Magnetic propulsion was used in the Heavy Gear RPG for their landships and I believe something similiar in the anime Big Wars. Both future sci fi not steampunk but it is out there. In those cases the levitation is just a short distance off the ground rather than a high air vessel.

I was trying to come up with something that was completely new/different, both for lift and propulsion. The same thing could do both, but it might be more fun if it was two separate systems.

I suppose that would apply to power as well.

Can there be something that still fits the Steampunk mold but isn't 'normal' science?

To late, while nowhere nears what you are talking about magnetic levitation technology is here, so thinking about it is no longer outside of the box.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/20...arter-right-now.html

  That doesn't mean it's a bad idea to kick around.  II rather like it though I started this line to research your thoughts the feasibility of using hydrogen to help resurrect society after an apocalyptic event using the relative simplicity and ease of hydrogen production to combat technological breakdown.

Yeah, we did get a bit far afield, didn't we?

Of course, I'm not sure we have any science/tech geeks here who could answer that.

It would depend on whether the knowledge had been preserved, or rediscovered.

As I understand it, the problem wasn't production, it was handling it after production that caused difficulties... like causing explosions.

I don't know enough about the properties of hydrogen, but it's a small molecule, so finding something that it won't penetrate/leak through could be hard.

Electricity makes Hydrogen rather cheap to produce. a tank immersed in water will likely keep it safe enough. Hydrogen is only flammable in mixture with an oxidizer... as has been recently shown, the Hydrogen in the HINDENBURG isn't what caught fire, rather the paint used to coat the fabric is... of course, once burning well, the Hydrogen was released into the air and burned quite well.

So pure hydrogen or mixed with an inert gas is reasonably safe. A ship could use it as a separate flotation device/hull underwater and a rupture would be a lot less risky...

The issue is how do use use hydrogen. It burns extremely hot and so most engines have problems with it. It would certainly make steam, but how to keep the fuel spray head from melting ... Current Rocket engines circulate the liquid hydrogen through the casing as a coolant before sending it to the burn chamber.

I am NOT a scientist, just like to read on some of it... hope this helps.

In reply to Aethulred (msg # 25):

   No your not a scientist but you are and engineer at heart.  I would love to start a game where we incorperate subjects we discuss as aspects of society sticking to different technology bases.  I don't have the time to GM it though, only design the technology and social bases on spare time.

No, just a curious about everything sort ...  call it a jack of all interests and a master of none. ;-)

Not really. This eats as much energy as burning it back releases plus overhead. It's a lot. So it's easy, but not cheap.
In an industrial center, sure, it's not big deal. But e.g. it can't be produced at a whim on a ship in the middle of an ocean (unless it's a nuclear submarine or something), since then it comes from the ship's total fuel stores (through engine and generator.)
And in limited quantities it's often going to be much more mass- and volume- worthy to generate hydrogen from an acid.
Also, production is only where the trouble starts. A worse part is storage and transportation - it's very hard to keep as liquid, so the only option are strong (thus thick, thus heavy) tubes. I.e. it's as bad to haul around as helium (but not as prone to leaking through "sealed" things) or oxygen (but less dangerous).
Naturally. Hydrogen is inside... initially. The problem is spreading fire. Helium blows it off and locally smothers, while hydrogen, well...
Compared to what? If you have a ship in water, air is quite floaty.
But keeping anything floaty below waterline worsens the balance - normally people put ballast there.
Then again, if it can double as an anti-torpedo bulge, it may be "worth it" once munitions under waterline become a big threat.
  If you don't need it already, why bother with it in the first place? ;)
It's hot because it gives very little of gas products (2/3 of spent hydrogen and oxygen total), which is another reason why it's an inherently Bad Idea as fuel for internal combustion engines that use expanding gas.
So, not much of extra functionality on the side. The only good uses for hydrogen not involving a chemical factory or space-industry-grade expenses are:
1) Floating in air (balloon/blimp).
2) Very hot flame (cutting torch, unusual light sources).

   The main advantage has to do with production.  Hydrogen can be produced and contained with a relatively low technology base.

   Producing electricity is a lot easier than storing it.  Hydrogen gives you another option for storing it.

   There are also new methods of storing hydrogen where it is actually quite easy to maintain as a liquid.

It's been so long since anyone posted to this board, I'd forgotten all about it!

Anyway... here's something I'm running in my game: a freeze ray.

The premise I'm using is that it creates a block of ice around the target, but when it melts away, the target is unharmed, unfrozen.

Is there any real science or steampunk science that would allow for that, or am I just using hand-wavium?

The biggest problem with that would be getting the water source that you need to make Ice.
But with a little of that technical Handwavioum science, you might say that you instead of removing energy to make ice.

 You feed energy into a a 3d area force field that forces the "Loosest" molecules to crystallize into a matrix.  The problem is the human body is not as fluid as air so sluffs of most of the energy into the field directly around it.

That part of air in the body recovers almost immediately.
and that part next to the body might "melt" faster with contact.

Though it wouldn't feel cold, it could melt faster if you touched it.

The really funny thing is if you wanted to while it may look like ice if you threw massive amounts of energy at it like fire.. the "ICE" matrix could actually grow in size and protect the person in it, from heat.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:47, Sat 22 Sept 2018.

Unharmed would be handwavium, as frostbite would likely set in within minutes at the temperatures necessary to quickly create a block of ice around someone.

Well there are several examples of people recovering fully from having been immersed in frigid water for periods of up to an hour underwater.
Not frozen, but chilled to the point of being 'Out' .

So maybe you just use a chill ray ... of course today those rescued from such events get specific and cogent medical care unknown in the Victorian period, but nothing that couldn't have been done then; It was a Knowledge thing, not a technical achievement ... so it's closer to believable.

I hadn't thought about frostbite or being revived from freezing water. Maybe because I wasn't thinking it was ACTUAL freezing.

The 'ice' may not be real ice, but something that appears to the eye and touch as ice, even though it melts/sublimates like real ice.

I was thinking more of a field effect on the target, that suspends activity. The target feels cold momentarily. The field effect ends when the ice is completely gone.

I'm a big fan of using Kirlian fields even if they aren't real. It just seemed like a cool idea. Not much different than chakras or chi.

I suppose it's a bit science fiction and a bit fantasy fiction.

One could Postulate that the air Freezes before the water in in a energy fed loose first matrix field.  which might drive the water to the surfaces of the Matrix block, this would cause the outside to glisten, and push the water also to the inside.

This creating a water air temperature feeling and allow the water to absorb heat from the skin actually cooling the skin in most cases.

   Does it have to be cold?  There was a TV series [fringe I believe] where a gas filled a public bus and crystalized into a clearsolid.  PErhaps the beem could cause it's target to be the core of crystalized air [like a speck of dust in the middle of a snowflake] as the energy reaches a certain amount inside the target.  Then as the energy disipates the air crystal simply unravels back into gass.  You cpould say the energy causes the target to vibrate at a certain frequency causing the mater around it tochange form like those sonic emmitters that turn water into vapor.

  There are two types of science fiction, that which we have the tech to acheive now but choose not to, and that which we have no Idea how to achieve.  This may be high on the spectrum of the second but it's more plausible than a lot of things I see on TV.

Thanks for all the ideas! I suspect I'll use a mash-up of most of them.

For example, the crystalized gas is probably a good approach, which also traps some water vapor in it that then produces the liquid water as the gas sublimates. It was stated that it 'melted', but not that there was ever a lot of water left behind.

The tech behind it probably won't come up in the story, but when I write things like that, I always like to know the science (or pseudo-science) behind it so that I know how to deal with those pesky questions that PCs come up with. It also lets me write a consistent story.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 37):

It’s fun to kick ideas around.  You should hear some of my ideas about lighter than air aviation

Talking to a friend we just realized something 97% of all power is generated by boiling water to turn magnets inside magnets.

Including the fact we have harvested the unmatched power of a star, miniaturized it, and..... used to to boil water to turn magnets inside of other magnets.........

but ..... that won't work in space.......

you need to use pressure release valves and semiprernial membranes that will allow gass through but not water to shift boiling water from one chamber into another as it turns to steam in a different pressurized chamber to push a piston out to allow the steam to escape and..... you see where I'm going....

It's just a high tech steam engine powered by a miniature star.....  XD

The future is steam punk space ships.

The Tinker gnomes create a big honking steam powered space machine that does nothing and the only reason the ship goes anywhere is the leaks.

There is a movie Steamboy which had them find some special water to use in their steam. Thus the steam devices had continual sources of water. For instance he flew by holding a steam boiler the size of a soccer ball jetting out steam.

In a fantasy world you might create a portal to water plane for input.

In sci fi maybe a stargate open to the ocean.

The steam turning magnets is really the use of a phase change of states from liquid to  superheated gas then back to liquid. Heat input such as nuclear does the liquid to gas. The turbines are forcing the gas back to liquid.

Instead of water you could use other compounds. Here on modern earth water is easily available and well understood. The energy input and outtake curves very well known. In the future you could have some other fluid to do this.

Say if gnomes has a sludge that turned into steam it would be holding much more energy input. Then the steam going back to sludge gives off more energy.

Solids like ice really arent used in this way as the solid doesnt move.

It's all about producing energy... and converting one form to another.

In the case of steam power, it's producing heat to transfer via water into gas expansion. It can then be used to turn a propeller or activate some other device.

Ideally, of course, you'd want to eliminate one or more steps... for efficiency, though I would expect Gnomes to add a few extra unnecessary steps.

There can be all sorts of fantasy or scifi substances to use.

One of the Spelljammer Alchemy helms can use several different types of fuel.

If its a living ship you could even being doing steam like things to the creatures blood.


Perhaps instead of thermal energy you are cycling magic energy mana. Accumulating in a fluid in the boiler that turns into a glowy steam. Then the glow steam is moved to machines. Machines pull off the glow and it also converts back to water (or blood). The machines can be emitting the glow out of the ships propulsion spheres.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:20, Wed 25 Jan 2023.

Current fusion build that has the most hope to work out well seams to be more diesel / steam punk vibe to it.

From my understanding the way it is meant to work is they have a combustion engien cooled by liquid lead/lithium mix. Fusion pulses drive back the liquid which pushes out a ring of pistons all around it.

It's a little unclear how they get power from them, but my guess is they charge a hydrolic pressure battery.  Some of that pressure is used to quickly reset the pistons and the rest is revealed into piston powered drive shafts to run generators.

Meanwhile the heated liquid lead/lithium is fed through a heatsink to cool down and be fed back into the system, and the heatsink is used to heat up some fluid (if not water something else) to generate steam powered generators....

In space you would want to conserve things a lot more and rely on preasure compartments rather than gravity (because you couldn't rely on gravity) though so thats why I said before if we where in space using fusion we would be using a steam engine instead of a steam terbine....

just didn't know they would be including a combustion engine..... because thats a little crazy to use fusion blasts to power a combustion engine x.x

but eh it works.

Though can't help me thinking of some crazy space gnomes/orcs/goblins or the like who do crazier things than even humans..... out there with a 8 cilender fussion car-style-combusion engine  >.>