I'm reminded of minecarts in Dwarf Fortress... Due to limitations of the current physics simulation, all collisions with non-creatures are perfectly elastic, meaning that if minecarts collide, they collide like billiard balls, with the lighter one being sent flying at high speeds away.
Someone exploited this property, and a series of downward ramps to send a minecart to supersonic speeds. This was done by having multiple carts on multiple tracks that all converged upon a single track released with precise timing so that they would all collide with on another in descending order of minecart mass. (Objects are always the same size and shape regardless of material, hence a wooden sword and steel sword are made exactly the same shape with exactly the same edge, one just is much more massive and better at cutting than the other. Hence, for given object types, such as minecarts, the density of the material it is made of is the only determining factor in object mass.) By arranging for collisions of denser minecarts like platinum into copper, and so on down the line until it hit a light wooden cart for seven consecutive collisions, the minecart was capable of being pushed to a speed of several dozen tiles per tick (a couple thousand kph in the game's terms), although friction forces quickly slammed the speed down unless you immediately sent the cart off a ramp to make it fly at supersonic speeds. (AKA, "Dwarven Space Program")
Dear me, has anyone used this contraption yet to "encourage" Nobles to "extend the boundaries of Dwarven knowledge"?
Actually, the general first joke was to try to send goblin prisoners to the moon, but unfortunately, Dwarven minecart technology has yet to discover a properly sealable cover for the minecart, so sending a minecart flying off a ramp involves ejecting its passenger, generally straight forward into the wall the ramp was leaning upon, and at supersonic speeds.
...
Bring a mop.
That said, the Dwarven Static Defenses Department quickly found a myriad of uses for the minecart, from the (now patched out) "wave cannons", which used the then default modeling of fluids as though they were solids to cause minecarts to skip across the water at high speeds. Because of the aforementioned modeling, splashing water dealt damage like it was a rock of the same mass and velocity as the water splashing, which was capable of breaking bones if you sent minecarts barreling past at high speeds.
Something I think may still actually be in the game, and even more bizarre and buggy is the 'Thumper' defense system, which relies upon dropping carts from a height of a few floors before automated ramps reset their position so they can fall again. Thanks to a bug in the physics calculation, the game considers the cart to be colliding with the whole tile below where the cart lands, meaning that the physics engine will declare that anyone on the floor below where the cart landed just got hit by a minecart falling on their head from three stories above. (Obviously, you do this with lead or other dense metal carts...) This is capable of even killing titans if you can either set up a long enough corridor of thumpers or keep them occupied by setting up some nice pillars or floodgates or whatever to knock over while standing in the thumper killzone.
I'm reminded of minecarts in Dwarf Fortress... Due to limitations of the current physics simulation, all collisions with non-creatures are perfectly elastic, meaning that if minecarts collide, they collide like billiard balls, with the lighter one being sent flying at high speeds away.
Someone exploited this property, and a series of downward ramps to send a minecart to supersonic speeds. This was done by having multiple carts on multiple tracks that all converged upon a single track released with precise timing so that they would all collide with on another in descending order of minecart mass. (Objects are always the same size and shape regardless of material, hence a wooden sword and steel sword are made exactly the same shape with exactly the same edge, one just is much more massive and better at cutting than the other. Hence, for given object types, such as minecarts, the density of the material it is made of is the only determining factor in object mass.) By arranging for collisions of denser minecarts like platinum into copper, and so on down the line until it hit a light wooden cart for seven consecutive collisions, the minecart was capable of being pushed to a speed of several dozen tiles per tick (a couple thousand kph in the game's terms), although friction forces quickly slammed the speed down unless you immediately sent the cart off a ramp to make it fly at supersonic speeds. (AKA, "Dwarven Space Program")
That's by far the most kerbal shit I've read that isn't actually KSP-related
Leave a comment