Rail Carts? Help?

[Qui-Gon Gym]

I would like to make a straight railway that has one cart on it that can be pulled in either direction. I've been trying for hours to design one but I keep failing to make a working model. Anyone have an idea?

Basically it would just be 2 rails(made of timber) that have a movable platform pulled by rope so that the person on the platform can control which way he wants to go. I just want to use something other than a bridge.

[Eedrah]

Wait until they fix the physics and implement more features....

[Frad in'Ryth]

Originally posted by Mackenzie Magicks:

I would like to make a straight railway that has one cart on it that can be pulled in either direction. I've been trying for hours to design one but I keep failing to make a working model. Anyone have an idea? ...

I thought this would be a fun little proof of concept to see how the game behaves....
Wow, not well is the answer I got.

Things I learned...
1. If you are standing on a flat surface that moves beneath you, you will not travel with it.
- My cart moved out from under me. A high timber block was all it took to keep me in place to operate the crank and move the cart smoothly.

2. Ropes don't seem to like to go further than their initially set length. (not exhaustively tested)
- To get around this I started with the cart at the north end of the track. Only attached the south-bound rope drums to anchors at the south end of the track. I was able to pull the cart along to the south end no problems. Then I attached the north-bound set of rope drums to the north side anchors. Turned the crank and nothing. It seems like the south-bound rope drums won't give out rope freely. What did finally kind of work was drawing in the north-bound drums' ropes and then reverse cranking the south-bound drums to release the tension. With this back and forth motion of the two axles I was able to move the cart, though it was a tedious process.

3. The rope drums rotational direction has no impact on the drawing or releasing of rope based on direction of anchor. (Not surprising without some forethought on spooling a drum IRL this is how they'd behave)
- Next I tried a single axle with four rope drums. Two anchored to the south end of the track and two to the north end of the track. Same set up as above. Set the far end ropes. moved the cart over the track then set the beginning ends. It wouldn't even rotate because it was trying to draw the rope in from opposite direction at the same time.

4. Ropes under tension do spastic and violent things to carts (duh).
- Just for kicks and skittles I removed two of the rope drums from the axle and roped one to the north end drew the cart over to that end of the track. Due to my guides on the bottom of the cart not being as tight to the rails as I'd have liked the cart twisted of center but still traveled across. I then connected the second drum to the south end and tried to move it back. I got it to move maybe a 1/4 to a 1/3 of the way back before it stop and my entire axle/rope drum section started vibrating badly and finally ripped lose of the catch blocks.

At that point I was glad there were no OSHA inspectors around to see my unsafe work environment and tab back over to write this up.


I can think of how to do smoothly it with a slope and gravity assisting with travel in one direction as you let out rope from the high end of the track, but I'm not sure at this time that you could do it on a flat surface in a smooth fashion.


Cheers,

[Frad in'Ryth]

I was going to take a screenshot to show what my cart and track looked like. This is what happened when I got it to one end of the track.... Apparently you can rip moorings loose from stone. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=398127300

[Qui-Gon Gym]

Thanks man; It didn't work out for me so just made a cart that you would physically have to push while inside in order to go backwards or forwards on the rail. Not the best but will suit my needs for a medieval railroad lol.