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Found a contradiction in technology rules of RP?


sleeps

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So I was reading through the Science/technology of ponies in the RP section when I was reading up on the trains when I noticed that it said that the trains run on steam/water. However when you go and look at Mystery on the Pony Express episode the pony conductor/Shutterfly is shoveling coal. Should this be changed or are we just going to leave it as steam?

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There is no contradiction here. The rule was written assuming you know how steam engines work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine

Traditional steam engines burn coal to turn water in their boiler to steam. The steam is piped to pistons, the pistons move the drive wheels. You can't have steam unless you have some way to heat the water.

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So I was reading through the Science/technology of ponies in the RP section when I was reading up on the trains when I noticed that it said that the trains run on steam/water. However when you go and look at Mystery on the Pony Express episode the pony conductor/Shutterfly is shoveling coal. Should this be changed or are we just going to leave it as steam?

At the time of the writing we knew that there were two methods of moving trains: By pony power, and by steam power. Steam power appears to be more common and would indicate being the replacement technology for the old "power by pony" trains. As Corsair correctly points out, steam power needs a source of fuel to generate the steam; at the time we just didn't know what it was. I say this because there is more than one fuel source to generate the heat with wood being the easiest to gather (but far more inefficient than coal). Now we know they have the technology to mine coal as an economic resource, so yes it is safe to say steam trains powered through the use of coal.

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Steam power is still correct as mentioned in previous replies. its how the steam is produced that tells a lot about pony tech. We now have proof the steam trains are primarily coal fired, though I would not doubt some rare ones may use unicorn magic to produce the steam if the Flim Flam Brothers SSCS6K steampunk device is any indication. :)

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Hey River, why don't you take a stab at editing it it and hand it to one of the mods so it'll get done faster?

This is a smart thing to to.

If anyone wants to really impress the community and staff, when noting that changes should be made, an offer or at the very least an example of a suggested change will make things alot easier on us.

Otherwise... the answer is and always will be "Meh... we'll get around to it eventually". (expressed publicly or not)

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