Pipes and Power Expanded (ppex)

Pipes and Power Expanded turns boiling water into mechanical power. It adds iron and steel pipe networks that carry a gas or water under pressure, two coal-fired boilers, two steam engines, the sub-machines an engine drives, and the pumps and fittings that tie them together. It is the infrastructure layer of the Expanded family and a hard dependency of Steelmaking Expanded, whose blast furnace and Bessemer converter run on blast air that only a steam-driven blower supplies. This is version 0.6.8 and it needs Expanded Library 0.7.2.

Contents

The mechanics, in the order a plant is built:

1. Pipes and pressure - one pool per network, and the leaks, pressure and bursting that follow from it.
2. Boilers - the two vessels, their water and their fire, and the thirty seconds that end in an explosion.
3. Steam engines - the pressure bands, the throttle, repair, and what the power figures mean.
4. Mechanical power and pumps - the sub-machines an engine drives, and the three ways to move water.
5. Valves and outlets - the fittings that cut a run, cap it, end it at a machine or condense it.
6. Commands and config - every number the mod uses and how to change it in game.
7. Compatibility - what this mod needs and what it patches.

The two structures:

• The Cornish Boiler, the iron-age entry vessel.
• The Lancashire Boiler, the steel tier that carries the pressure a Cornish Engine wants.

The machines:

• Watt Engine, the low-pressure engine that runs on a lot of steam.
• Cornish Engine, the high-pressure engine with a throttle, which wrings more work from less.
• Manual Fluid Pump, a hand crank for filling a boiler before there is any steam.
• Mechanical Fluid Pump, an axle-driven pump for a shaft already turning.
• Fluid Pump, the sub-machine an engine drives to move water.
• Mechanical Power Generator, the sub-machine an engine drives to turn axles.

The fittings:

• Piping (Straight), Piping (Bend), Piping (T-Junction) and Piping (X-Junction), the plain pipe a run is built from.
• Piping (Valve), a hand-operated shut-off, and Piping (Pressure Valve), a directional overflow.
• Pipe Outlet, which ends a run at a machine, and Pipe Passthrough (Straight) and Pipe Passthrough (Bend), the same pipe cast into masonry.
• Fluid Intake, the only thing that makes water, and Steam Condenser, which turns spent steam back into it.

Where to start

New here, start at Getting started with steam power, which builds the smallest plant that feeds itself, in order. The FAQ answers the questions players actually asked, and points at the page that holds each one.

This mod's successor is Iron Industry Expanded, a new mod built on Expanded Library 0.8 rather than an update to this one, and worlds do not carry over between them. There is no guard against a newer library either: install Expanded Library 0.8 or later and the game simply stops loading this mod. Expanded Library 0.8 itself logs one error naming the clash and repeats it to every joining player.