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[expwnent]

Better yet, start building it now and hope the saves are compatible.

[Fireborn]

Don't laugh. My Samurai Pizza Dwarves will ride into battle on wings of Featherwood.

Well, the've definately got more hair than any turtle ever had.

Still, quite interesting that creatures in building will now be able to interact outside of them...  Makes me wonder if caged goblins might have to be bumped up to Mostly Harmless...

Though, I'm sure we'll find ways to make them Perfectly Safe again.

[Alidus]

I'm definitely wanting the wheelbarrows and carts. The ability to move multiple items would be well worth it IMO. Some times taking stuff to the trade depot or clearing stones out of a room for example causes 100 hauling jobs for me. Would be nice if it were reduced to like 10 or 20 or even less - no more flood of dwarfs moving stuff to the depot all at once when I have a huge surplus of something that I want to be rid of.

[Lagslayer]

Perfectly Safe

I noticed those upper-case letters. I don't suppose you had some Fun! to share with us, did you?

[grimman007]

Make some Minecart Madness, anyone?

[Fireborn]

Perfectly Safe

I noticed those upper-case letters. I don't suppose you had some Fun! to share with us, did you?

Hitchhiker's Guide reference made to add content relating to the dev-post saying that caged critters might be capable of interaction, so that it wasn't purely a continued reference to Samurai Pizza Cats...

Sadly, no related fun, as we all know cage traps render Goblins, and semi-megabeasts, Perfectly Safe far too easily to be !!FUN!!.

[Symmetry]

I presume you mean "a month to complete the giant statue", because I don't doubt that it will be a matter of a couple of hours before dwarven "charioteers" in minecarts are dispatching goblin ambushes.

After reading the devlog I came here expecting to find someone had already designed a computer using runaway minecarts and pressurepads.  I'm slightly disappointed.

[NW_Kohaku]

After reading the devlog I came here expecting to find someone had already designed a computer using runaway minecarts and pressurepads.  I'm slightly disappointed.

I'll probably do that - I think minecart logic would be a good alternative to the rather messy water logic system, since minecarts are discrete quantum that are more easily controlled, so long as all cart operations can be run in completely hermetically sealed chambers without needing dwarves to "kick" them off the stops. 

So long as tracks do not decay and minecart speeds are totally predictable products of Newtonian logic operated by applying gear power to them, we could operate our fortress on "Cart Clocks" where we have a cart going around a loop that has a pressure plate on the "12" (or 24) of the loop.  When this "hour hand" cart hits the "12", it could launch the "day hand" cart from its current stop one more step to the next stop.  Then, when the "day hand" hits 12 (or 24), the "month hand" moves, which moves the "year hand".

We could also easily set up the drawbridges over bends to form "T" junctions based upon the state of a pressure plate or gear mechanism, and use that as a means of setting up all the NAND or other boolean logic gates we want with carts as the discrete data packets.

It would even be a fairly simple switch to just have two "stops" with directional launchers that merely launch the cart back to the opposite launcher to operate as a "bit".  It's on the south stop?  It's a "0".  It's on the north stop? it's a "1".

[cswvna]

I don't think you'd use a shuttle for a single bit, when you could use differing weights to increase bit density. Even a cursory glance at rock densities reveals a 1300-class (coal, lignite), 2600 (most), 5000 (hematite), 6200 (cobaltite), 7500 (galena), 8900 (native copper), 19000 (gold)... I haven't even gone through the entire list yet! It would require a storage yard (reserve) for each bit-weight, and possibly a repacking area so an excess of one bit class could be changed to another bit class, but if it's possible to get weights of zero to fifteen, you only need two carts for a byte, and eight for thirty-two bits!

[NW_Kohaku]

I don't think you'd use a shuttle for a single bit, when you could use differing weights to increase bit density. Even a cursory glance at rock densities reveals a 1300-class (coal, lignite), 2600 (most), 5000 (hematite), 6200 (cobaltite), 7500 (galena), 8900 (native copper), 19000 (gold)... I haven't even gone through the entire list yet! It would require a storage yard (reserve) for each bit-weight, and possibly a repacking area so an excess of one bit class could be changed to another bit class, but if it's possible to get weights of zero to fifteen, you only need two carts for a byte, and eight for thirty-two bits!

Yes, but every density would require a different pressure plate to measure them.  You're functionally trading carts for more pressure plates needed in measuring bits.

[FearfulJesuit]

I don't think you'd use a shuttle for a single bit, when you could use differing weights to increase bit density. Even a cursory glance at rock densities reveals a 1300-class (coal, lignite), 2600 (most), 5000 (hematite), 6200 (cobaltite), 7500 (galena), 8900 (native copper), 19000 (gold)... I haven't even gone through the entire list yet! It would require a storage yard (reserve) for each bit-weight, and possibly a repacking area so an excess of one bit class could be changed to another bit class, but if it's possible to get weights of zero to fifteen, you only need two carts for a byte, and eight for thirty-two bits!

Yes, but every density would require a different pressure plate to measure them.  You're functionally trading carts for more pressure plates needed in measuring bits.

Heaven forbid we build something pointlessly complicated to do something that should be simple.

[cswvna]

I don't think you'd use a shuttle for a single bit, when you could use differing weights to increase bit density. Even a cursory glance at rock densities reveals a 1300-class (coal, lignite), 2600 (most), 5000 (hematite), 6200 (cobaltite), 7500 (galena), 8900 (native copper), 19000 (gold)... I haven't even gone through the entire list yet! It would require a storage yard (reserve) for each bit-weight, and possibly a repacking area so an excess of one bit class could be changed to another bit class, but if it's possible to get weights of zero to fifteen, you only need two carts for a byte, and eight for thirty-two bits!

Yes, but every density would require a different pressure plate to measure them.  You're functionally trading carts for more pressure plates needed in measuring bits.

I'm more thinking about running carts selected from a (single/multiple) large memory area (memory pages?) to a smaller measuring area(s), then running them back to their "address" for storing. For memory density, not speed or low latency. The faster areas (electronically, cache and tag RAM if you want the complication, but definitely CPU) would either follow your idea or the more conventional hydro-mechanical system.

Heaven forbid we build something pointlessly complicated to do something that should be simple.

Indeed. But it's just my opinion on where the pointlessly complicated part is best sited, and how it is best implemented. Or maybe I'm just thinking in terms of a scale where it would become a better method. Maybe as the equivalent of a hard disk...

[King Mir]

I don't think you'd use a shuttle for a single bit, when you could use differing weights to increase bit density. Even a cursory glance at rock densities reveals a 1300-class (coal, lignite), 2600 (most), 5000 (hematite), 6200 (cobaltite), 7500 (galena), 8900 (native copper), 19000 (gold)... I haven't even gone through the entire list yet! It would require a storage yard (reserve) for each bit-weight, and possibly a repacking area so an excess of one bit class could be changed to another bit class, but if it's possible to get weights of zero to fifteen, you only need two carts for a byte, and eight for thirty-two bits!

I wonder if we'll be able to have way-stops, for switching a load from one track to another. If we can, they could be convenient ways to store a high density information like this.

I don't think you'd use a shuttle for a single bit, when you could use differing weights to increase bit density. Even a cursory glance at rock densities reveals a 1300-class (coal, lignite), 2600 (most), 5000 (hematite), 6200 (cobaltite), 7500 (galena), 8900 (native copper), 19000 (gold)... I haven't even gone through the entire list yet! It would require a storage yard (reserve) for each bit-weight, and possibly a repacking area so an excess of one bit class could be changed to another bit class, but if it's possible to get weights of zero to fifteen, you only need two carts for a byte, and eight for thirty-two bits!

Yes, but every density would require a different pressure plate to measure them.  You're functionally trading carts for more pressure plates needed in measuring bits.

That depends. For a multiplexer, the high density would actually be less space and parts. For complex combinational logic, a bus of 4 tracks would be more efficent. 

And for long distances, if that ever comes to matter in DF, the denser data makes sense.

[Symmetry]

I'm no longer disappointed.  Thanks all

[penguinofhonor]

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