Zakharra wrote:The Stanley Steamer also got out performed by the IC engine and car. The IC engine and cars/trucks simply became better and more efficient despite being somewhat more complex. They were more convenient, easier and more importantly to most people, cheaper. It cost $3000 for a Stanley, whereas a Ford cost $500.
You're comparing the heavily capitalized assembly-line production vehicle intended to be entry level with the undercapitalized workshop vehicle aimed at a luxury market (and having a much higher standard of coachwork) on price. The factor of six should register as surprisingly low.
Cost scales with parts count, other things being equal. Steamers with comparable capital and an actual assembly line could easily be -- there are simply less things to make! -- much cheaper. Howsmyn can be expected to notice that if things go on long enough under the Proscriptions that cars are a real economic possibility.
Thermodynamic efficiency is inherently constrained by the engine cycle, and the Otto Cycle isn't as efficient as the Rankine. What you get working soonest -- founder effect -- runs into the contrast between "easy" and "good". Safehold has a crib sheet, and has the opportunity to go for good, if "good" happens to exist inside the Proscriptions.
Zakharra wrote: ... are you serious? You think people still put straight water in radiators in cars/trucks? Only an idiot does that. Radiator fluid isn't water and has a better heat loss ration than water, and its freezing temperature is far lower than water so it's less likely to be affected by extreme cold. You're more likely to be affected by a cold drained battery, frozen fuel lines than a frozen radiator.
Absolutely. But not in 1900. (And probably not in 1930, if the number of cartoons where there's a fountain of steam out the radiator cap is anything to go by.) Modern pinnacle-of-development IC engines, after billions upon billions of dollars of development effort, fluid chemistry, computer simulation, sub-one-in-ten-thou accuracy via fourth and fifth generation CNC machining, and complex alloy parts, aren't what anybody on Safehold is going to be able to build.
And to go back to the meta-point, steam locomotives operated in Minnesota, Manitoba, and Murmansk during the winter. So, yes, don't freeze the working fluid. But a comparable effort to what IC engines got can handle the problem.
Zakharra wrote:[aircraft]One of the reasons I asked was for military applications. Fighter craft, bombers and transport planes. The first two, the first especially, needs an engine capable of putting out a LOT of power on demand and be able to handle aerobatic maneuvers such as dogfighting.
There shouldn't ever be an application for this, though. The Empire of Charis is working its collective butt off to have an economy that just might be able to afford steam ocean vessels. It's long way from aircraft, and post-proscriptions Federation tech is available. That's going to require a certain degree of planetary unity, hopefully at least enough to preclude wars.
Plus, any time you're building military hardware, something has gone wrong. It's a direct dead loss to your economy and represents a problem; starting an arms race with the mainland isn't a good outcome. (Starting a standard of living contest would be...) Policy should at least be trying for the good outcome.
Zakharra wrote:If steam engines would have given the same power output and reliability, Hitler and the German (and the Allies) would have used it for engines to power the tanks and mechanized units). Tanks, trucks, jeeps and airplanes were powered by IC engines because those ones could deliver better than steam engines.
You're treating the sunk historical pattern of development as inherent in the technology.
For example, the US put a lot of effort into high power-to-weight flat -- so they would fit in the wings, for streamlining -- aircraft engines in the 1930s. Those didn't work, but the effort had a big effect on subsequent aircraft engines.
That didn't have to happen; someone might have gone for turbine engines a little sooner in the 1930s -- it wouldn't have been obviously crazier than trying for less than a pound per horsepower -- and we might never have had the high-output piston engines at all. One good turboprop demo in 1938 would have changed a lot.
Or consider that nigh-everybody was using gasoline engines in tanks, which might well be considered maliciously crazy from a flammability (always) and reliability (often) standpoint. This was in no way optimal, and indeed nobody is completely happy with their tank engines even today. (The US Army is seriously considering developing a turbocompound engine in an effort to get what it wants.)
This isn't an indication that you can't possibly get the required power-to-weight with some Rankine-cycle engine. It's an indication that our history didn't.
On Safehold, with Proscriptions, they might have to, but hopefully not. (Because they still have less population! Getting into attritional air-land battle when they other guy has four times as many people = BAD PLAN.)
Zakharra wrote:I think though we are going to have to agree to disagree here. We're not going to convince each other otherwise. Good discussion all around.
It does look like that, yes. But, as you say, good discussion!
