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steveman0's Freight Carts

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MOD END OF LIFE NOTICE!!
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Due to the merger and upgrade of the mod for FCE Adventures Pack the code has changed substantially. As such, the codebase for the mod is almost unrecognizable in some places by comparison making it difficult to support. To better support bug fixes and polish to the vanilla code I am dropping support for the mod. Due to the notable differences and improvements of the version of the carts included in the Adventures Pack I will leave the mod on the workshop for everyone (i.e. non-DLC owners) to use. Feel free to use it and learn the basics using it (and maybe it'll help you decide whether you want to purchase the Adventures Pack DLC ;) for the upgraded version)

The mod should work on P21 as of the latest mod patch and should be quite stable. In the upgrade process for merger only 2 or 3 bugs with the old code were found, none of which are game breaking, so it should run reasonably well assuming nothing else in the game code ends up breaking it.
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Freight Carts are intelligent minecarts designed to distribute goods between mass storage systems. Unlike regular minecarts, freight carts only collect items that are required by other stations. The amount of goods to maintain at any particular station is configurable to your needs.

Freight cart stations link up with an adjacent mass storage system. The station's goods for offering and to request from others is configured by opening the machine's interface with E. From there goods can be set by dragging an example item from your inventory or by right clicking an entry and searching for it by name. The amount of of the item you want to keep in stock at the station can then be set. If you want to offer the goods elsewhere set the target to a low number or zero. If you want carts to bring items to the station specify how much you'd like to be stored there and carts will attempt to stock the inventory.

Freight carts are similar to vanilla minecarts. They have the same stats and use the same items however to configure them as freight carts they must be deployed from a Freight Cart Depot. Due to vanilla code, vanilla minecarts deployed from a Minecart Depot cannot travel over a freight cart station. Freight cart depots will only send out as many carts as your stations need. You specify how many carts work for each station by assigning them in the station's interface (E).

---------------Major updates in V10--------------------------------
The core navigation has been rewritten to be more flexible for future expansion and should be more robust as a whole with respect to adjustments to track layouts and station placements/rotations.

Major change to the core freight settings - now there is only a single "Target Stock" value instead of the old offers/requests. Carts now offer goods if the inventory has more than the target stock and request goods if they're below the target stock. This simplification was done to streamline the interface and make it more accessible to players in anticipation of potential merger into the vanilla game.

Also to this end, several other changes have been made to simplify use of the system. Most notably, carts will only serve their assigned station and will only collect goods from other stations if they benefit their assigned stations. Carts can also only spawn at a depot if there is an assignment for them. Carts must be assigned to stations, they'll no longer choose on their own.

Cart rules with straight track has changed. They will no longer accept entering a straight track piece from the side. Doing so will cause them to derail. If you want to have a cart turn either use corner pieces or junctions. Carts also now have several additional error indicators to provide feedback for when they have problems. Keep an eye on their lights for trouble.


-----------Previous major version updates-----------------------
Starting with Version 5, the mod includes Track Junctions. Junctions enable the construction of vast track networks. No longer are carts stuck on the one linear path you provide it. When a cart gets to a junction it decides where it needs to go and automatically travels to the destination by pathing through your track system. Now you can lay an intertwined web of track around your fortress sending items all across to numerous destinations.

New to Version 8, freight cart stations can also connect to storage hoppers enabling loading basic resources without a complex storage system. To go with this, I've added Ore Freighters - a new type of freight cart that can carry 10x the volume of a normal freight cart. Unlike the smaller variety, Ore Freighters can only carry one type of ore (ore only) at a time. Use them as an alternative to conventional transit methods for mining!

Modders, if you are interested in integrating freight into your mod check out the interface description on the aptly named discussion thread. You can contact me there, in the comments, forums, or Discord if you have any questions.

Credits:
Many thanks to PrairForMercy for the custom icons!