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Improve minecart UI and track stop UI #4993

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Deoxys0 opened this issue Oct 7, 2024 · 0 comments
Open

Improve minecart UI and track stop UI #4993

Deoxys0 opened this issue Oct 7, 2024 · 0 comments

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@Deoxys0
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Deoxys0 commented Oct 7, 2024

I was told to post this here as a suggestion instead of just in the discord server.

The Context:
So for those who do not know, you can make an automatic QSP (quantum stockpile) using minecarts. The setup is simple: a minecart sitting on a single track stop by itself (with no connecting tracks) is used to dump items into a 1 x 1 stockpile. Items that are dumped on top of other items will "stack", aka become a QSP, as long as the stockpile in question accepts those items. There's technically multiple ways you can achieve this, but the easiest way is with the following setup:
20241007183114_1

  • A: This is the staging stockpile; it's used to hold all the items that you want in the QSP; it can be any size.
  • B: The QSP itself; it can technically be any size but only 1 tile will ever be used, so we make it 1 x 1. Note that for some categories of items, you will need to disable the extras like wheelbarrows, bins, and/or barrels, otherwise they'll clog up the QSP.
  • C: The minecart route for handling the automatic portion of the QSP.
  • D: The configured minecart track stop; it MUST have these settings as these basically tell dwarves to put items in the cart and then instantly dump them on the other side into the QSP.
  • E: The link to the staging stockpile; you want the track stop to take from this stockpile.

If everything is setup correctly, you will now have a fully automatic, infinite storage QSP that will run forever. Dwarves cannot put items directly into the QSP (they have to use the minecart) but they can take from it and use it for crafting, building, etc. This method works on ALL types of items, even those that are stored in bins like arrows as long as you disable said bins.

The Problem:
Some people, including me, will go absolutely crazy with automatic QSP and we'll have most of our storage be this. It's easy to setup and actually helps with performance because it keeps dwarves busy kicking minecarts (and busy dwarves are oddly less laggy than idle ones) and it keeps items from laying loosely around (items seem to lag more if they're not in a stockpile). You'd think having a thousands of rocks stacked on top of each other would lag, but surprisingly it doesn't; it's actually the opposite and I personally have gotten better performance using automatic QSPs.
20241007181004_1

But after you get more than 10 QSPs, the minecart UI becomes crazy:
20241007182727_1

Even with everything named, finding and editing specific QSPs is a nightmare and adding new ones also sucks because it doesn't always automatically scroll to the bottom.

What I think should be added:
Even if you don't use minecarts for QSPs, that UI overall could still use some additions. It feels like it's the only part of the vanilla UI that hasn't been touched by DFHack. Here are some possible things that I think would be nice to have:

  • The ability to search/filter by name in the minecart UI.
  • The ability to sort the minecart UI by name or other things like track stop names or number of track stops; just anything that would be helpful.
  • The ability to copy and save track stop settings so that they can easily be reapplied to new track stops. This could even have it's own UI altogether like the pen/pasture one does.
  • The ability to filter by unused minecarts when selecting a minecart to use at the track stop.
  • Anything else that would be helpful and bring this up to the standards of other UIs that DFHack has modified. I'll update this list if I think of anything else.
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