At what point do minecarts overtake pipes and cargo lifts?

[Provengreil]

Note: this is NOT the question you think it is. I'm not building minecarts vertically or in spirals.

I've just blown up an overmind in my current world, and I make a point to try at least one untried machine at least once per world. This one's minecarts, and the first view is...they seem quite slow. I just don't know when I'd use them. I know the throughput can, in theory, be one full minecart load every couple seconds if you fill the track, but I have yet to need that (FF perhaps?)

I have always been able to have a set of storage hoppers at the base of a lift, and by the time the lift makes a round trip, the hoppers will be full even though they're only fed by pipes or ever just standard conveyors.

Then at the top, there's a significant logistics benefit to smelting the ores pretty much on the spot, and at the reduced numbers a motorized conveyor set leading into a transport network seems to do the trick anyway, again emptying the entire load while the lift is en route unless my whole factory is backed up.

Minecarts are ostensibly for mostly horizontal transport, but I can't figure out a situation when they're optimal over a pipe system. Anyone have some advice?

If it makes a difference, current difficulties are rapid/fast conveyors.

[zzmmorgan]

I'm looking at using them to replace a 2 high x 3 wide pipe system for my nickel transport. I even powered the pushing end and had pwered conveyers emptying the hoppers into the pipes but it was still bottlenecking. I have matter movers in some areas where I've got enough power to push them decently. But after playing with the minecarts especially with the bulk one I'm thinking of running that now as it looks like it might be an easier option. I'm into FF now on that world so starting to shove a LOT of power into the cold caverns so matter movers down below may still be a viable option. But I think the minecarts will be effective for a lot less energy. On the surface though I think the matter movers are helpful especially to feed coal into the fuel machine for the HODOR.

[Provengreil]

that's thing, though:I cant get crap into my pipes fast enough, but it doesn't matter if the bottleneck is a lift.

[zzmmorgan]

Originally posted by davidvvn:

that's thing, though:I cant get crap into my pipes fast enough, but it doesn't matter if the bottleneck is a lift.

I've not noticed the lift being much of a bottleneck other than transit times from deep down. With the basic lift (600 capacity) I put a stack of 2x3 hoppers beside it (hence the 2x3 pipe system to transfer) and the lift appears to fill or empty the hoppers faster than the pipes when I've watched it. The matter transmitters flat out rock for speed though :) I've been slowly working on upgrading the lifts as not only do they hold more but are faster. The nickel was the first as it seems I use a LOT of that. I figure that will be the first to go minecart as it'll be easier to just add more track as I empty veins and have to head further away to get more.

But I recently started playing with a new server-based world so spending most of my free time getting that going so may be a while before I go back to that other world.

[Provengreil]

lifts only hold 600 on rapid: IIRC it's 300 otherwise, though at that point it's worth doing doubles.

Now 600 per lift is more than enough, I'm making a backlog in my mass storage. But until pipes or hoppers become the issue I can't imagine needing minecarts, hence the OP.

[Peacock]

It is a question of scale. Lets say i want to transport 800 ore / minute (which is equivalent to 100 bars / min in Scarce). To do so, i would normally need 8 pipes, which is both expensive and cumbersome and will kill the performance of your machine. You can easily replace it with 1 minecart track.

[steveman0]

Bulk cargo lifts on rapid will hold 6000. I'd be impressed with a pipe system that can feed that!

The scaling for carts is key. The main expansion for throughput is carts and stations. With each station capable of moving 180 a minute capacity adds about as fast as an entire tube line for each station.

Freight carts are being added with Adv Pack which offer larger storage such that it is a bit easier to fully utilize station capacity and not need to carry around as many carts so I suspect they'll be the desired option for most who have access to them. I did have to nerf them a bit relative to the mod though as there were players who completely ignored all other options to use them! Take that for what it's worth.

[jey123456]

usually i end up using minecarts to share or reuse elevator (long distance horizontal underground transport). minecart are much cheaper than pipe (or at least they were last i played) and dont need defense underground unlike conveyor.

They are also much easier to scale up (add more carts), compared to other methods where you have to build an entire duplicate of the line or rebuild/upgrade the whole line.

On the scaleability side, its also easier to add more elevators to a railtrack line when needed (just add another unloading point) and since you can reach a very high throughput on a single track with a lot of carts, you can easily reuse the same long track for a lot of different source of minerals.

[Nedrith]

Personally I use minecarts underground because I used 3 lifts in my old world for each T2 resource with a single minecart track for each T2 resource. In the end i upgraded 2 lifts for each T2 resource to bulk lifts. That's a ton of ore/min needed to keep them stocked. With tubes I have to worry that I have enough throughput. I would have guessed I would have needed 2-3 tube runs per an improved lift. Minecarts are nice because it's simple to design a minecart track that works well with an extractor and is even nicer at the T4 level with trenchers. They are also simple to move when a resource depletes. Just have to move a single track compared to 5-6 tube runs.

It's also easy to see if there's a throughput issue. If I have carts bouncing back at the empty gate on the OE side then the extractor isn't coughing up enough resources. If I have carts bouncing back at the full gate on the lift side, everyone is happy generally or I have too many carts if a lot are bouncing around. If I have no carts bouncing back anywhere, a few more carts are desirable.

Now my current world has slow conveyors, So I'm testing a really nice design overworld to take bars to my crafting room. Very nice as the smelters now have an unlimited throughput into the minecart network and I don't have to balance smelters with conveyor networks so that I don't overload a single conveyor network. Just add a hopper and unload station on whatever line I need a specific resource and presto a cart will fill the hopper and I add the few extra conveyors to take the bars into the room.

With all of that said I think the reason the OP likely won't need minecarts is because of Rapid. The easier the game the less needed the more advanced mechanics are. 600 ore per a basic lift is a lot on rapid and is the equivalent of 4 basic lifts on Plentiful(600 ore per a lift on rapid is 300 bars. 4 lifts at 300 each on plentiful is 1200 ore or 300 bars) or the equivalent of 1 improved lift on plentiful minus most of the speed increase.

Now even on plentiful you can get away without minecarts. Where they really shine is scarce or plentiful with slow conveyors. Hence the higher the difficulty the more advanced mechanics you will start wanting.

[DjArcas]

"one full cart every couple of seconds" == 200 per 2 seconds == 6,000 per minute.

Think you answered your own question there. ;-)

[Ishakaru]

Just a note here. It is possible to over saturate minecarts. Loading and unloading stations can handle 3 items per second(180/m). This does not change for fast/slow. On the fast setting pipes max out at 150/min, and 100/m on slow.


I forget what the speed of minecarts are, but I want to say 1 basic minecart per track length per pair of hoppers. Divide by 2 for fast/large minecarts(4 for bulk). Of course you can get away with less if you use turbo rails.

[Pigeon]

Minecrats have infinite throughput, if they have limit of saturation though it is speed X cargo capacity with varience on turbo rails. Otherwise basic belt, belt, pipe, matter transmitters, carts typically for throughput.

[venoltar]

Ok, I figure I'm just oblivious, but where are the 200 item minecarts? The best I can find are 50 without mods. Also, how can you fill one in 2secs? The best I can do with a 50 is ~17seconds.

[Pigeon]

Minecart loading stations are limited by how much ore they are recieving or how much they can load/unload(150/m or 1 tube on fast i believe) There are no 200 item minecarts he just saying they getting alot of minecarts and they end up giving about 200 ore per second.