Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SquashMonster]

I know steam has been mentioned before, so my apologies if this seems too much like somebody else's ideas.

I've heard lots of people suggest that steam should be capable of making all sorts of complicated machinery, like steam-powered trolleys and steam shovels and what-have-you.  This, to me, seems too technologically advanced.  Save it for Gnome Fortress. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of people say that any form of steam power should be off-limits.  That seems a bit excessive.

So, here is my take on how steam power should work.

We need four new buildings, with a fifth optional one:
1 - pipe sections.  These exist now, but need to be made possible to build as their own building.  Pipe sections link with one another and with pumps.  Fluids connected to an open pipe section will flow into them, but can only be sent up with the aid of a pump.  Magma pipes do not power magma buildings.
2 - valves.  These act as pipe sections, but can be levered on and off.
3 - boilers.  These require a water source, either by pipe or by having water flow through them.  They also require a heat source.  All valid heat sources for forges (charcoal, magma, ect) apply to boilers.  They come with a valve.  Whenever properly set up, this valve will produce steam if on.
4 - turbines.  These require a steam pipe connected to them.  A turbine vents unfocused steam (the kind of steam you see in the current game), which is dangerous.  On the other hand, they produce twice as much power as a water wheel.
5 - optional: steam cannons.  These require a steam pipe connected to them.  They work exactly like a ballista, but vent unfocused steam and use rocks as their projectiles.

Ways to make steam:
- Use a boiler.  Boilers turn a heat source and water source into steam.
- Pipe water through magma.  A water pipe in a magma-filled square should produce steam in the pipe.

Uses for steam pipes:
- Power machinery.  Steam is harder to set up than water and has a dangerous side effect, but produces more power.
- Vent steam.  A pipe carrying steam that ends without a closed valve produces steam on the other end.  This hurts things that touch it.
- Steam cannon.  Steam cannons shoot in the ballista's mighty straight line, and use the catapult's easily obtained ammunition.  In exchange, you need to provide it with steam power, and it vents steam.

Uses for magma pipes:
- Heat rooms.  Sleeping in a room with a magma pipe can produce a happy thought.
- Move magma.  Pipes make it a little easier to move fluids.  Putting magma where you want it is always useful.
- Produce steam.  A magma pipe running through a water-filled square should create a lot of steam outside the pipe.  This can make an old-fashioned steam trap.

Most uses of steam come through the steam turbine.  This means it can only do as much as water already can do, which should appease those worrying about increasing the technology level.

[Sofaspud]

Dude.  Can I chime in with a "YEAH BABY" on this one?

The piping is brilliant.  I SO want this.  I pretty much avoid magma solutions right now because I'm frustrated by not being able to 'pipe' it where I want it.  The 2d version didn't really have this problem, but since magma doesn't flow like water, I can't make it behave the same way I can water in the 3d version.

Yeah, I know, magma *shouldn't* behave like water, but I think it should behave more like water than it currently does.  

And anyway, isn't the thought of red-hot pipes and colossal stone gears rumbling and twitching in dank underground caverns the epitome of dwarven engineering?

I especially like the steam cannon idea.  I'm picturing it as a ballista-sized object that needs to be linked to a lever/pressure plate/etc, so you set it up, back the hell off, THEN fire it rather than broiling a dwarf alive every time you make the shot.  Yes?  It'd be tricky to use properly, but that's the idea -- you want the extra power, you gotta take the risk.  

(Thinking about it, the best way would be to place a door blocking access to the cannon room and link that to the unflipped state of the lever, then flip it, THEN link to the cannon.  That way, whenever the lever is flipped, the door is automatically locked until the lever is flipped again, so some poor dwarf can't wander into the Steam Room Of Death while trying to reload the cannon.)

[Hesitris]

This idea is made of pure win. I like it. And I think it fits the scenario, even.

To elaborate a bit on the steam cannon safety idea, perhaps the cannon and a few tiles around it would automatically be marked as "forbidden" immediately after firing, and it wouldn't produce a reload job until a few seconds after the shot, giving the steam time to clear. Of course, the auto-forbid designation would go away just as automatically as it came, as the reload job queues up. To take it a step further, the operator might be given a "wait for the steam to clear" job during this time, so that he wouldn't wander off in the direction of the nearest meeting hall while he waited.

I may be thinking a bit too deep into this, but my original statement remains the same: Awesome idea.  

[Stij]

I like it.

This, along with minecarts and pulleys, would open up so many new options.

[WillNZ]

It really isn't too difficult to build steam vehicles using this set up. Just have some turbines hooked up to an axle and have the boiler in a steel box. Bingo: something to run over goblins with. You can go any direction as long as it's forward.

Programming it, of course, is a whole other thing.

[Zulaf]

I like it!

I can see it now dozens of pipes spewing steam out from my fort.

I think the pipes should act as a wall instead of just being impassable so that you can just dig out the walls of a room and put the pipes down and run hot magma trough them =) roasted dwarf anyone?

[Zombie]

I think ruling out "complicated machinery" is a bad move as... well... Dwarves are mechanics. They use steam power. I've never heard of gnomes being technologically inclined, but even so... The only technology I would expect dwarves to use would be steam-powered. What I think WOULD be excessive is, like, a steam power plant (electricity, basically) or something and "mining lights" and whatever. That's just silly.

But steam powered machinery is well within the confines of dwarven engineering, as far as I know. A lot of lore, games, and books connect dwarven engineering with complex steam-based machinery. Sort of like how you say. Steam-powered trollies might be a bit... Overtechnological... As, well... You'd need large amounts of fuel and such.

I really like this idea, though. It would open up a lot of new avenues to explore.

[Vanigo]

quote:Originally posted by Zombie:
<STRONG>Steam-powered trollies might be a bit... Overtechnological... As, well... You'd need large amounts of fuel and such.</STRONG>

Fuel? Bah! Magma steam trollies all the way!

[SquashMonster]

Glad this is getting a positive response   .

The actual building of pipes is the most complicated part of this.  I was assuming that pipes are hanging from the ceiling, personally.  You could build them by resizing vertically or horizontally, like channels used to be.  There should be some provision for putting a pipe through solid rock, but I'm not sure how that would work.

Steam trolleys are exactly the kind of technology I thought was too much.  On the one hand, it sounds fun, but on the other it sounds like a great way to start a journey into the realm of steam punk.  ...How would you power one, anyway?  You'd need it to carry coal, have a shoveler on board, and somehow pump water to it.  Or keep water on board too.  What I'm getting at is that you need all the parts of an old-fashioned train.  Sounds a bit much to me.  

If you like the idea of more complicated steam machinery, though, I've had this idea of taking a grooved steam pipe with a pump on each end and hanging a basket from it.  The basket would have a flat bit that sticks inside of the pipe, and changes in steam pressure would move the basket.  You could make all sorts of elevator type steam rails with this.  But it seemed like the kind of thing that's too complicated for DF's technology level, so I didn't include it in my suggestion.

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

[Yourself]

quote:There should be some provision for putting a pipe through solid rock, but I'm not sure how that would work.

Hook that giant corkscrew up to a steam engine and you've got yourself a nice drill to work with.

[evktalo]

Excellent motion. I have no trouble imagining these steam applications of the original post in the current game, I feel they'd fit right in. Well done!

[illarion]

Awesome ideas, love it.

[mickel]

This looks like the code for axles could be reused here. If we have pipes working like axles, then the valves would work like the mechanisms. You have the same kind of power loss per segment of carrier between source and target, etc. etc.

I imagine a pipe not hooked up to anything and that had steam in it would spew out steam in the direction it's pointed in (steam cannon!) and a steam valve with just an in-tube would be more like leaking steam in all directions but with less force.

Of course, this could be used to pump water, too... and later lava and whatever other fluids you like to move around.

First we'd have to get the bugs out of the axle-and-mechanism system though. And by "we" I mean Toady since he's the one with the code...

Could be fun if, at some later date, one might implement leaks? Low quality materials and low quality workmanship equals dripping, hissing pipes...

[Demosthenes]

I'm thinking of a Steam-powered fortified box on a pipe-track.

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by SquashMonster:
Steam suggestions 1-4

Yes, yes, and YES!!!
#1 was going to happen eventually.
#2 is obvious; it's the gear box of pipes.
#3 is necessary for the entire suggestion. One addition i'd make; let it burn wood (later on, anything made of wood; only specifically designated objects though) at a lower efficency, but produce ashes as a side effect. That way a boiler can function as a wood furnace that's soley dedicated to producing ashes, but with a bonus of producing some steam at a higher initial construction cost. (the metal components)
#4 Ballanced soley by the fact that steam is finite. Obviously 3 tiles, with obvious steam input /power output /steam output squares, in that order.

   

quote:5 - optional: steam cannons.  These require a steam pipe connected to them.  They work exactly like a ballista, but vent unfocused steam and use rocks as their projectiles.

Certainly possible. To ballance the potential power of the weapon and make it even more difficult to construct, steam could be stored in metal barrels that slowly gather units of steam. This makes the weapon impossible to fire below a certain point, and dangerous to let sit for too long at certain points, as well as making it even more unique in that it's ability to do damage is dynamic.

   

quote:Ways to make steam

Both are very good, but here's a third way; creatures that emit or use heat as an attack. Obviously, imprisoned fire creatures and fire breathers could be used as a source of heat, and thus steam energy.

 

quote:Uses for [pipes]:

All of them good, however, you forgot to mention constructed walls with pipes inside of them, and steam-heated rooms and water-cooled rooms (for those really hot biomes)  

[EDIT - Additionally, as an added level of difficulty, pipes that have steam in them that are not heated at regular intervals (ie: with lava or fires) or insulated somehow (wooden /cloth /silk ... or asbestos LOL!) should have the steam condense back into water. That way, steam would need to be produced locally -- no steaming the goblin hordes from the comfort of 400 feet of solid stone.]

[ November 29, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]