SD.NET Goes Steampunk! RAR!

[Crossroads Inc.]

It's That time again People!
Time to shove creamed corn in our pants and Sing the Hully Gully?
No...

It's time to play... Q GIVES YOU A NATION!!!

The time period is the turn of this fictional worlds central, 1900!
The Setting is what seems Victorian England.
But this isn;t just any world, it is a STEAMPUNK World!
What exactly does that imply? Well, The world this shall inhabit is evidently FULL of various materials that defy the laws of physics!
Among these are the following...

Ubertonium.
The cornerstone of Steampunk Technology in this world, It is an extremely rare metal with several strange properties. It’s weight and mass density is similar to copper and can be worked at the same temperature as copper. However once heated and cooled, it takes on a strength similar to tempered steel.
Also, when a current is passed through the metal, it will become colder. The more current passed through, the colder the surface of the metal becomes.

UpsiDaisium:
A Light blue colored rock with the same density and weight of granite, but with rather unusual properties.
The stone, depending on the temperature it is subjected to, can decreases the mass around it causing it to float and levitate. At a base temperature of 50 degrees, 1 pound of contiguous rock ‘generates’ 1 pound of lift, or is neutrally buoyant.
If cooled artificially, each 5 degrees cooler generates 4pounds of lift.
1pounds of stone at 30degrees = 16pounds of lift or 15 useable pounds of lift.
The ‘useful’ physical limit a single pound can generate is 20 pounds; beyond that the surface becomes too stressed and the stone begins to shatter from the strain.
The Minimal amount of stone that can be used is ½ of a pound. Bellow that amount no lift is generated by the rock. (This is something to keep in mind, as it means chips of rock or bits that break off from UpsiDaisium will fall and possibly cause damage unless covered)
Most UpsiDaisium “ships” use thin bands of Ubertonium placed around their central lifting stones to adjust levitation, since Ubertonium becomes cold when an electric current is run through it, by increasing or decreasing current, the temperature of the stone can be increased or decreased, and by extension, the amount of lift.
The stone is typically found in warmer areas and so does not normally “float” unless temperatures get below 50 degrees.

Steamballs:
A steamball is the result of taking extremely rare hyper pure mineral water elements mixed with "Ubertonium” and compressing it within a reinforced steel sphere to a critical pressure where the water begins to create near unlimited pressure.
The reaction can only be created within a Steam Ball sphere, 1ft in diameter. Due to “Handwavium” If the reaction begins in anything smaller, the reaction ceases and the process ends. If the reaction begins in anything larger, the pressure has enough room to expand to begin to go critical and will continue to expand until it explodes.
Once a Steamball becomes ‘active’ it can be linked up to any device to provide a nearly unlimited amount of steam energy for whatever your devious mind can dream up.

Tesla Crystals
Effectively a room temperature super conductor, they resemble Quartz crystals in both size and shape, and must be cut carefully to avoid accidently shattering them.
Any electrical current passing through a Tesla crystal will have Zero resistance and can effectively be repeated forever..

Energist stones.
Large Coconut sized crystals that can produce immense amounts of electricity. When found naturally in rock (normally in metamorphic rock where diamonds would normally be found) they give off a weak electric current of a few watts. However when placed in an Übertonium ‘Socket’ they can produce far more electricity. When Ubertonium metal comes into contact with an Energist crystal, it reacts and increases more electricity. The more of the metal that is in contact, the more electricity produced. Typically most crystals can produce a maximum of 10MW before they would shatter from strain.

FASCINATING Stuff yes no?
But what of your countries you ask?
Well Those I give to you now.. OH! Also, the sizes are based NOT on post count, but instead on the year you joined!
So if there is some aged member from the dawn of time with only a handful of posts, he shall get a Royal Nation just as grand as any of the mods!


Those that joined between 2011 and 2013
-An island between 15,500 Square KM
- Population: 250,000
-A military of 5,500 personnel
-Able to meet local demands for basic foodstuffs, as well as having a single dedicated industry or two smaller industries,
-GDP $3,250,000,000 USD per year
-Choice of Two Special Resources.

Those that joined between 2008 and 2010
-An Island/Island chain with 35,000 square kilometers
-Population: 1.5 Million
-A military with 8,000-15,000 personnel,
-Able to meat local food demands, as well as having some local manufacturing of consumer goods and resource export,
-GDP $10,500,000,000 USD per year
-Choice of Three Special Resources.

Those that joined between 2005 and 2007
-Part of a continent Total Land Area, 250,000 square kilometers
-Population: 8 million
-Military, 30,000-45,000 personnel, Comparable 10000 4 12000
-Able to produce enough food for export, with industry capable of producing large scale goods such as High technology industry and some shipbuilding, GPD-$70,000,000,000 USD per year
-Choice of Four Special Resources.

Those that joined between 2002 and 2004
- Part of a continent Total Land Area, 500,000 square kilometers
-Population: 20 million
-Military, 90,000 personnel,
-Able to produce enough food for export, with industry capable of producing large-scale goods such as High technology industry and shipbuilding, GPD-$140,000,000,000 USD per year
-Choice of Five Special Resources.


Mods and Supermods
- Part of a continent Total Land Area, 1,000,000 square kilometers
-Population: 50 million
-Military, 200,000 personnel, 10 16000
-Major food exporter, with industry capable of producing large-scale goods such as High technology industry and shipbuilding, GPD-$300,000,000,000 USD per year
-Choice of Six Special Resources.


SO! What shall you do? Not just with your own nation, but with a host of strange materials your average Mad Scientist could only dream of!

[madd0ct0r]

didn't we have this thread a few weeks back?

[Darth Tanner]

I invade the smaller nations as the GDP per capita is much higher than my own.

Other than that free power for everyone! I mine all the enrgy and steam balls I can get my hand on and move towards electic motors asap for a clean electric future with steam heating for everyone.

Fly my fleet of sky dreadnoughts!

[Simon_Jester]

Not counting mods, who are few, we have... 1831 people who joined between 2002 and 2004, 1122 who joined 2005-07, and 801 who joined 2008-10 (waves happily).

So all told, 3754 joined prior to Jan. 1, 2011; another 435 joined in the first two months of 2011. After that time, something like 80-90% of accounts formed on the site are zero-posts, either total lurkers, spammers, or... I don't even know. I'd estimate roughly 1000 real people have joined in the past three years, along with roughly 3000 lurkers and spammers and whatnot.
____________________________________________________

The practical upshot of this is that:

1) This is gonna be a BIIIIIG planet.

2) A bit over 900 million square kilometers of land area, totally roughly 100 times the area of China, is divided up among the Old Guard. For reference, this is six times the land area of the planet Earth.

There are just over 1800 of these large 500 by 1000 kilometer 'big' countries. Each is roughly three quarters the size of France, has roughly the same GDP as 1900 France, and has roughly half the population of 1900 France.

3) There will be a few dozen nations individually twice that large, twice that rich, and 2.5 times as populous, but they don't add much to the total of the world's land area, population, or wealth.

4) There will be just over 300 million square kilometers of land divided up into 'second wave' polities individually half that size: 500 by 500 kilometers. This is STILL twice the land area of the Earth. Each of these states is roughly the size of the 1900-era United Kingdom physically (not counting colonial dependencies), has roughly 20% the population of the 1900-era United Kingdom (not counting colonial dependencies), and has roughly one third the GDP of the 1900-era United Kingdom (not counting colonial dependencies)

5) I do not have time at the moment to continue my investigation of the 800 large island chains and the 1000 or so small islands which exist on this hypothetical world. Their total impact on the land area, population, and wealth of this imagined world are pretty small.

My sources are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... es_by_area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... _%28PPP%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... on_in_1900

[Ahriman238]

So I get an island half the size of Ireland, with a quarter million inhabitants looking to me for some kind of leadership, okay. And all this on a superearth where every nation is effectively self sufficient for food and possesses a major industry (and at least half-decent GDP) and two or more "rare" materials in appreciable quantities. And where I am on effectively a first-name basis with every world leader. Okay, let's do this.

For my industry I'll take shipbuilding for 500, air and water craft alike. Thus I get an appreciable workforce of engineers and can focus on trying to build a mercantile empire along with getting enough fishing industry to serve as a reliable backup to farming. "Upsidaisium" and "ubertonium" to support that industry, I'll still need some major trading partners to get real airship construction off the ground (Er, so to speak.)

Mostly I'm just going to want fast couriers to keep in contact with everyone until we get some kind of radio running. That way we can plan a way forward in our new world, together as world leaders have never managed to. Or so I can bug Simon and Thanas about how to not screw up running an island nation.

Hey Crossroads, do we have some metric for figuring out our lands' climate, terrain, arable land and more mundane resources? All of these things will make a massive difference to all of us. What about the technologies available at start? It again makes a huge difference whether we're mining these things with hand-picks, with 19th Century tech or 21st.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok at work and on my phone so can't type much.
Will respond to questions when I get home.
Had to respond to say, simon? Your AMAZING! Seriously your why I love this place so much.
You get the information and begin instant calculation. Seriously when I saw those numbers I laughed so hard I went to the break room just to calm down.

One thing, only members who ACTUALLY. Post in the thread will have nations, they will spear on the planet as a person posts in here, so the size corresponds only to active posters.

[Batman]

What does appear mean? Do they just pop into existence complete with the required spacetime to park them in when someone posts so the planet essentially gets bigger the more people post, is the space theoretically allocated for those people assumed to be empty ocean until they post, are they empty unpopulated landmasses ripe for the taking, are they populated but unclaimed landmasses ripe for the taking, or are they big 'you no go here' zones where travelers who venture there are either destroyed, disappear Bermuda Triangle style or are driven mad by phenomena they can't comprehend? Several if not all of those are bound to have considerable impact on the climate, commerce, transportation, and lines and modes of communication, not to mention easily acquirable additional resources.

[Simon_Jester]

Ok at work and on my phone so can't type much.
Will respond to questions when I get home.
Had to respond to say, simon? Your AMAZING! Seriously your why I love this place so much.

...All I did was look up Wikipedia, the Members list on this site... and multiply.

One thing, only members who ACTUALLY. Post in the thread will have nations, they will spear on the planet as a person posts in here, so the size corresponds only to active posters.

...Thaaaat's a very different scenario you've got there.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Hey Crossroads, do we have some metric for figuring out our lands' climate, terrain, arable land and more mundane resources? All of these things will make a massive difference to all of us. What about the technologies available at start? It again makes a huge difference whether we're mining these things with hand-picks, with 19th Century tech or 21st.

You can design your land mass for the most part based on Real Earth analogs.
As far as Climate and terrain, that will depend on what you want.. If you want a wet cool climate like Ireland, Your going to be placing your land mass in the same general area in a northern area. Obviously if someone else ants the exact same climate, they may end up next to you. I am hoping this does NOT end up as a strange "Everyone has their own island" country, and ones may get knotted together as they come in.

As far as resources, well landmass type dictates geology and thus dictates resources.
To continue the Ireland example, if you wanted an Ireland like Landmass, you would NOT be able to say you have things like Diamonds, rare earth metals, or large deposits iron deposits. You would have a lot of forests, pete bogs and excellent farm land.

As far as Tech goes.
Well you are looking at turn of the century earth tech.
So basically any exiting tech circa 1901.

What does appear mean? Do they just pop into existence complete with the required spacetime to park them in when someone posts so the planet essentially gets bigger the more people post, is the space theoretically allocated for those people assumed to be empty ocean until they post, are they empty unpopulated landmasses ripe for the taking, are they populated but unclaimed landmasses ripe for the taking, or are they big 'you no go here' zones where travelers who venture there are either destroyed, disappear Bermuda Triangle style or are driven mad by phenomena they can't comprehend? Several if not all of those are bound to have considerable impact on the climate, commerce, transportation, and lines and modes of communication, not to mention easily acquirable additional resources.

Well, Taking a page from one of the ear lies "You get a nation" threads, that was more or less how Zor did it, having the nations "PooF" into existence. Once done, the population basically mentally adjusted along the lines of "Oh that country? They have ALWAYS been there! Good relations with them, a rich old history of trade between us!" Sort of thing.
Same thing for climate and such. Once a poster creates his nations, it would have "Always" been there, and thus a part of the history and people.

One thing, only members who ACTUALLY. Post in the thread will have nations, they will spear on the planet as a person posts in here, so the size corresponds only to active posters.

...Thaaaat's a very different scenario you've got there.

Well yes, Mostly to avoid the problems we usually have, of people going around and spending all their time ransacking the resources of all the members who never post

Remember that "You get a fleet of StarWars ships" Were there was a hundred plus Star Dreadnoughts floating around unclaimed

[Simon_Jester]

You can design your land mass for the most part based on Real Earth analogs.
As far as Climate and terrain, that will depend on what you want.. If you want a wet cool climate like Ireland, Your going to be placing your land mass in the same general area in a northern area. Obviously if someone else ants the exact same climate, they may end up next to you. I am hoping this does NOT end up as a strange "Everyone has their own island" country, and ones may get knotted together as they come in.

As far as resources, well landmass type dictates geology and thus dictates resources.
To continue the Ireland example, if you wanted an Ireland like Landmass, you would NOT be able to say you have things like Diamonds, rare earth metals, or large deposits iron deposits. You would have a lot of forests, pete bogs and excellent farm land.

...That seems odd. There's nothing intrinsic about Ireland that dictates that it shouldn't have any of those. England, which is right across the Irish Sea and is part of the same archipelago, has (had, mix of both) massive deposits of iron and coal, both of which are key strategic materials.

Gemstone deposits are routinely found in all climates ranging from swampy jungles through rugged mountains. Rare ores likewise. Oil is found in biomes as diverse as Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Siberia.

There really isn't much correlation between the climate of an area and whether or not there are valuable minerals underneath the ground.

As far as Tech goes.
Well you are looking at turn of the century earth tech.
So basically any exiting tech circa 1901.

Plus of course various logical concomitants of the wonder-tech you've put into the scenario?

For example, you've made a relatively low-cost source of very cheap high pressure steam. It's probably going to be competitive with large boilers, and will have none of the disadvantages of a large boiler (such as taking hours to heat up and even start to produce steam).

Assuming you can control the 'steamball' to produce steam at a given pressure (enough for whatever machine application you have in mind, NOT enough to cause the pressure vessel to explode), this will make high pressure steam more easily accessible and fast-forward the evolution of turbines, which were historically in their infancy in 1900.

Hm. How do you power a large construction such as a ship from steamballs? Do you need large numbers of individual steamballs, or can you subtly alter the design properties of a single steamball so that it will output more or less power? Is there a range of viable diameters for steamballs, say, "less than ten inches and it goes subcritical and won't work, but more than fourteen inches and it goes supercritical and explodes?"

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well Ok, I was being VERY general on Ireland. I did some very basic searches online and it mentioned it didn't have much in the way of metals etc. I guess The main thing I was getting is that, whatever land mass your create, it should have resources similar to a similar Earth counter part, whatever that may be. Basically again, You shouldn't claim to have a bunch of resources in an geological area that wouldn't normally have them..
As far as the "Magic tech" influencing the normal 1900's tech, well, thats part of the fun

On the Steam Ball's…
You can adjust the pressure coming out easy enough, I envision them being in the center of large mobile devices with several if not dozens of different ports for steam. You could hook up several Steam Engines to one on a construction site, obviously monitoring how much output there is to not cause too much stress.

Not sure if you can alter the actual size of a steam ball much beyond an two or three inches bigger or smaller.
In terms of powering something "BIG" like an aircraft carrier or such.
Could you run massive engines off of steam "Reservoirs" ? Have huge High pressure tanks the SteamBall could fill up, tha could then be vented into engines. Hmmm….

[Tribble]

*Sigh* Well, I'm probably one of the few who'd refuse Q's offer, on account of not trusting him one bit. If I was forced to take the offer, I'd probably sell my share to the highest bidder... running a country sounds like a real headache, and I hate admin work lol

[Batman]

I just reread the OP and I can't seem to find the part where Q actually gives you a choice. You are now leader of country XYZ. And while the scenario doesn't say you can't just sell your country to the highest bidder, there also doesn't seem to be a way back to the real world, so you'll have to live somewhere[/i in this world.
And while you're welcome to move to the Timorocracy of Gotham, I'm afraid I'm not buying out Tribblestania. As you say, running a country is hard work. I have no desire being settled with running two.

[Tribble]

C'mon! I give you very good price! Or if the whole country is too much for you to purchase, I'll divide Tribblestania into smaller portions and sell them off individually.

Oh wait, this gives me a great idea: I'll sell off my country, and use my wealth to buy enough of that floating material to have my own private island which I can drive around the oceans with. It'll be the ultimate tourist resort. I think I can manage that. And of course it'll be filled with beautiful naked women... and animatronic dinosaurs. What more can you want?

[Batman]

Making sure the animatronic dinosaurs don't eat the beautiful naked women comes to mind. Which seems to happen pretty much inevitably in fiction.

[Simon_Jester]

Well Ok, I was being VERY general on Ireland. I did some very basic searches online and it mentioned it didn't have much in the way of metals etc. I guess The main thing I was getting is that, whatever land mass your create, it should have resources similar to a similar Earth counter part, whatever that may be.

So... I can decide to have a country with geography like the Transvaal and all the mineral wealth that went with it? Does it have to have the exact layout of the Transvaal, or can I put mountains and rivers where I like within that area?

Basically again, You shouldn't claim to have a bunch of resources in an geological area that wouldn't normally have them..

Umm... can you please stop obfuscating the question of what you mean by "geological area?" That isn't a rigorous scientific term. Only in computer games can you say "this area is mountainous, therefore it has mineral resources." In real life, one patch of ten thousand square miles of mountains may contain no minerals of real value, while another patch a few hundred miles away contains lots of them.

On the Steam Ball's…
You can adjust the pressure coming out easy enough, I envision them being in the center of large mobile devices with several if not dozens of different ports for steam. You could hook up several Steam Engines to one on a construction site, obviously monitoring how much output there is to not cause too much stress.

HOW would you adjust the pressure coming out? As far as I can tell, once you assemble one, it acts like a magical portal to the Elemental Plane of High Pressure Steam. The only way to regulate the pressure is to take the incoming high pressure steam and allow it to expand so that it reaches a lower pressure. But that involves sacrificing some of the power otherwise coming out of the ball.

Can steamballs be designed slightly differently so that by design they create a lower pressure? Or an especially high one? We routinely design nuclear reactors to run unusually 'hot' or 'cold' and can fine-tune them to emit more or less neutrons, and the core of a nuclear reactor is the only thing I can think of that works anything like a steamball.

In terms of powering something "BIG" like an aircraft carrier or such.
Could you run massive engines off of steam "Reservoirs" ? Have huge High pressure tanks the SteamBall could fill up, tha could then be vented into engines. Hmmm….

If you can run a single locomotive, even a modest-sized one, off a single steamball, then you just build a huge number of individual steamballs and combine the steam they produce to drive individual turbines (or, failing that, piston systems, preferably double/triple/quadruple compound). Real capital ships in the era often had a dozen or more boilers, each of which created steam to run the ship's machinery plants.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I just reread the OP and I can't seem to find the part where Q actually gives you a choice. You are now leader of country XYZ. And while the scenario doesn't say you can't just sell your country to the highest bidder, there also doesn't seem to be a way back to the real world, so you'll have to live somewhere[/i in this world.

BUGGER ! I knew I forgot something!
Shoot yeah, Your private office or what not has a door back.. Theres ALWAYS a "ESCAPE" door in these set ups.

So... I can decide to have a country with geography like the Transvaal and all the mineral wealth that went with it? Does it have to have the exact layout of the Transvaal, or can I put mountains and rivers where I like within that area?

Naw you can put things however you want I guess.. Really I should let you be a lot more open with country creation. I initially wanted to just guard against Resource Abuse, but this is SD.NET after all, theres not a lot of people out here who would go "OMG I have a million tons of gold on my country and Diamonds the size of beach balls!" Or something silly like that.
SO go ahead and be creative in your country creation

HOW would you adjust the pressure coming out? As far as I can tell, once you assemble one, it acts like a magical portal to the Elemental Plane of High Pressure Steam. The only way to regulate the pressure is to take the incoming high pressure steam and allow it to expand so that it reaches a lower pressure. But that involves sacrificing some of the power otherwise coming out of the ball.

Well, The whole idea for the Steamball came from an Anime Movie called "SteamBoy" The thing in question basically looks like this:

The bit on top can be screwed into devices and then the valve on the side was used to regulate the amount of pressure coming out.
In various parts in the movie as someone is holding JUST The ball and opens the valve, we see pressure come out ranging from enough to blast a person backwards (covering his face in ice from the expanding steam) To slicing a large building in two as the valve is opened "Almost all the way"

Can steamballs be designed slightly differently so that by design they create a lower pressure? Or an especially high one? We routinely design nuclear reactors to run unusually 'hot' or 'cold' and can fine-tune them to emit more or less neutrons, and the core of a nuclear reactor is the only thing I can think of that works anything like a steam ball.

In truth I can't see why not. I guess you could adjust various properties that go into making them to adjust how "Hot" they would run.

If you can run a single locomotive, even a modest-sized one, off a single steamball, then you just build a huge number of individual steamballs and combine the steam they produce to drive individual turbines (or, failing that, piston systems, preferably double/triple/quadruple compound). Real capital ships in the era often had a dozen or more boilers, each of which created steam to run the ship's machinery plants.

Well a single ball "Full Power" ball is a lot more powerful than that, It was why I said they would be so expensive to produce.
Just as an example at the 16:30min mark in a clip form the movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1xOw6TCF8
Three Steamballs working in unison lift a 6story building out of the ground and get it to "Fly" through the downward thrust from the pressure (Don't ask me HOW this works, but just wanted to show an example of these things at Full bore. )
Really if one works out distribution properly, Two of these would be enough to run a full sized Capital ship of the Era.
Hope that makes things easier and not worse...

[madd0ct0r]

If anyone else is having a crisis of imagination, I've hacked together a little island chain generator:

It'll give you the size of each island, a real world example to copy the map from and a note for each, be it interesting metal deposits (it is a steampunk RAR) or social commentary:
Feel free to hack it up as you'd like, it's currently set to the 2008-2010 cohort.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/641 ... hains.xlsx

[Simon_Jester]

HOW would you adjust the pressure coming out? As far as I can tell, once you assemble one, it acts like a magical portal to the Elemental Plane of High Pressure Steam. The only way to regulate the pressure is to take the incoming high pressure steam and allow it to expand so that it reaches a lower pressure. But that involves sacrificing some of the power otherwise coming out of the ball.

Well, The whole idea for the Steamball came from an Anime Movie called "SteamBoy" The thing in question basically looks like this:

The bit on top can be screwed into devices and then the valve on the side was used to regulate the amount of pressure coming out.
In various parts in the movie as someone is holding JUST The ball and opens the valve, we see pressure come out ranging from enough to blast a person backwards (covering his face in ice from the expanding steam) To slicing a large building in two as the valve is opened "Almost all the way"

The real question then is, how the heck is the valve holding at the pressures you're talking about? A jet of steam that will carve its way through a building would surely carve its way through a steel plate. Does the magical gate to the Elemental Plane of High Pressure Steam suddenly stop working when you close the valve? And work a varying amount, allowing through varying pressure, when the valve is opened or closed to a varying degree? If so, the REAL magitech here is the valve if you ask me...

Can steamballs be designed slightly differently so that by design they create a lower pressure? Or an especially high one? We routinely design nuclear reactors to run unusually 'hot' or 'cold' and can fine-tune them to emit more or less neutrons, and the core of a nuclear reactor is the only thing I can think of that works anything like a steam ball.

In truth I can't see why not. I guess you could adjust various properties that go into making them to adjust how "Hot" they would run.

Given what you imply they're capable of, I certainly hope you could. Otherwise they're darn near useless.

If you can run a single locomotive, even a modest-sized one, off a single steamball, then you just build a huge number of individual steamballs and combine the steam they produce to drive individual turbines (or, failing that, piston systems, preferably double/triple/quadruple compound). Real capital ships in the era often had a dozen or more boilers, each of which created steam to run the ship's machinery plants.

Well a single ball "Full Power" ball is a lot more powerful than that, It was why I said they would be so expensive to produce.
Just as an example at the 16:30min mark in a clip form the movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1xOw6TCF8
Three Steamballs working in unison lift a 6story building out of the ground and get it to "Fly" through the downward thrust from the pressure (Don't ask me HOW this works, but just wanted to show an example of these things at Full bore. )
Really if one works out distribution properly, Two of these would be enough to run a full sized Capital ship of the Era.
Hope that makes things easier and not worse...

They become if anything LESS useful if they're that powerful, i.e. vastly more powerful than a locomotive. For most applications, period steam engines needed a power output measured in, oh, single or double-digit horsepower. Locomotives ran up into the hundreds. Modern diesel-electrics get up into four digits; battleships of the era wobbled at around 10000 shaft horsepower.

Also... that is not anything I'd describe as "a six story building." That is... a lot of building.

Basically, if "steamballs" are so powerful that they can do that in small numbers, they're actually a lot less useful for industrial applications than they otherwise would be, because the effort required to keep steam at such stupidly high pressures from just blowing through piping and joints is utterly not worth it. It's safer to build a conventional boiler.

[Zwinmar]

I would got for a patch of land roughly similar to Brazil as seen along the Andes. That is, split 60/40 mountains to jungle. The reason, natural boundaries and a perfect setting for huge zeppelin analogues to be formed.