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[Zaphod]

This has been mentioned before but there hasn't been to much said about steam, other than toady does not want "steampunk dwarfs". Steampunk is more of an aesthetic element.

Steam already exists in the game but does not really do anything other than exist.
It could be said that steam engines are not a pre-1400's tech. But simple steam deviced actualy date to 1st century AD. The only difference between ancient steam devices and industrial revolution ones are complex pistons. Simple pistons existed pre industrial revolution.

To keep it from being the end all be all simple power supply, there should not be a workshop called a boiler. Instead it would be more dwarfy if the player had to construct a boiler chamber via mining one out. (Weather using lava as a heat source or burning fuel.) Then mining outlets or using pipe sections to channel it. As for the actual conversion of steam to mechanical energy. This could be done while keeping it in style with the world (not having complex pistons/turbines), by using it to power windmills/ pumps/ water wheels.
A player would have to manage steam levels as well, to prevent boiler explosions (sounds very "fun").

This all could be used in 100's of ways. Traps, power source, cooking and cleaning (for medical dwarfs) to name a few off the top of my head.

This could all simply be achived by making steam and upward falling liquid that dorfs can't drown in (or mabey they can if the steam gets to thick).

It would even fit with traditional fantasy dwarfs. In alot of various fantasy works, dwarves used complex machines and steam engines.

TLDR
ADD USEABLE STEAM

[bitterhorn]

Steampunk is more of an aesthetic element.

NO WAY DUDE IT'S A ~*LIFESTYLE*~ 

(all kidding aside, I agree that boilers powering mechanisms would be pretty sweet as long as top hats, nonfunctional safety eyewear, and dwarven nightclubs are left out of the equation)

[Zaphod]

This all came to me while starting my first water pump stack.
I thought "Hey I should divert it to my volcano and see what I can do with that (other than get obsidian)".

You could designate a special type of furnace or zone for burning things to use as boiler fuel.

[Zaphod]

I don't know how to delete a message

[NW_Kohaku]

Steam has been discussed before, and not in a "Steampunk" form, at that.

The Improved Mechanics thread more than any other thread has plenty on the ways in which steam could potentially be produced, and also has a lot more on how to actually use the power generated by steam.

[Zaphod]

Well is there any word on toady putting usable steam?

[NW_Kohaku]

It's probably better you search yourself, rather than ask others to search for you...

... If some internet meme had topped the vote or something, I would ignore it entirely, and if something like electricity or steam power or rifles had topped the vote, I'd probably have put up a note much earlier on about why I didn't think I'd be going there.  ...

We're going to have animal-drawn carts and wheelbarrows at the very least...  and carts filled with goblin children being drawn by captives for their amusement if that power goal goes through.  Metal rails seem vaguely modern, going by our favorite dubious source, but I'm not as opposed to them as I am to steam locomotives and light bulbs and nuclear reactors, since dwarves should be capable of using metal if it's around.  Wooden rails or even the stone ruts they mention are other possibilities.

Toady:   Yeah, I think one of the things that's going to even improve sieges better before we worry about the rest of the stuff is when they start recruiting beasts and having guys come in riding dragons and stuff. That should cause some shaking up of the status quo as far as sieges being silly ... I'm not sure about airships, they're reasonable enough themselves, having things floating around ... the less steam the better though, as far as I'm concerned, steampunk and all that kind of thing, and electricity and nuclear bombs, I don't know what else people ...
...
Toady:   I guess you could make ... if there's ever some kind of gunpowder explosive I guess you could just stick a bunch of uranium on an explosive and have a really bad dirty bomb. But who knows? I think what I've said before is [that] gunpowder is probably something that's not going to be necessarily in the vanilla Dwarf Fortress, but it's something that I'd probably support for modders. But things like electricity and steam power are less likely to be supported. Although lightning is lightning, lightning's a different matter.

Toady:   I don't remember anymore, but was the one in Jason and the Argonauts made by Hephaestus or something? So created by a forge god type thing, right? Then there's the idea; could they have been made by old dwarves, then you have the problem of, well, can your dwarves make them? And then you get into the whole automaton segue into steampunk and so on. Then there's just them being ... or are they some kind of bronzey spirit of nature type thing, that's just kind of wondering around, causing trouble.
Ampersand:   I don't know if you've ever played Morrowind or anything, but in the lore of Morrowind or Daggerfall even, the dwarves did in fact make a gigantic mecha.
Toady:   Yeah, they had all kinds of steam automatons, right? I remember ... no I won that game, I think, if you're talking about the big statue at the end. So there's a notion of dwarves there, just ... there's something about steam [that] bothers me, I don't know why. Having all these steam powered ...

The Improved Mechanics thread was put into the devlog, but steam was not mentioned as being part of it.

As far as I know, the argument is that the ancient Greek steam engine "was a toy, not an actual tool". 

Anyway, one way or the other, this is heavily trodden ground.

Toady's comments on steam seem to be pretty overwhelmingly negative, to the point where he throws the term around in the same sentence with nuclear bombs as "things he doesn't want to do".

[Zaphod]

My face 

[evileeyore]

... and dwarven nightclubs are left out of the equation...

But I've already got obsidian tables, barrels of beer, and !!lignite!! smoke devices...  we just need light sources and musicians.

And then we can party like it's 999.

[sockless]

Well in those quotes it only really explicitly seems to state that steam vehicles are out of the question. I agree there.

But I think that it would be nice to have some primitive steam machinery, like Newcomen engines, which required an operator to work the valves. Or even a Savery engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Savery), which was built in ~1670, which is slightly after the arbitrary cutoff date of the 1500s (coke was discovered in the 1600s).

Failing all that, I'd like to see steam used as a weapon, as a part of traps and maybe even as a fixed siege engine.

[Zaphod]

Maybe if we can get enough support we can get toady to reconsider? I MUST HAVE STEAMED PLUMP HELMETS!

[NW_Kohaku]

Well in those quotes it only really explicitly seems to state that steam vehicles are out of the question. I agree there.

But I think that it would be nice to have some primitive steam machinery, like Newcomen engines, which required an operator to work the valves. Or even a Savery engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Savery), which was built in ~1670, which is slightly after the arbitrary cutoff date of the 1500s (coke was discovered in the 1600s).

Failing all that, I'd like to see steam used as a weapon, as a part of traps and maybe even as a fixed siege engine.

Maybe if we can get enough support we can get toady to reconsider? I MUST HAVE STEAMED PLUMP HELMETS!

Look closer.

This quote here is specifically about "Eternal Suggestions Voting".

... If some internet meme had topped the vote or something, I would ignore it entirely, and if something like electricity or steam power or rifles had topped the vote, I'd probably have put up a note much earlier on about why I didn't think I'd be going there.  ...

He's saying he wouldn't care at all if the highest-voted suggestion in the ESV was "Steam Power," (not steam-powered vehicles, steam power,) he not only wouldn't do it, he would go out of his way to explain exactly why he'd never do it.

[Zaphod]

Im sad now.

[sockless]

Steamed plump helmets are still possible, that's more under the food and drink megathread than this thread though.

Steam itself should still be implemented in the game, like in clouds of steam, but done better than right now. It would be nice to build a trap that uses pressurised steam from a room with an iron floor and fires underneath it. Then there could be some sort of floodgate which would then be opened, thus letting all the steam out and scalding all the goblins.

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It's not steam power, it's steam weaponry.

[tolkafox]

I just want to move steam through channels TBH. I like seeing things move through channels; Dwarves, water, magma...