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[Zombie]

So right now we only have one digging tool. A pick. Any thought about shovels? Steampicks for experienced miners? Dwarves are usually portrayed as machine masters in games and such, so I was thinking that maybe branching out more would be nice. We have steam when water comes in contact with magma, but what if it comes in contact with hot water? Perhaps we can have wood boilers or magma boilers that use either coal/wood fires or the heat of magma to produce steam from an inlet of water. Combined with a brook, this can be a viable way to produce steam without the loss of magma for, say, traps (Hot steam hurts. Seriously. :x )or workshops.

I realize this raises the question of how it would be powered by steam, but honestly as this is a fantasy game... I don't really see how it could be explained in real physics.

Of course, boilers could open up a whole new avenue of innovation. What about dwarven showers? Nobles might want to get clean every once in a while, as dust and grime offends their noble sensibilities or something like that. Steam power could turn turbines and power any number of things. From pumps to automated drills to magma taps... It would open up a previously closed area for us to explore and experiment with.

I'm sure you guys can come up with a bajillion other uses for steam or new digging impements and whatnot.

[EDIT]
Of course, I realize that automation is not necessarily a good thing, and my intent was not to promote the whole "it does it for you" as steam would be, presumably, dangerous and a bit complicated to set up. It's just an idea that I think may have some merit.
[/EDIT]

[ November 26, 2007: Message edited by: Zombie ]

[Stij]

I think steam power would be awesome (and very dwarvish), but the rest of the forum seems to be divided on it. Some of the people want more technology, some want magic, and some don't know what they want. Personally, I could take either, as long as it doesn't unbalance the game too much.

Other digging tools (of any sort) would be nice though. Taking a suggestion from another thread, taming moles or rock-eating creatures to do your mining for you would be awesome.

[ November 26, 2007: Message edited by: Stij ]

[AlanL]

A steam-powered "pick" would most likely be a drill or a jackhammer of sorts.

[Javis]

A steam shovel would only be useful for digging channels.  Also, I could imagine problems in using it on z-levels below the surface.  Let's assume that it's the same size as a wagon.  You could get it down into your tunnels by building a 5-tile-wide downward ramp, but wouldn't it be too tall to operate properly with a floor on the z-level above it?  Who mines tunnels that are two z-levels high?

It's only practical use that I can imagine would be for long-distance irrigation through hard rock when high level miners are not available.

[0x517A5D]

We have legendary miners who can walk through rock faster than a hauler can move the resulting ore.

I don't think we need power shovels.

[SquashMonster]

I think you should be able to use power to power an enormous drill.  However, seeing as you would have to add a new axle every time you moved the drill, this would be nowhere near as efficient as proper Dwarven mining techniques.

It would be rather interesting however, if this was the only possible way to mine certain very hard metals.  Like adamant, perhaps.

Another interesting digging technique would be to, as mentioned in a recent thread, train giant moles.  I really liked that suggestion, personally.

As for steam power, I do think you should be able to power axles and other components with it, but anything more complicated than that is a bit much.  I wrote a lot about it, so I'll post a separate topic.

[ November 27, 2007: Message edited by: SquashMonster ]