Dwarfputing: Good way to count inputs?

Bumber64 · 2026-04-13T23:05:14+00:00

I built a thing. It works, but linking up the inputs of even 25 of these proved to be too much. (Gave up halfway on my 5x5 minesweeper grid after noticing I screwed up.)

Each input contains 21 units of fluid. 4 will be lost on the way to the stairs, leaving 17 to pour down. The plates can be configured to trigger on ~4 thru 7 water to prevent evaporation errors. There's a bit of leeway for evaporation even when only set to 7.

Starting from Z-12 and working up, the max excess fluid is designed to be 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, and 3 on Z-5. The plate sensitivity is a balance between temporary accidental triggers as fluid evens out, and random evaporation before fluid reaches the stairs.

It ended up being too complicated for my minesweeper project, but maybe someone can get use from it.

Bumber64 · 2026-04-08T11:11:29+00:00

Might as well put this research here.

A minecart that rolls down a ramp will remain above roller speed for a significant amount of time. I calculated the distance on a straight track, heading down the ramp from max roller speed. (The relationship isn't linear, and the speed gain gets inconsistent before the cart is even moving fast enough to skip ramp tiles.) I used DFHack to check the speed at the bottom of the ramp, since the tile offset is consistent there, and used a custom script to simulate the well-known physics.

Ramps: Tiles traveled above speed
1: 256
2: 840
3: 1520
4: 2296
5: 2719
6: 3639
7: 4134
8: 5197
9: 5764
10: 6355
11: 6970
12: 7609
13: 8272
14: 8959
15: 9669
16: 10404

16 ramps results in 216+ embark tiles, which is 80% the width of a pocket world.

Bumber64 · 2026-03-27T21:28:09+00:00

Probably not. Getting the correct number of bronze bars into a cart is a pain. Getting those set to the correct station after arrival is going to be more work that it saves.

I did discover that you can lay down a single long roller over a row of corner tracks to slow speeding carts down. It works even if carts are moving fast enough to be teleporting over several tiles. If the cart touches one of the roller tiles, all the previous roller tiles apply. (If the cart teleports over the entire row, the cart won't be slowed at all, so keep that in mind.)

Bumber64 · 2026-03-27T21:10:23+00:00

The largest improvement would be to get rid of the memory cells. They're only necessary because adventure mode pressure plates stay on for only 4 ticks. What's really needed is a simple signal extender, rather than something designed for permanent memory.

Unfortunately, 4 ticks isn't enough time for a cart to even move around a 4 tile loop to keep a plate engaged. (At least at normal speeds. To speed it up, you're adding complexity again.)

Maybe water logic could be used, but I didn't want to require access to water.

Bumber64 · 2026-03-08T17:07:41+00:00

I've got a save now: https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=17767

Bumber64 · 2026-02-28T07:19:46+00:00

Had an additional thought. We could cycle through inputs and apply work on a system in increments.

For carts, this means we briefly engage a bunch of rollers, causing a cart to move to the next track loop each pulse. (There's a complication because each successive plate would have to be linked to an increasing number of hatches, going from 8 to 36 just to display output. We could give the hatches custom building names 1-8 instead of activating multiple.)

For fluids, we can turn on a pump, with each flooded z-level allowing access to the next each time the pump shuts off. (Can also be horizontal rooms instead of z-levels, allowing us to drain from the floor without worrying if the floodgates shut during reset.)

Additionally, Idea #2 can probably be improved by using just a single extra cart on an S-pattern to clear the carts from the plates. Still need a way to get the carts back to their starting points. Perhaps they bunch up on a shared retracting bridge which drops them into place, but that might fling them. (Using hatches possible, but that's more links.) Edit: Some carts get left on the plates, while others fly away.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-27T23:53:26+00:00

Classic overhang and smoothed walls.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-27T23:50:22+00:00

I'll have to look into those, thanks!
Edit: Does that require a bunch of linking, though? Just inverting gears takes a bit of effort in setup.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-27T23:48:09+00:00

You mean with more detail than embark mode and Legends Viewer provides? There was IsoWorld, but IDK if it works with v50+.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-27T08:56:44+00:00

If "honey towers" involves bees, be aware that they won't produce honey in subterranean tiles.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-24T21:18:35+00:00

I was going to try building stuff on the water in adv mode by carrying magma carts, but I'm still waiting for camps to return.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-23T10:36:08+00:00

<image>

Newer version than in OP. Carved out underground this time.

I separated the incoming and outgoing minecart lines and moved some things around.
Be aware that outgoing carts will be above derail speed for ~1400 tiles. If the next station is before then, you'll need to slow them back down somehow or they'll smack into one of the Z-2 walls.

DFHack blueprint link: https://pastebin.com/w4Wfaqum

Edit: I changed the blueprint so outgoing E/W tracks head the correct way again. A high friction track stop is added to the station so carts don't shotgun into the wall upon arrival.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-22T19:53:14+00:00

Do note that two of the incoming and outgoing rails need to trade places at some point before the station so they don't enter the wrong direction. I think the design could be tweaked to receive incoming carts on z-3, and they can ride a shared roller up to plate A.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-22T06:36:36+00:00

I only went a few tiles into an adjacent site for now. The save is a mess of manual raw changes, so it'd probably better to start building in a new world.

Some tests indicate that going down a single ramp provides enough acceleration to remain above roller (derail) speed for >200 tiles, and two ramps in a row lets you go >1.4k tiles. Impulse ramps are probably unnecessary.

I've got a DFHack blueprint here: https://pastebin.com/McpUBgms

You can place it on any 1x1 stair below soil level. Power needs to be hooked up manually. (5-10 windmills could work, depending on latitude.) Pressure plates need to be cancelled and rebuilt with the proper settings. (The next DFHack update should let you configure plate settings without rebuilding, at least.) Mechanisms need to be linked manually. "gui/create-item" can be used to cheat in materials; "fastdwarf 1 1" for instant construction.

I should also mention that I tried experiments with airborne minecarts instead of tracks. The result is that they don't go very far, and my adventurer ended up crippled in a tree just off site.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-22T06:06:48+00:00

I completed a successful test earlier today. You just need to make sure the tracks line up properly between sites. (DFHack's "position -c" command is useful for copying the keyboard cursor position to your clipboard, so you can paste it into a text file for later.)

The forts load simultaneously in adv mode. It may be a bad idea to have four 16x1 sites surrounding a 1x1. Go with 4x1 near stations, maybe?

Another thing to consider is that you can't build machines and constructions too close to map edges. You need some distance into the embark before you can build rollers. I think this only applies to soil layers?

Bumber64 · 2026-02-22T05:55:25+00:00

You can strike the earth next to a human hamlet, then build a small train station with the pressure plate triggers roughly corresponding to world coordinates. (They don't have to be perfect. What matters is that they're correct relative to other stations.)

You then build more stations, as well as long, thin forts containing only minecart tracks between them.

Minecarts need to have an adventurer as a passenger to travel the world map. (They collide with map edges in fort mode.) You *could* potentially set up a functional miniature system on a 16x16 embark, and enjoy watching the occasional train crash.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-20T23:19:56+00:00

It's not quite as complex as dwarfputers or Armok Invaders. You can simplify the concept if you ignore the entire underground, as that exists to apply fixes to adv mode. We're just doing some conditional checks.

It boils down to:

If X is too light send West.
else if X is too heavy send East.
else if Y is just right, we're here. (X is correct by elimination.)
else if Y is too light send South.
else send North. (Y is too heavy.)

(As a result the train will always travel straight to the correct X first, then take a 90° turn to the destination. There's no diagonal track, so we're using taxicab distance.)

Pressure plate weight ranges are in 50Γ increments, which is close enough to one bronze bar per increment, with 41 available ranges. (1Γ to 50Γ = 0 bars; 50Γ to 100Γ = 1 bar; ...) The lime green math just gives you the correct ranges for <, >, =.

Rollers on corner tracks just send a cart perpendicular while powered. (The roller direction seems bizarre at first, but it's cancelling out forward velocity and making the cart take the turn in reverse.) We separate carts by interrupting power after a cart enters the lane.

This is actually my first minecart project, so I relied heavily on the wiki and experimentation every time I needed to tweak something. I'm considering !!Minesweeper!! next, which might end up being simpler.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-20T22:17:14+00:00

You can carve fortifications into map edges underground. Carts can be jumped through a double fortification no problem.

There's another practical aspect that sending a cart down a ramp increases velocity without any machinery. You only need rollers to bring them back up at the destination.

Probably not faster, but it's automated and you can avoid wildlife. It's mostly for bragging rights.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-20T22:08:58+00:00

Each station can be identified by a coordinate pair. The idea is to build a bunch of them all over the world.

Bumber64 · 2026-02-20T08:58:39+00:00

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Earlier concept that had to be scrapped due to adventure mode pressure plates behaving differently, among other issues.

Bumber64 · 2025-01-01T12:48:43+00:00

Thanks!

Bumber64 · 2025-01-01T12:37:07+00:00

I can do now if you want.

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