Steam

[Crysyn 179]

We are already set up with the heat side of things and attempting to build larger heat sources for boilers would be an extension of that.

I then propose a manner for making hollow rocks that can be used as piping. They should be made from gathered stone and some sort of crafting process to hallow them out in a set of patterns that are common. This would be straight through, splitters, curves, etc. Plans for some kind of levers to turn the flow of the steam on and off again would also be required. The potential for ruptures should be a part of the overall system, making shut off valves useful to have through out the place. Steam spills could cause damage and potentially be used as weapons in this manner? Assuming that the steam could be built up to a lasting blast of some sort.

Just an idea that makes more sense to be found in a 'real' world than redstone.

[cornbread4u2 13]

well... y make it hollow rock... just make a metal crafting recipe, so like progressing into the steam era. Also in that case it makes making lets say copper vs iron piping. copper would have a higher chance to rupture/ can withstand only lower pressures.

BUT i love the idea, i second the steam idea

[Deez 47]

This seems pretty awesome and I'd like wind and water power to work with as well. Perhaps a windmill can be made to grind wheat?

[Crysyn 179]

I went with stone because then it would just require careful harvesting and metal tools. I think everyone agrees that some metals are pretty damn hard to come by. If having them enables creation of the tools to make things or to make the less numerous parts of things then that I think is a good game balance as opposed to.. Well Tin is a bitch to find

[DanNetwalker 8]

You know, most of today pipes are made from a ) ceramic, b ) some metal or c ) some plastic.

I fear I'm seeng some kind of pottery on the go... this mod total conversion is going to be huge!

[Crysyn 179]

Well we do have a ton of clay in the world but we also have a ton of stone, hehe.. Its not 100% about what is real but also about balance of in-game resources and such. Clap pipes? Sure... I am not sure what they would be used for but maybe more on the irrigation/agriculture side as opposed to high pressure steam flows? I dunno!

[DanNetwalker 8]

Ok, maybe I'm a little byased after playing long with industrialcraft 1 and 2, but let's try.

Basics:

• IC2 uses packet size to determine if a wire carry too much voltage for a machine. With steam we should use pressure.
• A steam conduction will act as a whole; all the static steam blocks, end of pipe blocks directly touching a static steam block, steam pipes directly in contact with those end of pipe blocks and several steam mechanism will act as a unified conduction (they will share a "steam circuit id"). This means:

• all of the blocks that form the conduction will have the same pressure.
• A boiler pushing steam into a pipe will rise the pressure of the whole circuit.
• A valve releasing pressure from a pipe will decrease the pressure of the circuit.
• A hole in the circuit (a place where the steam touches air blocks) or a leak will make steam blocks to escape, releasing pressure too.

• Steam is hot. This means it should melt ice and snow, and should burn players if touching directly.

Certain materials will only hold for a max pressure:

• Tunnel on solid rock: any pressure; the tunnel will fill with steam blocks.
• Rock block with a hole throug: high pressure, but it won't keep up it's own weight
• Steel pipes: high pressure, it will hold it's own weight for up to 8 block long pipes
• Iron pipes: medium pressure, it will hold it's own weight for up to 8 block long pipes
• brass pipes: medium pressure, it will hold it's own weight for up to 4 blocks
• Clay pipes: medium pressure, it will not hold it's own weight

Steam pressure functionality:

• Connected pipes hold the same pressure from end to end.
• Any boiler connected to a pipe will rise it's pressure as long as water and heat is provided.
• Any open pipe will release pressure, in a speed that depends of the type of open end, until it reaches 0 (meaning "same pressure as open air"). Open pipes would release "steam blocks".
• Pipes reaching more than 80% of their max capacity could show "steam leaks", meaning it will be visible a small graphic effect, and a small pressure release will occur.
• When a circuit' pipe exceeds it's max steam pressure, there's a probability of the pipe exploding, releasing pressure from the circuit and causing some maihem arround. Who said steam was safe?

Steam block functionality:

• A steam block has a pressure, determined by the pressure in the pipe that released it.
• In contact with open air blocks, both moving steam bocks and static steam blocks lose pressure once each certain time; if it reaches pressure 0 the block will dissapear.
• A steam block falls up, like a sand or gravel block, but upwards. It will stop going up when it hits a solid block or reaches build limit height.
• When going up, if a steam block hits a stopped steam block, it will "join" the "steam pocket" by placing itself next to it. This means joining both it position and in pressure:

• position: it will look for all the stopped steam blocks touching the one it hit. Then it will try and find an air block touching the top face of one this steam blocks; if not found, then it will tryone of the sides of the blocks in the upper layer, then in the next, then in the next, until it finds a position with air touching the "steam pocket" or no place is found.
• pressure: all pressures of the steam blocks sums up, then it's divided by all the blocks the steam pocket ends up with. For example, a pocket of 7 steam blocks is reached by a new one. The pocket has pressure 4 in all the blocks, and the new block has pressure 10. So, the new pocket will be 8 blocks in size, with a pressure of ((4 * 7) + 10) / 8 = 4,75. If there were no room for the new block, then the steam pocket would end up with a pressure of ((4 * 7) + 10) / 7 = 5,43

• If the solid block is removed from a position touching a steam block, or if a steam block joing a steam pocket ends up with an air block over or next to it, it will take the position of the air block and start "falling up" again, and one of the steam blocks of the pocket with a lower coordinates will take it's old position a moment later. This allows for a steam pocket to leak entirely through a hole in the conduict

steam pipes and related:

• normal pipe: it's just a conduict, nothing more. It's part of a circuit, but it can't release steam except for the leaks when over their safety capacity.
• end of circuit pipe: same as normal pipe, but with a square border the size of a block that acts as a isolation junction. It will release pressure creating steam blocks
• "crossroad" pipe: 4 or 6 pipes from 2 or 3 different steam circuits can join into this block will cross withough joining the circuit. This means, the circuits will stay appart even when they share this block. Graphically could be seen as pipes going arround one of the other.

Steam mechanisms:

• valve: esentially splits a circuit into two, and controls if the pressure is shared between the both or not. it may be operated by redstone signal or by hand
• "servo" valve: same as valve, but triggered by the steam pressure received in a control inlet. the player can configure a minimal open pressure (that can be 0) and a max open pressure (that can be "whatever you can hold"); this way the player can tune it into a "open when receive pressure", "close when receive pressure" or a mix of both like "open when pressure between this two values". by connecting the same circuit to the control and the origin inlets it can be used to prevent a pressure too high is sent to the destination circuit, or as a one way only pipe (steam equivalent to diode).
• pressure limitator: similar to a servo valve, but it's configured for the destination circuit pressure instead of the origin circuit pressure. It can be defined a min and max pressure, so that the steam crossing to the destination circuit will stay between that limits. Allows to disable a circuit if not enough pressure is on the main one, a kind of analog to digital converter, or to feed a low pressure circuit from a high pressure one (kind of like a IC2 voltage converter)
• release valve: like the valve, except it's one way only (there's an origin and a destination circuit) and it works automatically; the player configures a max pressure, and the valve stays open, releasing steam pressure to the destination circuit as long as the origin circuit has a bigger pressure than the configured limit.
• pressure detector: this mechanism generates a redstone signal when there's pressure in the circuit it's attached to. both minimal and max pressure is configurable the same way as a servo valve, to allow for similar functionality
• boiler: it increases the pressure in a circuit. it may be active (as a vanilla furnace, with room for water and fuel), or passive (takes water and heat from the world blocks; any heat source and water source touching the boiler block is converted into steam pressure)
• engine: turns steam pressure into mechanical power. for example, moving a forge bellow. there's room to connect here to the mechanisms idea, or...

third party integration mechanisms (possible but not needed, maybe as a plugin):

• air pressure pump: creates bc energy
• dinamo: creates ic2 energy

EDIT: had to reedit; the thing got crazy and html tags appeared all over the text... wtf!?

[Crysyn 179]

I think this is a good set of thoughts to go off of.. It does somewhat sound like the pipes you are talking about are huge though, enough for a player to crawl through? I also liked the idea of going from large pipes to smaller pipes to get higher pressures depending on what you are doing. Lastly, I am concerned about steam being taken too far technology wise. A little self regulation is ok but I am not one for 100% automation which I think the servo valve starts leaning towards.

[DanNetwalker 8]

Pipe size could go anywhere from a 1 block pipes that you join, to "I needed some serious steam production, so I digged this 5x5 tunnel into this volcano and got crazy". If we skip the steam pockets as part of the circuits, it would be just another IC but with steam instead of electricity. Maybe I thought of this too bigwise... It could need to interconnect with the mechanics system, too (axels, pulleys, etc), so it needs some serious features. You have to admit it has more potential than redstone...

EDIT: no, seriously, I'm starting to consider learning java again and getting a moder to help me with this if it doesn't end up as part of tfc, so that technical mod minecrafters can give it a try. I see lots of potential...

The servo valve, and it's sibling the pressure limitator, are kind of needed if this system is going to take the place of redstone. After all, this is something kind of analogic, so the redstone not gate equivalent has to be more flexible. We can't just give a "false if steam, true if not" thing, since we have a very long range of pressures. By mergin them with release valves we can create equivalents to the redstone relay gate, and even things that can't be done right now in vanilla. I just though of systems made of steamworks, and what could be needed, but I'm possitive I'm missing things... (pressure indicator blocks, like gauges? wistles?)

[Michidez 9]

I would so like to be able to make a elevator like the BTW mod, but you would need steam then instead of a windmill/waterwheel. And you have to use resources to make the elevator work because I find it OP to just freely use it.

[Crysyn 179]

Pipe size could go anywhere from a 1 block pipes that you join, to "I needed some serious steam production, so I digged this 5x5 tunnel into this volcano and got crazy". If we skip the steam pockets as part of the circuits, it would be just another IC but with steam instead of electricity. Maybe I thought of this too bigwise... It could need to interconnect with the mechanics system, too (axels, pulleys, etc), so it needs some serious features. You have to admit it has more potential than redstone...

EDIT: no, seriously, I'm starting to consider learning java again and getting a moder to help me with this if it doesn't end up as part of tfc, so that technical mod minecrafters can give it a try. I see lots of potential...

The servo valve, and it's sibling the pressure limitator, are kind of needed if this system is going to take the place of redstone. After all, this is something kind of analogic, so the redstone not gate equivalent has to be more flexible. We can't just give a "false if steam, true if not" thing, since we have a very long range of pressures. By mergin them with release valves we can create equivalents to the redstone relay gate, and even things that can't be done right now in vanilla. I just though of systems made of steamworks, and what could be needed, but I'm possitive I'm missing things... (pressure indicator blocks, like gauges? wistles?)

If you are just trying to replicate redstone functionality via steam then you are missing the point here. I dislike redstone, it has never made sense in minecraft and I would like to see it poof out of existence. The entire point of this steam idea would be to provide a mechanism for higher levels of mechanical power than something like a waterwheel/windmill/horse power type of environment. So the whole On/Off logic to trigger other things and such is beyond what I would want the steam capable of.

I would so like to be able to make a elevator like the BTW mod, but you would need steam then instead of a windmill/waterwheel. And you have to use resources to make the elevator work because I find it OP to just freely use it.

This is a much better example of what I would be considering with steam powered. A windmill and/or waterwheel are only able to exert so much force so when considered against something like an elevator it would make sense to make a steam powered lift system to make an elevator that can carry a cart full or ore or the like up out of a mine whereas a windmill and/or waterwheel would just strain/break under the weight of it all.

[DanNetwalker 8]

If you are just trying to replicate redstone functionality via steam then you are missing the point here. I dislike redstone, it has never made sense in minecraft and I would like to see it poof out of existence. The entire point of this steam idea would be to provide a mechanism for higher levels of mechanical power than something like a waterwheel/windmill/horse power type of environment. So the whole On/Off logic to trigger other things and such is beyond what I would want the steam capable of.

This is a much better example of what I would be considering with steam powered. A windmill and/or waterwheel are only able to exert so much force so when considered against something like an elevator it would make sense to make a steam powered lift system to make an elevator that can carry a cart full or ore or the like up out of a mine whereas a windmill and/or waterwheel would just strain/break under the weight of it all.

I think I didn't found the right words... I see redstone as an interesting toy to play with, but it's not what you would base your technology on if you happen to be developing dwarven technology for your small society. You need something more versatile, useful and reliable than some magic torches and red dust lines on the ground.

The model of steam I designed is basically something I could both tinker with as a toy and I would use as the foundations of my battle base, even you could go McGyver with it. Being steam pressure the blood on it's veins, there's a natural limitation on what you can do with so much resources; big scale projects will need some serious engineering, as there is a lot of details that needs attention: steam leaks or exausts that will get trapped in the structure (and remember, it's hot and will burn players in their manteinance round), extra supports needed for long pipes, and the classic "how the hell do I fit this two things one near the other?". Functionally, it's a step forward from redpower, since it's an analogic system on heart. It could allow all the things that redpower let's you to do and far more, but at a cost that redstone doesn't have: you need to keep fueling the machine for it to stay alive. Even more than that, the pulleys, engines and such can be balanced so that they need more steam pressure to do a bigger job.

There's a potential for too much automation? Not really... at the end, you stop doing the job the machine does, to start working on keeping the machine working. But maybe I'm biased... what do you think, people? Any thoughts on it?

[Lycheborne 37]

I like the steam era idea also the watermill and windmills.....

Dont make me bust out the steampunk skins xD