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[The Architect]

Yes, look at Elder Scrolls dwarfs!

Because giant, steam-powered automatons defending ancient steam-powered ruins is not the definition of steampunk.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Yes, look at Elder Scrolls dwarfs!

Because giant, steam-powered automatons defending ancient steam-powered ruins is not the definition of steampunk.

Actually I was referring to the use of thermal energy (Magma) being used to heat water in large boilers.. not the centurions.. but in the modding section about once a week someone asks how they might go about trying to build a dwarven robot creature so I don't see how your point is even relevant.

Just because something is steam powered doesnt mean its steam punk.. Steam punk involves well, the punk aspect.

A good example of Dwarves with Steam is to look at Morrowind, the Dwemer. They even seem to have electric generators powering the lights, and this is long after they're gone so it even fits with the perpetual powerplant of dwarf fortress.

I know that steam power isn't the same thing as steam punk, but what I am saying is that Toady wants nothing even like steam punk, and as soon as steam is admitted, then there will always be someone trying to throw that "punk" part in.

Steam-powered electrical generators juicing up electric lightbulbs definitely lies beyond the technological scope of the more Middle-Aged world that Toady wants DF to be set within.  (And sounds very close to steampunk to me...)

They don't use light bulbs, they're much closer to red hot metal's behind a protective glass. (Lightbulbs are vacuum sealed)
but that was only an example of what they can do anyways, they also have all sorts of gears and stoves which were in use.

The way I see it, if people are trying to throw that "punk" part in, they're able to do it via mods as is.

[Starver]

I know Toady is a little cautious about steam powered stuff, but isn't it reasonable to believe a people who live so close to large pools of magma might figure out how to make a boiler of sorts?

Note that one of the Dev items is pipes.  Crawlable through, but mainly, I imagine, for conveyance of liquids[1].  Feasibly I could imagine magma-safe pipes being constructed, let be surrounded by magma and then piping water in at one end to get steam out at another (like an obsidianless obsidian farm).

Coupled with a pressure-plate activated hatch, it could allow one to broil enemies (or nearby friends) on demand.  Or just make it normally continuous, like an inverted "magma waterfall" gateway situation.

If it works like that, of course.


[1] Or perhaps crawl-space through a tank of liquid.  Well, water, not sure it'd be safe with a magma surround if the rest of my post is speculatively correct.

[RAM]

A HFS pipe could probably keep a dwarf safe due to its HF properties, but it might require a some new HFS, as far as I know the current range of HFS doesn't have that HF...

[Granite26]

Updating first post:


Delay boxes
Signal Propagation Delay
Templates (per BlazingDev's 'unlockables'), gearbox
Building Damage Behaviour (Starver)
Catapult other objects
Sound Pipes (still no use?)

[RAM]

Well they could extend the range at which entities could detect each other. You could have sound pipes to your food stores to make cats think that vermin there were closer. Civilians could hear invaders coming through the entrance and start running away from the pipe end, and probably towards the invaders in some cases... Adventurers might hear the sound of a motionless mount of treasure while they are deciding whether or not to pull a lever...

[Uristocrat]

I don't believe that anyone has suggested a temperature triggered device.

Recommended useful temperature states would be:
* Freezing
* Normal
* Fire
* Magma (this would be replaced by "melted" for non-magma safe mechanisms :-)

I can, for example, imagine automating that ice trap someone made to automatically melt itself once the goblins are frozen.

[NW_Kohaku]

I don't believe that anyone has suggested a temperature triggered device.

Recommended useful temperature states would be:
* Freezing
* Normal
* Fire
* Magma (this would be replaced by "melted" for non-magma safe mechanisms :-)

I can, for example, imagine automating that ice trap someone made to automatically melt itself once the goblins are frozen.

Problem is, I'm not sure how you could build a mechanical device sensitive enough to make temperature changes part of an on/off switch.  Even if you try to set up the device based on metal that expands or contracts (even if it were mercury, which making mercury thermometers seems a little advanced) due to temperature, it seems hard to build a device that would be fine-tuned enough to be based on at most a centimeter of expansion or contraction.

Plus, what need is there for detecting "magma" temperatures when you can already use a pressure plate that simply is set to detect magma? 

Likewise, "normal" temperatures are basically what 99.999% of all tiles will be at all times, so it is useful only as a null state. 

Fire is likewise not particularly useful, as the only real time a tile is fire temperature is when something like a fire imp is walking nearby, or a fire is in the same tile as the device, which would essentially require trying to force a dwarf to drop something that would burn in the same tile.  Considering as water doesn't even stop fires right now, I can't really see much use for this, except as a fire imp-specific trap.

This leaves freezing, which basically means that you would have to put it in a freezing body of water specifically to trigger it at the time of the freezing.  I'm not sure I can think of much that you would want to specifically trigger like this, honestly.

[RAM]

Surely you could use water in a freezing specific detector. You could have a cog immersed in water and another with a power source, when the water freezes the first cog will stick and the second cog will, instead of pushing the first cog, instead be pushed against a pressure plate. The gearing, however, might be quite complex...

Hotter temperatures could be detected by the reduction in resistance from the water evaporating...

[Starver]

Problem is, I'm not sure how you could build a mechanical device sensitive enough to make temperature changes part of an on/off switch.  Even if you try to set up the device based on metal that expands or contracts (even if it were mercury, <insert>a practical use for cinnabar! (other than advanced hatmaking, of course)</insert>, which making mercury thermometers seems a little advanced) due to temperature, it seems hard to build a device that would be fine-tuned enough to be based on at most a centimeter of expansion or contraction.

Gearing.  Could be a wire under sprung tension attached to drum, or just a linear actuated arm translating a little bit of expansion to a large movement.  But given how mechanical transfers already work, all it would need to do is to make a small traversal, and the classic lever-to-drawbridge amplification could just as easily occur.

Plus, what need is there for detecting "magma" temperatures when you can already use a pressure plate that simply is set to detect magma?

Detecting magma flowing underneath/above a square?  (Which would normally give a "cancelled digging: warm rock" message, if it was about to be dug, and not open.)  Or detect when a wall to its side has that property.  It does cater for the times when you couldn't get the magma-pressure detector there beforehand.  Either through the rush to get the channel active or because you want to detect a drop in the level of an existing magma-tube on the other side of a wall prior to something else happening.

Likewise, "normal" temperatures are basically what 99.999% of all tiles will be at all times, so it is useful only as a null state.

(A null state is still a state.)

Fire is likewise not particularly useful [...][/qote] I saw this as an extension of heat in general, but, then again, I remember having my arse kicked on an old (pre-40D, not sure what it was, though, as it was in my early days and I really didn't understand DF back then) when a brushfire was started by wandering fire-imps, and I eventually managed to recruit some dwarfs and send them onto stony ground (having been cut off from the internal fortress).  Ok, so fire-imp detector is a bit of a single-use issue (of course, it can also detect dragons!) unless you also put it next to your booze stockpile to automate the sprinklers system when you end up having a little accident! 

This leaves freezing, which basically means that you would have to put it in a freezing body of water specifically to trigger it at the time of the freezing.  I'm not sure I can think of much that you would want to specifically trigger like this, honestly.

Seasonally-synced clock mechanisms.

A while ago I made a freezing-detector.  I let a reliable water-source (aquifer, in a hillside, though could have pumped it from lower down) drain out into the open air through a drift-shaft a Z-level below the source level.  When the cold weather came and the outflow froze, it blocked the usual egress and backed up, triggering a pressure-plate sitting on a normally dry ledge.

"For what use" is an open question, of course.  I never did get my "clock" to fully operate the multiple sets of 7-segment-arrayed bridges to display the (imminent) year, but I could have.  But the lack of clear use has never stopped anyone working with mechanical/fluid/dwarf/hostile logic systems, and there's been some interesting things done with it, and sparks the creative process more for all that.


The question really is, if you can currently detect something like freezing by the method I mention (and I could imagine flame being detected in future, if built items of flammable material could themselves be set on fire...  Non-repeating, of course), does replacing all this with a single detector of some kind constitute dumbing down the creative process?

[Thoth]

Problem is, I'm not sure how you could build a mechanical device sensitive enough to make temperature changes part of an on/off switch.  Even if you try to set up the device based on metal that expands or contracts (even if it were mercury, <insert>a practical use for cinnabar! (other than advanced hatmaking, of course)</insert>, which making mercury thermometers seems a little advanced) due to temperature, it seems hard to build a device that would be fine-tuned enough to be based on at most a centimeter of expansion or contraction.

Gearing.  Could be a wire under sprung tension attached to drum, or just a linear actuated arm translating a little bit of expansion to a large movement.  But given how mechanical transfers already work, all it would need to do is to make a small traversal, and the classic lever-to-drawbridge amplification could just as easily occur.

Plus, what need is there for detecting "magma" temperatures when you can already use a pressure plate that simply is set to detect magma?

Detecting magma flowing underneath/above a square?  (Which would normally give a "cancelled digging: warm rock" message, if it was about to be dug, and not open.)  Or detect when a wall to its side has that property.  It does cater for the times when you couldn't get the magma-pressure detector there beforehand.  Either through the rush to get the channel active or because you want to detect a drop in the level of an existing magma-tube on the other side of a wall prior to something else happening.

Likewise, "normal" temperatures are basically what 99.999% of all tiles will be at all times, so it is useful only as a null state.

(A null state is still a state.)

Fire is likewise not particularly useful [...][/qote] I saw this as an extension of heat in general, but, then again, I remember having my arse kicked on an old (pre-40D, not sure what it was, though, as it was in my early days and I really didn't understand DF back then) when a brushfire was started by wandering fire-imps, and I eventually managed to recruit some dwarfs and send them onto stony ground (having been cut off from the internal fortress).  Ok, so fire-imp detector is a bit of a single-use issue (of course, it can also detect dragons!) unless you also put it next to your booze stockpile to automate the sprinklers system when you end up having a little accident! 

This leaves freezing, which basically means that you would have to put it in a freezing body of water specifically to trigger it at the time of the freezing.  I'm not sure I can think of much that you would want to specifically trigger like this, honestly.

Seasonally-synced clock mechanisms.

A while ago I made a freezing-detector.  I let a reliable water-source (aquifer, in a hillside, though could have pumped it from lower down) drain out into the open air through a drift-shaft a Z-level below the source level.  When the cold weather came and the outflow froze, it blocked the usual egress and backed up, triggering a pressure-plate sitting on a normally dry ledge.

"For what use" is an open question, of course.  I never did get my "clock" to fully operate the multiple sets of 7-segment-arrayed bridges to display the (imminent) year, but I could have.  But the lack of clear use has never stopped anyone working with mechanical/fluid/dwarf/hostile logic systems, and there's been some interesting things done with it, and sparks the creative process more for all that.


The question really is, if you can currently detect something like freezing by the method I mention (and I could imagine flame being detected in future, if built items of flammable material could themselves be set on fire...  Non-repeating, of course), does replacing all this with a single detector of some kind constitute dumbing down the creative process?

Bi-metallic strip, the dwarves have knowledge of alloys, so really it's not too far a stretch, obviously its what's used in most kettles, so for steam it'd be perfect. It is of course generally used in electrical circuits, which is beyond dwarves i think, mechanical devices are fine but electronics, even rudimentary ones are iffy, not saying i wouldn't like a giant lightning conductor charging hundreds of lead acid batteries, so that my hand of nod style tesla coils *menaces with crackles of lightning*  surround my trade depot.

[RAM]

Indeed, the quality of the death machines surrounding your trade depot really should improved its value...

[Sunken]

Though bimetallic strips are past the time frame for the game, they seem like just the sort of metallurgical cleverness dwarfs might just have stumbled upon.

[Jayce]

This is based in medievil style fantasy,next you will want cars and ray guns.

[Uristocrat]

Problem is, I'm not sure how you could build a mechanical device sensitive enough to make temperature changes part of an on/off switch.  Even if you try to set up the device based on metal that expands or contracts (even if it were mercury, which making mercury thermometers seems a little advanced) due to temperature, it seems hard to build a device that would be fine-tuned enough to be based on at most a centimeter of expansion or contraction.

We can't currently get that mercury in game, but we already have cinnabar.  I'm surprised we haven't used it yet to make fur into felt, but I guess we only have tanned hides and ignore fur pelts for whatever reason.

Cinnabar, unless I'm mistaken, has been used as a mercury source since ancient times.  Bimetallic strips don't seem like that much of a stretch for dwarves who are metalworkers and machinists, either.  Frankly, I was going for more of an abstract "mechanism" type thing.  But if you want to require cinnabar mechanisms, I'm fine with that.

I meant to leave the "how" deliberately abstract.  I think it might be better that way.

Plus, what need is there for detecting "magma" temperatures when you can already use a pressure plate that simply is set to detect magma? 

Likewise, "normal" temperatures are basically what 99.999% of all tiles will be at all times, so it is useful only as a null state. 

I would remove the "detect magma" function from the pressure plate (or rather, require that pressure plates detect both water *and* magma) and move it to a temperature sensor were one added.  I mean, how can a pressure plate tell the difference between the two, anyhow?  Magma might be denser, but it's a pressure sensor not a density sensor... right?

You need a null state, even if it seems useless.  There are traps that already depend on freezing & magma, so the use to automate those should be obvious enough.  That leaves fires, which are indeed useful (vs dragons, HFS, and all magma dwellers... not just imps).

Fire is likewise not particularly useful, as the only real time a tile is fire temperature is when something like a fire imp is walking nearby, or a fire is in the same tile as the device, which would essentially require trying to force a dwarf to drop something that would burn in the same tile.  Considering as water doesn't even stop fires right now, I can't really see much use for this, except as a fire imp-specific trap.

I think that the part about water not stopping fires is a bug and expect it to get fixed... eventually.  I guess I didn't realize it hadn't been fixed.  But there are other uses for it until then (e.g. seal off the booze stockpile _before_ the imp gets inside).  Later, it might be possible to use controlled flooding to put out fires.