficult to set up due to their additional material requirements.

Just like wheelbarrows, minecarts are considered items and are stored in a furniture stockpile. Despite their five-times-greater capacity, they are only 33% larger than wheelbarrows and are identical in base value when made from the same material (the value may differ due to the item quality). Thieves or even mischievous animals can steal minecarts, even when they are moving on a track^[1]. However, minecarts moving fast enough or being ridden cannot be stolen.

Although most of the utility of minecarts is in fortress mode, an adventurer can also ride in a minecart. Adventurers can also pick up and relocate minecarts.

The invention of minecarts revolutionized the Science of Dwarfputing by enabling smaller, faster logic systems to be built.

Basic Minecart Usage

Minecarts can be used to swiftly transport dwarves, fluids, and/or large amounts of items, but before you have a functional minecart there are several preconditions that need to be met. First of all you need an actual minecart, constructed either in a carpenter's workshop or metalsmith's forge. For the minecart to be able to move you also need to carve (with d T) or construct (with b C T) a track, which could be as simple as a straight line. Finally you need to construct stops on your track (with b C S) where the minecart will start and stop.

After you have created the stops and assigned a cart to the track, you must create logic routes connecting several stops and designate starting conditions for each stop. This is done with the hauling key. The most basic conditions are how the cart's movement is initiated and in which direction the cart should start moving. Carts can be either be Pushed (a dwarf stands at a stop and gives the cart a single push) or Guided (a dwarf continually pushes the cart forward, guiding it along the track). The hauling labor required for pushing and guiding carts is called "Push/Haul Vehicles" and is turned on by default.

To control which items to transport you can add conditions specifying: (1) which kind of items to be loaded, and unloaded, (2) stockpile links to define which stockpile(s) the items should be un/loaded to and from.

Capacity and weights

Minecarts have five times the capacity of wheelbarrows.

Examples of the capacity of one cart

Item	Amount
stone	5
log	10
block/bar	83
prepared meals	500
spiked balls	500
mace	625
spears	1250
cloth	2500

The weight of the loaded minecart does not affect the initial velocity received from pushing or launching from a roller. However, the load of a minecart does affect whether a pressure plate triggers or not, based on the pressure plate's setting.

Weights of different carts

Type of cart	Empty cart	Fully loaded (items)
oaken minecart	28Γ	378Γ (10 oak logs)
platinum minecart	856Γ	10482Γ (83 gold bars)

The weight of a minecart is one twenty-fifth (1/25) the density of its material in Urists. Because pressure plates can be set to trigger at intervals of 50 Urists, minecarts with weights just under a multiple of 50 are ideal for switching based on whether they're full or empty. The best minecart materials for full/empty switching are as follows:

Material	Minecart weight	Content weight required to trigger	Banana roasts required to trigger (for scale)
Glumprong	48	2	4
Electrum	596	4	7
Nickel silver	346	4	7
Brass	342	8	14
Bismuth (moods only)	391	9	15
Fine pewter	291	9	15
Lay pewter	291	9	15
Tin	291	9	15
Trifle pewter	291	9	15

Creating tracks

Minecart tracks are made up of contiguous track, tracked ramp, or bridge tiles. Track tiles and tracked ramp tiles have a direction or series of directions associated with them. These directions dictate which directions a minecart on a given tile may move from that tile. For example, a Track NE (northeast) tile allows a minecart on it to move either north or east from its present position. Therefore, if you want your minecart to move east along a straight piece of track, then return west using that same track, you would need to use EW tracks so that the cart could travel east initially, then return west over the same track. Excluding designs in which the cart will "jump" tracks via a drop or other ramp, tracks must be valid end to end to work for most looped or straight-track applications. A single east only track tile in your line of east-west tracks will cause any route using the track to fail the moment it tries to go the wrong way over that tile. Minecart tracks can be built in two ways: Engraved/carved or constructed. A given minecart track need not use engraved or constructed elements exclusively, as the two methods can be used interchangeably depending on the needs of a given section of track. The way the tracks are built is slightly different between the two, as explained below.

Simple tracks

Carved

A single-tile wide strip of natural stone can be designated to be carved (with d T), which will create a straight two-way track. The creation of corners, crossings, and T-junctions is as simple as designating another strip of track that overlaps an existent or newly designated track. Engraved tracks are removed by smoothing the rock they're on, which results in a smooth floor (that can be re-engraved if necessary), or by building a floor on top and subsequently removing it. Dwarves can carve corner tracks in one pass by designating the track carving twice and canceling unwanted carvings (with d x). Tracks can be engraved in any natural floor tile, rough, smooth and even over engravings, providing an easy method to remove low-quality or undesired floor engravings. Once a track has been engraved, it's important to check the track directions for each tile in the route carefully to make sure no mistakes were made by yourself or the game's track engraving logic.

Constructed

Tracks can also be built as regular constructions (through b C T). This method is resource-expensive, since each track tile requires one stone, bar, or block for construction, and time-consuming, since you can't designate strips longer than 10 tiles at a time. Corners, crossings, T-junctions, and ramps also have to be designated individually. However, it is usually the only way to build tracks above ground or on soil (barring the creation of obsidian). Constructed tracks are designated for removal like any regular construction; be aware that removing track ramps built on top of natural ones will also remove the original ramp, leaving a flat floor.

Ramps

Carved

The carving of natural ramps is a little more confusing: to carve a two-way track on a ramp (natural only, does not work on constructed ramps), you must designate the track starting on the ramp and one square beyond in the direction you want the track to go. For the side of the ramp square you want to head upward, there must be either a natural or constructed wall in the square next to it, otherwise the game assumes you are trying to carve it on the same level -- this can result in the track being carved underneath a door or other object. If you have accidentally done this, you can correct it by smoothing the ramp and constructing a single square of wall next to it, then re-carving the ramp correctly. (However, the wall must stay there permanently; removing it will disconnect the track.)

Constructed

When constructing track ramps, the stated direction should be the same as the connected tracks. For example, a track going up from West to East would require, starting from the West, a Track (EW), a Track/Ramp (EW) and a Wall behind the ramp, underneath the section of track above it. Incorrectly placed ramps result in minecarts ignoring the ramp and crashing into the supporting wall. They will not, however, display as unusable as when the supporting wall is missing.

Examples of ramps

A simple ramp would look like this:

	z		+	0				z		+	1
	░	░	░	░				░	░	░	░
	═	▲	o					░	▼	═
	░	░	░	░				░	░	░	░
o		:		w	a	l	l

Carving track corners into ramps is rather unintuitive and complicated. Since engraving tracks always requires two tiles to connect in a straight line as input, you have to give two separate designations for a single job: a track bit from the ramp tile to the "below" direction and another one to the wall of the "upward" direction. If you wanted to change direction on a ramp from east to north:

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you would need to connect the ramp on z +0 both to the west and to the north by issuing two "carve track" commands, one selecting the ramp and the track tile to the west, and another connecting the ramp tile with the wall to the north. An engraver would then carve a NW track corner into the ramp, allowing carts to pass the corner correctly both going up and down. Such track corners are perfectly serviceable for guided carts, but moving down a route of several of them by pushed or ridden cart is problematic - ramps on corners behave very counter-intuitively, resulting in loss of speed when going down and diagonal movement when going up.

Moving to and from ramps (or between ramps "pointing" in different directions) causes some non-trivial adjustments to speed and even moving along the tiles at a fixed speed unrelated to the entry/exit velocity values, because transitions to/from ramps are processed differently and are not to be "skipped". This affects compact track/ramp combinations (such as e.g. a simple 2x2 ramp spiral) most, and combined with bouncing often makes them work not in the way one could expect. ^[2]

Hauling route

A hauling route is a list of directions describing how and under what conditions a minecart will move. The proper setting up of routes is essential for a working rail system. Routes, stops, departure conditions and stockpile links are managed from the hauling menu.

Route

A route defines the path a minecart will take along a track, as well as under what conditions it will move or stop moving. A route is made up of stops. Stops are precisely what they sound like, a position on the track at which you want a minecart to stop. A minecart track might use as little as a single stop for a looped track, which will serve as both a starting and stopping point for the cart, or it could contain many stops, perhaps to load supplies or wait for a bridge to be manually lowered, before reaching its destination or returning to its starting point. It is important to note that you only need to place stops on a route where you actually want the cart to stop and wait for some action to occur. They are not needed to help navigate the cart along the track beyond telling it where on the track to stop.

New routes are created with the hauling key. Existing ones can be removed (without confirmation) with the x key, and also nicknamed. Before operating, the route must have a vehicle assigned to it (this can be done with either the route or a stop selected). Assigning a full minecart to a route may result in a slow hauling job if the contents are heavy.

Stops

Stops are the individual waypoints that make up a hauling route. A given stop consists of the location of a tile, as well as conditions describing when, where, and how a cart should be moved after being stopped at that tile. Stops can be created from within the hauling menu, by placing the cursor over a tile and hitting s while highlighting the route (or a stop within) you've already designated. A minecart will begin its route at the first stop created, and continue through each subsequent stop, being guided, pushed, or ridden from each stop to the next depending on the conditions specified. In many basic minecart applications, the cart will end up at the same stop it began at, though this is not always the case. It is important to note that hauling stop order is enforced, even if there is no track. A dwarf will drag the cart overland back to a skipped stop in the route's list if your tracks bypass it somehow.

Once a stop has been placed, it is given a default set of conditions under which to move the minecart if it is stopped there. Each new stop gets the same default conditions regardless of the track it is placed upon (e.g. guide the cart to the north). For this reason new stops might get marked by yellow exclamation marks (!) due to invalid directions. One important thing to note is that as you place additional stops, the display will show paths between the stops you have defined. However, this is not necessarily the actual route the minecart will take once the route is in operation. For example, if a route were defined with two stops at opposite ends of a track with many twists and turns, a line will be drawn directly between those stops to show the order in which they will be visited. These route lines may crisscross all over the tracks, but so long as the track is valid end to end, the cart will follow the track from one stop to the next, even across twists, turns, and z-level changes. Route stops, which are the steps that make up a route, should not be confused with physical Track Stops, described below.

Stockpile links

By placing the cursor on top of a stockpile and using s, you can create stockpile links while defining a hauling stop. Links can also be redefined by selecting them, placing the cursor over a different stockpile, and pressing p. The cart will then be filled by items present in its various linked stockpiles in preference to other items. Note that bins should be used with caution in stockpiles that are linked to minecarts. Bins cause problems when used with the "Desired Items" list in a stop's conditions. For example, if a minecart is set to accept only granite blocks, and to depart north when it is 100% full of granite blocks, it will not depart if any of those granite blocks are in bins, even if bins are also included in the desired items list. Two solutions to this problem exist as of v0.40.24. First, bins can be disallowed in stockpiles that are linked to stops. Alternatively, bins can be used in conjunction with minecarts provided that the minecart's departure conditions use only "any items" instead of "desired items." This option can be toggled in the advanced conditions menu for a stop, accessible via the C key. The cart's contents can still be controlled by specifying what items are allowed in the linked stockpile.

Departure condition

Departure conditions involve setting conditions in which the minecart will leave on the route. Each condition includes:

1. A departure mode (Guide, Ride or Push).
2. An initial departure direction (NSEW). Note that this defines the initial direction of movement only. Even if a track includes many turns, as long as the initial movement direction is valid the cart will follow the minecart track thereafter.
3. A timer, before which the departure condition cannot be met.
4. Conditions on the amount of items in the cart.

Departure conditions are created with the n key. A new departure condition will read: "guide north immediately when empty of desired items". This condition can be changed between basic presets with c. "Advanced" mode (C) allows for more precise control over departure conditions: fine tuning the percentage from 0 to 100 in 25% steps (f and F), switching it being either the maximum or the minimum amount of items for the condition to be met (m), and whether the cart accepts all or only a specific set of items (l). Common to both screens are the departure mode (p, Push, Ride or Guide), direction, and timer (t and T) options.

To have a cart only carry a specific set of items, the stop can be set to only carry "desired" items, opening the selection screen with the Enter key while having said stop condition selected, and toggling as desired, or it can simply be linked to a stockpile and set to depart once it is full of items from its linked stockpiles, regardless of type.

Track Stops

A Track Stop, not to be confused with a route stop, is an optional, single-tile construction which serves two purposes. First, it can be used to cancel a cart's momentum in order to slow or stop it as it passes over the Track Stop. This might be necessary if a cart were pushed down a series of ramps to its destination. Second, a Track Stop can cause a cart to automatically dump its contents as it passes over the Track Stop. Track Stops are constructed via b C S, and must be constructed atop an existing piece of track. If a Track Stop has been set to automatically dump a cart's contents, the cart will dump its contents in the direction indicated when it passes over the Track Stop. Depending on the friction settings chosen for the Track Stop, the cart might then stop after dumping, or it might continue on its route to another destination.

Track Stops are not mandatory; in fact, their main use is in automated rail systems. However, even in basic rail systems it can be useful to set a Track Stop to dump items: this saves time that dwarves would otherwise spend in removing items from the cart, time that is better spent driving the cart back to where it's needed. Dumping will occur even with a guided cart. Take care not to set Track Stops at a loading site to dump their contents, or dwarves will never be able to fill the cart. It will dump any contents the moment they are loaded.

Counter-intuitive to their construction method, Track Stops are considered buildings and must be removed by q x.

• See More on Track Stops

Step-by-step tutorial

Let's construct a simple minecart route. This route will move stone blocks from an input stockpile to an output stockpile. We'll begin by creating the stockpiles:

The input stockpile is on the left; the output stockpile is on the right. We'll be moving blocks from left to right. Disable bins in both stockpiles, and set the input stockpile to accept only from links. Then make the stockpile take from the mason's workshop where the blocks are being produced.

Next, carve the track:

Note that the ends of the designation are uniquely shaped; this is automatic, and not anything you need to control. Now, wait for your engravers to come along and carve the track into the stone. (Your haulers will probably also fill up the input stockpile while you wait.)

In addition, while we're waiting for that to happen, we'll build an iron minecart in the forge.

When the track has been carved, it will look like the above (the track will be solid instead of flashing). Now, order a track stop to be constructed next to the output stockpile:

You must press d three times to select the dumping direction before placing the track stop. We want our blocks to be dumped into the output stockpile east of the track stop. Then wait for a mechanic to come along and build the track stop.

Now we'll define the actual route. This is done in the hauling menu. Press r to begin defining a route. Next, move the cursor to the input end of the track, and then press s to define the first stop:

Move the cursor again, to the output end of the track, and press s again to define the second stop:

There are several user interface features to note at this point. The stops have been positioned, but they haven't been defined yet, so there is a warning ! symbol by each of them. In the lower right corner, we see what the ! means. Also, note that the second stop is labeled in white, while the other two lines are grey. The white text is a selection indicator, and can be moved up and down by pressing +/-.

Next we need to define what our stops do. We want the minecart to be filled with blocks at the first stop, then travel to the second stop where it will dump its cargo, and then return. Press - to move the selection up to stop 1, and Enter to open it up. By default, the stop has three conditions:

We don't want any of these, so press x three times to delete them. This leaves us with a blank stop. Now we can add the conditions we actually want. Press n to begin adding the first condition, then d twice to change the direction from north to east. Then press c to change the condition from empty to full. This will instruct the minecart to be guided east when full of desired items.

To set the desired items, we create a stockpile link. Press s, then move the cursor to the input stockpile, then press p to select that stockpile. Now press Enter; this opens up a selection screen that resembles the stockpile customization screen. Move down to Blocks, enable them, then (if you wish) restrict it to stone blocks.

When you've done all that, stop 1 should look like this:

Stop 2 is much simpler. All we need to do is have the minecart return to the input stop. So, make a condition and change the direction:

Finally, we just have to assign our minecart. Go back to the route definition screen, and press v. Select the minecart, and press Enter.

Now we've got everything set up:

The V is red because the minecart hasn't been moved onto the track yet. Some dwarf will have to haul it from the forge to the first stop, by hand; this will take a while, especially if the forge is far away.

Once the minecart is in place, dwarves should fill it with blocks from the input stockpile, which will in turn be filled with blocks from the workshop where your mason has been toiling dutifully. When the minecart is full, the blocks will be dumped into the 1x1 stockpile on the right. Automatic quantum dumping!

Troubleshooting

Because of the complexity of the system, all but the most careful and experienced minecart users will encounter issues. Most route issues can be diagnosed and fixed from the hauling menu.

Symptom: ! Set dir/connect track message appears to the right of one or more stops

Possible Causes:

• In basic terms, the game checks if there is a valid path for a cart along the rails to reach the next stop in the route, and whether a dwarf guiding a cart would be able to find a path to the destination without carrying the cart. This warning pops up if the cart can't find a valid path based upon guided carts.
  • If your cart path relies upon advanced tricks like deliberate falling into pits or ignoring floor types, even a path designed entirely as you intended will still trigger the yellow warning. (But double-check to make sure it's fine...)
• The departure direction of the stop might be invalid. Edit the stop using Enter and press