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[oven_baked]

I'm wondering if there is any existing !!science!! or knowledge on how steam work.
This is more of a question of the game mechanics really before I waste time;
Can you pressurise steam in DF. We can try to do it, by filling a cistern to 3/4 of water and surrounding it with magma, what should happen is the water would turn to steam due the heat and more squares will fill with steam than squares of water will evaporate, so at some point all squares will be full but more water will be boiling.
So what happens then?
Does boiling stop or does the steam disappear?

[DrKillPatient]

Water does not boil by use of magma under a floor. I've heard that it used to-- either that, or that information is entirely false. Currently, the only things that can pressurize are liquids (magma and water). You can do that either by pumps, to a limited extent, or by having the source of the water higher than the output.

[oven_baked]

That's not the sort of pressure I want, But since water and magma don't pressurise then I'm betting steam can't.
Would be nice for it to be added, as my idea was to create a boiler, then link it to a corridor so that when a floodgate was opened it would nearly-instantly flood the corridor with steam and basically boil the invader to death.
But after a short search on this subject I found that apparently in DF steam is cold.
No damage from steam, which kinda annoys me as it makes my idea not work even with pressure.


Heating though floors certainly used to work, as I remember a defence system using a water trench and magma under the floor to boil enemies by soaking them then boiling the water off them, which does/did do damage unlike steam...

[i2amroy]

Water does not boil by use of magma under a floor. I've heard that it used to-- either that, or that information is entirely false.

It's completely false. The only ways to create steam have been when magma boils away water contaminants on something, rain falling on magma, when something with a hot fixed temp (such as a magma man) enters a pool of water, or by making obsidian by mixing water and magma.

Heating though floors certainly used to work, as I remember a defence system using a water trench and magma under the floor to boil enemies by soaking them then boiling the water off them, which does/did do damage unlike steam...

This was taking advantage of an old bug in versions 31.01-31.04 where the process of water contaminants boiling away would cause the fat to melt off of dwarves due to a weird temperature interaction. You can see some reports of it on the bug tracker here.

As for air, currently DF doesn't simulate any sort of air pressure or similar effects. Steam, miasma, and mist will all spread out, but they just do that because they are programmed to, not because of any controlling physics.

[arkhometha]

Water does not boil by use of magma under a floor. I've heard that it used to-- either that, or that information is entirely false. Currently, the only things that can pressurize are liquids (magma and water). You can do that either by pumps, to a limited extent, or by having the source of the water higher than the output.

I'm almost sure magma can't be pressurized.

forget it, it can be pressurized using pumps.