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[Abyssal Squid]

I know that firearms as such worldn't fit with the tone of the game, but a tube closed on one end that combines water and lava to produce an explosive blast of steam doesn't seem outside the realm of dwarven ingenuity.

The steam cannon has three main components: the cannon itself, made from many steel bars; the feed channel(s), which provide the cannon with lava for propellant (I'm not sure if I prefer feeding it water from a bucket or a channel); and ammunition, which is just good old rock.  A no-ammunition mode makes sense as well, producing a blast of steam that is just as deadly as a flying stone, but has a much shorter range.

[SquidDNA]

I instead suggest a workshop called the boiler-- in wood-fueled and magma variants-- which when taking water from a channel will produce steam. Steam would be distributed through pipes which, like bridges, aqueducts, and roads, would be built as tiles and require metal bars to build. Pipes could also be used for water with the advantage that they take up no room on the tile, owing to inbuilt supports (I suppose) that keep them elevated. Anyway steam is then routed via pipes to any number of devices-- your steam cannons, but also steam-powered traps that do not need mechanics to reset. Steam-powered mills perhaps. In order to track steam as a resource, say a device 1) has to be connected to a steam-filled pipe and 2) has to be manually hooked up to the boiler in the same way that levers are hooked up to floodgates and the like.

Re: magma boilers, I would definitely have them recognize channels / ponds as a magma source. Is there any particular reason this is not so for forges and smelters?

[ October 01, 2006: Message edited by: SquidDNA ]

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by SquidDNA:Re: magma boilers, I would definitely have them recognize channels / ponds as a magma source. Is there any particular reason this is not so for forges and smelters?

It's on the To-Do list (same with water channels and mills).

[CogDissident]

It seems a bit high-tech for the level of technology that dwarves have in this. More like gnomes to have it than dwarves anyway.

[Captain Mayday]

Actually, Da Vinci himself invented a steam cannon I believe.

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by CogDissident:
It seems a bit high-tech for the level of technology that dwarves have in this.

There are lots of ways to create steam traps.

The most basic would be a trip line that dumps a bucket of water over a channel of lava, over which is a stone or metal grate. The most complex could be a steel pipe which has a central divider; one side carries the molten rock, and the other carries the water that will turn into steam. Vents linked to pressure plates could then open when triggered, and spray scalding steam into the corridor.

[SquidDNA]

Well I think actually piping magma might be pushing it.

An idea I had for steam pipes was that you could make it out of substandard metal but you increased the likelihood of dangerous leaks. That might also be pushing it.  

I agree that steam power for our dwarves might be too sophisticated for the genre, but  let's see.

Also, "It's on the To-Do list"
Awesome. I half suspected this was just a "suck it up, you're supposed to have to hike all the way to the magma river anytime you want to smelt / forge" and I'm really glad it isn't. My first attempt at building a conveniently located smelter was met with extreme disappointment (considering all the tunneling and channeling I had to do. )

[ October 02, 2006: Message edited by: SquidDNA ]

[DimmurWyrd]

If one wants to debate realism then having a pipe carry lava is out since it'd cool and harden in the pipe... having a split channel pipe and combine at the end is also out because the divider would transmit the heat and you'd have steam regardless of desires... About the only realistic way I can see is heating the water in a boiler then piping the steam... There are problems with that as well since having the boiler always going is gonna require periodic pressure releases to avoid exploding boilers hehe.

For just a steam blast type trap/weapon clay pipe would be sufficient... but for steam cannon then you need some good steel and even that would pose a huge risk of backfire... Considering gunpowder is even lower tech and requires far less precision metalwork I'd think those would be more likely. Sadly SteamPunk is just as much fantasy as sorcery and wizards throwing magic around, it's just that it "sounds" more plausible hehe.

On the other hand fun is more important than realism any day.

[SquidDNA]

Dimmur, I guess I was thinking of having the boiler only work if it was periodically tended by dwarves. (The better they are at furnace operation, the less often the boiler needs to be tended.)