Description
Have you ever wanted to watch machines work and steam boil? This mod adds steam power to Vintage Story, along with all the piping the steam engines and boilers need to run.
The pipe network was originally built to move gases around the Blast Furnace from my other mod Steelmaking Expanded. Since the piping and steam power stand well on their own, I split them into this mod and reworked them to be more immersive.
Wiki
Now wiki is available for current mods that shows up to date information (video guides are now mostly stale but still usable as general showcase), so please read this if you have issues understanding what is happening in the mod: current mod wiki
Note: There are also pages for preview of what I was working on all this time but still wasn't able to finish because of irl stuff, you can look through preview if you are interested to see where these mods are going!
Compatibility
- Game version: built for Vintage Story 1.22. Legacy 1.20 and 1.21 builds are on the GitHub releases page.
- Multiplayer: works in singleplayer and on dedicated servers.
- Requires: Expanded Library (exlib).
- Languages: English, Russian, Ukrainian.
- Save safety: safe to add to an existing world. Removing it leaves the placed machine and pipe blocks behind, so break them first if you uninstall.
Quick start
The smallest self-sufficient steam line, start to finish:
- Place a Fluid Intake on a pond, over a three-deep column of water.
- Build a Cornish Boiler with its firebox, fill it through the top hatch with buckets, and light a coal pile behind its door. Vent the firebox through a chimney.
- Raise a Watt Engine nearby and pipe the boiler's steam outlet to its inlet through a Pressure Valve gated at about 2-3 atm.
- Drop a sub-machine into the engine's drive cell: a Fluid Pump (pipe the intake into it and its output back into the boiler to close the water loop), or a Mechanical Power Generator (run its axles to your machines).
- Route the engine's condensate drain back toward the boiler. That is a steam plant that feeds itself.
The in-game handbook has full articles under "Steam Power:" if you want the detail.
Commands and config
.exmod network hi/unhi- highlights every networked block, a separate colour per network, so you can see where a run is continuous and where it is broken. Updates live as you build..exmod measure metric/imperial- switches display units on pipes and machines (L, atm, degrees Celsius or gal, psi, Fahrenheit). Display only; the simulation is unchanged./exmod config ppex- view or change any gameplay value live, applied immediately with no world reload (admin)./exmod recipes ppex <normal|cheap>- switch the crafting and construction cost level; applies on the next world reload (admin).
Two config files are generated under VintagestoryData/ModConfig/ on first run:
ppex_values.json- the gameplay tunables (pipe capacity and burst pressures, boiler steam output and water draw, engine steam consumption). Editable live with/exmod config ppex.ppex_recipes.json- the per-recipe and per-construction cost numbers for each level (normal and cheap). Pick the active level with/exmod recipes ppexand fine-tune the numbers in this file; changes apply on the next world reload.
How it works
This mod adds iron and steel pipes with straight, bend and junction nodes. They connect automatically into a shared network that carries gases or fluids between structures and machines. The network simulates:
- Medium - each network holds one type of material at a time: air, exhaust, steam or water.
- Temperature - whatever pushes material into the pipes can heat it, and that heat travels to the machines downstream.
- Pressure - measured in atm (gauge). Each pipe contributes 30 L of capacity to the shared pool.
- Gases compress, so they can exceed a pipe's nominal volume and raise the pressure (pressure = current volume / capacity). A single pipe of 30 L holding 60 L of gas reads 2 atm. Gases never exceed the pressure of whatever pushes them in, so steam from a 5 atm boiler tops out at 5 atm.
- Liquids do not move on their own - a powered fluid pump drives them, or a running engine pushes its condensate in. They do not compress, so they transfer the driving pressure directly: a pump on an engine fed 3 atm steam outputs water at about 2.25 atm (engine efficiency is 0.75).
- Leaks - an uncapped connector face leaks. A leaking run cannot hold more than 1 atm and bleeds about 8 L/s of gas or 10 L/s of liquid. Cap every end against a block, valve, machine port or outlet.
- Bursts - an over-pressured pipe eventually bursts, splitting the network and spawning leaks. Iron bursts above 5 atm, steel above 10 atm; the weakest pipe sets the limit for the whole run.
A few special blocks let you shape the network:
Ratings & reviews
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