Steam Engines

Steam engines are a high-investment, high-output method of generating engine power, energy, or rotational momentum for your Vehicle.

Compared to fuel engines, steam engines can provide both better PPM and PPV at max load, but their efficiency falls off when not fully loaded. In addition, steam engines but an initial investment of resources to build up sufficient internal pressure to operate at full capacity.

All steam components, except for pipes, have a small, medium, and large size.

Steam Boilers

Boilers burn material and raise pressure in connected pipes, up to an optimal value of 10. Each boiler system needs at least one controller, connected to a column of boiler blocks, which in turn is connected to a pipe.

Steam Jets

Jets vent out pressure to create thrust. Compared to other means of propulsion this is compact but inefficient, but also works in space like ion engines.

Steam Turbines

Turbines take in steam through a pipe connection and convert it to electricity. Adding more middle segments into a turbine will increase EPM (energy per material) and decrease EPV (energy per volume).

Steam Engines

Engines take in steam through pistons and convert it into rotation through a crankshaft. Usage of engine power will slow down the crank, with max efficiency occurring when the engine is at max load.

Efficiency vs. Volume (PPM vs. PPV)

As a baseline, steam engines will perform at their optimal level if they are taking in a maximum pressure of 10 through the boilers and being used under max load.

An engine constantly bleeds energy through friction, so minimizing friction will increase engine efficiency.

A slower engine will experience less friction. Thus, putting an engine into max load will maximize its efficiency. Furthermore, adding wheels will overall decrease an engine's RPM. However, adding wheels has diminishing returns as a shaft gets longer.

Each crankshaft can take in multiple pistons (4 for small, 3 for the others) and generates friction. Resultantly, more pistons per crankshaft increases engine efficiency.

Each piston expels steam at a lower pressure from an output port. This steam can be recycled into another series of pistons, forming a stage. Pistons taking in recycled steam will not contribute as much power as pistons drawing from the boilers but also do not consume extra steam. As a result, adding more stages increases engine efficiency. Most engines will use 2-4 stages.

Direct Steam Drive

A steam engine designed to power a propeller via a crankshaft directly has a slightly different optimal design. The steam engine crankshaft must run through a transmission before going through a propeller. Generally, it is more common for a direct steam drive engine to have only one piston per crankshaft to better fit inside a narrow hull form.

Most importantly, the total thrust produced by a propeller is directly proportional to the crankshaft RPM. As a result, a ship that wants to go fast will want to avoid loading the engine powered by the direct drive to the max and instead may run one engine only to drive propellers and another engine to power internal systems.

The kinetic energy of a steam engine caps out when the steam engine reaches maximum RPM, at which point examining any piston in the steam engine will indicate the level of output used. Much like with engine power, linking up just enough propellers to make full use of the steam engine's kinetic energy right before or as it reaches maximum RPM will maximize the efficiency of the engine.

Crank Motors

Crank motors are an alternatvei to direct steam drive. They draw power directly from the pool of avaialble engine power, rather than producing it themslves. The motor uses this power to turn a correspondingly sized steam shaft and propeller. This eliminates the need for a tranmission setup and allows a ship's propellers to be physically disconnected from a steam engine, or even use other forms of power. In addition, multiple crank motors can be connected by drive belts to one steam propeller to increase its thrust up to maximum output.

In exchange, crank motors incur an inherent penalty in converting power into kinetic energy; a direct drive setup linked up to propellers will always produce more power per material than a corresponding crank motor setup.