Questions tagged [steampunk]
For questions based in worlds where technology is typically steam-powered rather than based on electricity.
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Would lack of petroleum oil help make planes impossible, or uncompetitive to airships?
In my steampunk world (developed to roughly 1870-1910 levels of technological development), there are no oil deposits and flatlands are highly valuable due to their relative rarity (the entire thing ...
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Could they send a satellite in space before the 15th century?
Suddenly, on one of their routine maintenance space missions, NASA or SpaceX (or whoever else) finds a big, clunky piece of metal with some kind of mechanical, crude mechanism and a big mirror with a ...
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Can clockwork robots have any sensory apparatus other than touch/contact/pressure? [duplicate]
Ignoring the constraints of mechanical computation, what sensory modes are even available to such a robot?
Even in the 21st century artificial odor detection is rather primitive, and we have over a ...
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Sensors for a clockwork/fluidic robot?
So, mechanical computers are a thing, as are pneumatic and hydraulic actuators.
Combining those ideas, it's not that hard to design simple purely-pneumatic/hydraulic robots--provide them with a ...
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What medium to use to drive steam engines?
I want to create a Steampunk setting, but I'd like to introduce another medium than water to do the inner-engine work for me. Of course, water is a fine medium for steam engines, because:
it expands ...
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highly resistant metal or other material in late 1700s
What metal or material could be used to make super high-pressure canisters in the 1700s? It is for use as a fuel or propellant for a piston-driven engine to power vehicles, due to the fact that a gas ...
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How would medieval/Renaissance-era castles protect themselves from air raids?
Context : my fictional universe is set in a time period akin to the european Middle Ages/Renaissance. Think of the 1400s-1500s for reference.
In most aspects (political, social, industrial etc.) my ...
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Roman air force
I need help in figuring out how to form an air force in the roman empire. In my story a time traveller goes back in time to ancient rome and becomes emperor and begins his attempt at modernizing the ...
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Steam-heated Balloons?
In my world, one of the main methods of transportations is via hot-air balloon. These balloons are propelled by aluminum(or other lightweight metal, it doesn’t really matter) steam engines, and the ...
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what could be used for flexible piping in the 1780s
How and out of what could flexible, thin air-tight tubes be made of at around 1780? These tubes need to be around a centimeter wide, with a 7.5 mm tube going through it. It must also be heat resistant ...
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How could a steampunk zeppelin navigate space?
it's my first question here, I'll try to be clear.
I'm creating a story where there is a steampunk style civilization that has to face advanced civilizations in planetary and spatial battles.
I'm ...
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Impact on the Environment of a Steam-Powered World
So in the world I've been creating, I decided that the inhabited world (which is actually pretty small because of reasons) uses steam power as its main source of energy. This inhabited area is about ...
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How would you design and build an American Civil War Steam Gun?
I am writing a Steanpunk novel and am interested in having a "plausible" Union Steam Gun that would help turn the tide in an Alternate History American Civil War.
The gun can be either a machine gun ...
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Fantasy Military Arms and Armor: the Dwarven Grand Armory
I'm having some trouble coming up with arms and armament for my fantasy world's dwarven race. I have a few ideas for what they could wield but I'd like a few more to really make this army feel Alive. ...
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What are some ways an airship could be landed without people on the ground?
In my novel, an experimental airship needs to land in a field but it's in a foreign country where there was no coordination ahead of time to have people on the ground help tether it. Is is still ...
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