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[Hortun]

Maybe some of this has already been gone over and I've missed it, but here's a suggestion. Perhaps boilers could be used as an alternative to windmill and waterwheel power sources. Water could be routed or pumped to a boiler which can be used to run other pumps. The boiler could be situated over magma or fueled like a furnace to boil water. The steam pressure can power nearby pumps or be piped to relatively close pumps.

The output steam would either need to be piped out of the fortress, or to a reservoir room to condense and possibly be directed back into the boiler for reuse. A spin-off from this idea would be that the evaporated water would become desalinated when it is re-condensed. This is a bit more simple than real-life desalinization, but still a bit more accurate than having a screw pump desalinate water.

A player would have to ensure that the boiler's output energy would be enough to compensate for the fuel used and any pumps used to bring water to the boiler. On this logic, a player could do something completely pointless such as making a boiler that powers only the pumps it uses to bring its own output water back to it.

Boilers could also be used to transport water by means of pressurized steam through pipes. Players would have to ensure that the boiler produces enough pressure to push the vapor to its destination, or at least to a point where gravity can take it to its destination.

Pressurized, hot steam could also be a hazard for dwarves. Having a dwarf deconstruct a pipeline from an active boiler could flood the room with searing hot steam scalding nearby dwarves to death and causing a mess of water afterwords.

It seemed like a fun idea to me, although I could see how it would be difficult to code and provide more complications to gameplay.

[Ironhand]

I'm pretty sure Toady's already said he doesn't like steam power.

[Grendus]

Toady has said that the technology in DF should be around the 1400's era. While steam power had been invented in the 1400's, it hadn't been applied to industry yet and wouldn't be for several hundred years yet. So no, no steam power, sorry.

[Hortun]

Oh dang. Well, it was worth a shot.

[Ghoulz]

Perhaps if your mechanic reaches a very high amount of skill he decides to experiment with new power sources?

Has a nice mad scientist feel to it.

[alfie275]

How about not having a 'boiler' but rather the parts to make one? Such as metal floors conduct heat, so just put water in a room over magma OR just pipe water in pipes through magma tiles. Then just allow for pressurization to build up which Toady could implement as similar to water pressure but allow for a greater pressurization.

[darkrider2]

maybe if you put all your refuse in a hall and then put a water wheel in the only (1 space wide) exit tunnel to the room the pressure from miasma can push the water wheel and create power. Efficient biofuel.

DF is going green baby.

[Grendus]

maybe if you put all your refuse in a hall and then put a water wheel in the only (1 space wide) exit tunnel to the room the pressure from miasma can push the water wheel and create power. Efficient biofuel.

DF is going green baby.

Dwarves use geothermal energy to forge metal and hydrolic or pneumatic energy to power pumps and mills. The dwarves are the freakin gods of the green party.

And the created gasses from an entire city wouldn't produce enough pressure to justify the construction required to compress them. You might be able, with a large enough dump, to gather methane gas and burn it as a fuel, but just the raw pressure of the gas won't create enough energy to power a household, much less a city.

[Bricks]

I think desalinization is good thing to consider, though.  Seems like it should be possible in some regard, though I'm hardly an expert on preindustrial techniques of desalinizing water.

[Derakon]

You can use distillation to desalinize water. Just boil off the water, then condense it in a connected container. The salt and other dissolved impurifications remain in the boiler while the second container has pure water. A distillery ought to be able to handle this, though it should require fuel (and, of course, the ability to store water in barrels and have dwarves drink from same).

[alfie275]

You could the use the salt in cooking.

[Atarlost]

You could sell the salt to traders from inland countries.  Salt was *expensive* in premodern times. 
Or you could build walls out of it.  Actually, why doesn't  DF allready have salt?  It's a minable mineral. 

[Granite26]

You could sell the salt to traders from inland countries.  Salt was *expensive* in premodern times. 
Or you could build walls out of it.  Actually, why doesn't  DF allready have salt?  It's a minable mineral. 

Salt was expensive because boiling water to get it wasn't economically viable

[Neonivek]

Well remember that the exception to the 1400s rule also is that it cannot feel like it belongs further then the 1400s. Hense why Toady isn't going to add guns in vanilla (but will support them)

[Granite26]

Well remember that the exception to the 1400s rule also is that it cannot feel like it belongs further then the 1400s. Hense why Toady isn't going to add guns in vanilla (but will support them)

I think he's regretting saying 1400's now, since what he obviously meant was classic high fantasized medieval, which didn't ever really exist