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[Rastaan]

So your map doesn't have wind, and the river is too far away to span the distance with axles...
Why not allow steam to drive a turbine?

[darius]

No, why? Because use search before posting:

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And i think Toady said "No, but maybe modable"

[G-Flex]

The short "no" answer: Because steam power is really out-of-depth for the technological and manufacturing capabilities that the game is intended to represent.

But yes, this comes up very, very often.

[Squirrelloid]

The short "no" answer: Because steam power is really out-of-depth for the technological and manufacturing capabilities that the game is intended to represent.

Factually untrue.  Its lack of presence in medieval europe was because the idea had been lost, and quite likely because the economics still didn't favor steam-power vs. labor power.

That Toady doesn't want to do it is one thing, but that's not carte blanche to make false statements.  A working steam engine was developed by the *Romans*, it just wasn't cost-effective relative to slave labor at the time. (It so happens that making a basic steam engine is actually really easy.  Anyone capable of making plate armor is more than capable of making one that power something).

[G-Flex]

If you're going to say anything like that, you're going to have to back it up. And no, the aeolipile doesn't count because it didn't actually do anything (an engine sort of has to move more than just itself in order to be useful).

[Shades]

It was shortly after they invented the first fusion reactor.. shame that one got lost too.

More seriously they had boilers and the aeolipile but nothing to suggest they could build a useful steam engine. As to the cost-effectiveness you need to do more research. Slave labour is not even close to as cost-effective as industrialisation was, and that is before you even consider the slaves generally don't like it either.

[G-Flex]

No no, they're not lost, just buried with the baghdad batteries that they were electroplating Emperor Qin's corpse with.

[Squirrelloid]

this has sources cited regarding it:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/rochelle.f/The-Discovery-of-steam-power.html

See also Heron Alexandrinus's works Automata and Pneumatica.

Even wikipedia names the aeolipile as the first steam turbine engine (to be contrasted with simply using steam for power, which Heron's books above cover different uses thereof).

One might conclude the only reasons further development of the concept ceased are either economical or because the knowledge was lost during the dark ages. 

To get a functional steam engine all you have to do is add a shaft to the spinning object on the aeolipile so the rotational power can be exported.  This falls into the category of 'immediately obvious', especially as archimedes screw was a well-known device at the time, and thus anyone with any mechanical knowledge would have been familiar with the translation of rotational energy into non-rotational energy and vice-versa.  So yes, the aeolipile certainly counts, and its called a *steam turbine engine* in many sources, both scholarly and public.

(Regarding economics - slaves were pretty cheap in the days of the Roman empire.)

[G-Flex]

To get a functional steam engine all you have to do is add a shaft to the spinning object on the aeolipile so the rotational power can be exported.

You're assuming that the aeolipile was at all efficient, and that it was sturdy, and that it could be fueled quickly enough. I'm willing to bet that at least first and probably also the second of these were not true, and there are probably other problems that I'm not thinking of.


Also, from that very article you just linked us to:

The most likely reason the Romans never developed a steam engine was that the materials available to them were not strong enough or finely worked enough to allow an industrial steam engine and their lack of understanding of the principles of vacuums, atomspheric pressure and the properties of gases such as steam meant they did not have enough theoretical knowledge to build a steam engine.

In other words: No, a functioning steam engine (as in, something that actually does work, not just a spinning toy; the aeolipile was a steam engine in the same sense that a child's hand-held pinwheel is a mechanical windmill) was not something within their reach, either in mechanics or in theory.

[Squirrelloid]

To get a functional steam engine all you have to do is add a shaft to the spinning object on the aeolipile so the rotational power can be exported.

You're assuming that the aeolipile was at all efficient, and that it was sturdy, and that it could be fueled quickly enough. I'm willing to bet that at least first and probably also the second of these were not true, and there are probably other problems that I'm not thinking of.


Also, from that very article you just linked us to:

The most likely reason the Romans never developed a steam engine was that the materials available to them were not strong enough or finely worked enough to allow an industrial steam engine and their lack of understanding of the principles of vacuums, atomspheric pressure and the properties of gases such as steam meant they did not have enough theoretical knowledge to build a steam engine.

In other words: No, a functioning steam engine (as in, something that actually does work, not just a spinning toy; the aeolipile was a steam engine in the same sense that a child's hand-held pinwheel is a mechanical windmill) was not something within their reach, either in mechanics or in theory.

They also couldn't make plate mail.  Our dwarves have much better metal-working skills, and are just better engineers in general.  The design work is all there.  I mean, we're 1400 years later technologically and have no reason to believe there was a dwarven dark age.

And i linked the article for the references, not the article itself.  The important citation is the Dickinson citation.

[G-Flex]

The ancient Greeks and Romans did know how to make plate armor. Sorry.

Also, Toady has explicitly mentioned many times that the time period he's trying to reflect is that of approximately 1400 (so late middle ages?), presumably in Europe.

[Squirrelloid]

The ancient Greeks and Romans did know how to make plate armor. Sorry.

Also, Toady has explicitly mentioned many times that the time period he's trying to reflect is that of approximately 1400 (so late middle ages?), presumably in Europe.

When i say plate mail i mean the fully integrated armor of the late medieval period.  The romans did not know how to make it.  A cuirass is not 'plate mail', nor would most people consider lamellar to be 'plate mail'.

Edit: I did not use the term 'plate armor'.  It covers a wider class of armors than plate mail.

Regarding time period: DF already permits some mechanical apparati well beyond medieval technology levels.  The complex pressure plates we have were certainly not within the medieval repetoire.  To the best of my ability to determine, screwpumps powered by machinery were invented in the islamic world in 1300, but there's no evidence they made it to europe by 1400.

[G-Flex]

A cuirass isn't "plate armor"? It's made from a plate of metal. Well, okay, maybe it's made from two, but still.


At any rate, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people in 1400AD didn't really know a whole hell of a lot about atmospheric pressure and the like that would even allow them the knowledge to build a steam engine in the first place.

[sweitx]

A cuirass isn't "plate armor"? It's made from a plate of metal. Well, okay, maybe it's made from two, but still.


At any rate, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people in 1400AD didn't really know a whole hell of a lot about atmospheric pressure and the like that would even allow them the knowledge to build a steam engine in the first place.

Aeolipile is technically a steam turbine, does not rely on atmospheric pressure too much.  Efficiency of that thing is probably crap thou.

Thou if you need alternative power source, animal walking in circle turning a crank would work (need to remember what's that called).  And would probably fit Toady's time-frame.

[Footkerchief]

Also, Toady has explicitly mentioned many times that the time period he's trying to reflect is that of approximately 1400 (so late middle ages?), presumably in Europe.

To the best of my ability to determine, screwpumps powered by machinery were invented in the islamic world in 1300, but there's no evidence they made it to europe by 1400.

The technology cutoff isn't specific to Europe as far as I know, although he has expressed reservations about including a few of the innovations in the Islamic world.

When i say plate mail i mean the fully integrated armor of the late medieval period.  The romans did not know how to make it.  A cuirass is not 'plate mail', nor would most people consider lamellar to be 'plate mail'.

Edit: I did not use the term 'plate armor'.  It covers a wider class of armors than plate mail.

You're arguing that "plate mail" is something different from "plate armor," the thing it's a common misnomer for?