Create: Full Steam Ahead

Create: Full Steam Ahead is a NeoForge 1.21.1 Create addon centered on large Create-style reciprocating steam engines for ships, aircraft, and industrial power plants.

The addon keeps Create's own Fluid Tank boiler as the boiler. Full Steam Ahead adds cylinder walls, pistons, piston heads, boiler outlets, relief valves, steam inlets, pressure gauges, storable steam, and a hidden powered shaft that lets the assembled engine drive a normal Create shaft network.

Locked Targets

• Mod id: full_steam_ahead
• Java package: dev.gustavo.fullsteamahead
• Minecraft: 1.21.1
• NeoForge: 21.1.230
• Create: 6.0.10-280
• Java: 21
• License: MIT

Build

./gradlew build

Use a Java 21 runtime. The first build downloads and prepares the NeoForge Minecraft artifacts, so it can take several minutes.

Design Defaults

• Required runtime mod: Create
• Optional runtime compatibility targets: Sable and Create Aeronautics
• Optional dependency metadata currently accepts Aeronautics/Simulated 1.2.1 through <1.4.0 and Sable 1.2.1 through <3.0.0.
• v1 engine shape: vertical 3x3x2 hollow cylinder ring, piston head, one to three piston bodies, one to three empty stroke spaces, and a horizontal Create shaft
• Engine orientation: upright and upside-down engines are pipe-fed and require one active assembled steam_inlet
• Inline engine banks: adjacent same-orientation cylinder rings may share ordinary steam_cylinder wall blocks; shared walls are a blockstate/visual form, not a separate block
• Cylinder construction visuals: straight-only wall runs stay fence-like; once a local corner implies a ring, the existing assembled partial section models are assigned from that stable corner origin
• Visual direction: close to base Create's copper, andesite, brass, shafts, gauges, and steam engine style
• Engine speed: linear from 1 to 64 RPM for positive output; 0 RPM with no output
• Connected Full Steam Ahead generators use one stable shared-shaft command: the strongest compatible engine sets shaft RPM while every engine contributes only its own available SU capacity

Steam Power Model

Steam is a real fluid. Production still uses the readable Create-style unit scale:

• 1 steam unit = 10 mB/t steam
• 1 steam unit consumed = 16,384 SU
• One pipe-fed engine consumes up to 9 steam units or 90 mB/t
• A full normal engine output is 9 units = 90 mB/t = 147,456 SU at 64 RPM
• Engine RPM and SU both use the same min(pressure factor, delivered-flow factor); RPM scales continuously up to the configured maximum, with a 1 RPM floor whenever output is positive.

Active Create Fluid Tank boilers produce steam internally from Create's boiler data:

total steam units = min(active burner units, water supply heat level) * boiler height

Normal Blaze Burners contribute 1 burner unit each. Blaze Cake burners contribute 2 each. Boiler height multiplies the burner footprint, so a 3x3x6 boiler with 9 normal active burners produces 54 steam units, enough for six full normal engines. With 9 Blaze Cake burners it produces 108 units, enough for twelve full pipe-fed engines.

A sealed active boiler still stores generated steam and builds pressure even when no outlet or pipe is attached. Every engine requires one active steam_inlet. Pipe networks distribute usable steam evenly across reachable active inlets, capped at 90 mB/t per active inlet from all sources combined, before filling passive storage tanks. If supply is short, every reachable engine receives the same share as closely as whole mB/t allows; SU scales from exact consumed mB/t. A cylinder ring may include one optional passive steam_inlet for visual symmetry; passive inlets connect visually but never request or consume steam.

A boiler can expose stored steam in two ways. A boiler_outlet is still the explicit Create-style port block. Active Create Fluid Tank boilers can also feed steam directly into Create Fluid Pipes attached to any top-layer tank face except the bottom face: the top face and all horizontal side faces are valid. Direct boiler ports and boiler_outlet blocks share the same boiler budget, so adding more ports splits output instead of multiplying it. Ordinary tanks that merely store steam do not gain this pressure source.

Pressure Network

Boilers and pipe-fed steam networks use a per-network ideal-gas pressure model:

pressure pN/m^2 = gasConstant * storedSteamMb * temperatureK / networkVolumeM3

• Rated pressure is 1.0 MpN/m²; a full-flow engine at rated pressure reaches full SU and 64 RPM.
• Engine output is gated by both pressure and delivered flow: min(pressure factor, flow factor).
• Multiple boilers can feed one pipe network. Network temperature is weighted by contributed steam, not simply copied from the hottest boiler.
• A boiler with no connected steam ports is treated as its own sealed pressure network. Relief valves, goggles, Display Links, and burst logic still see its pressure.
• Multiple steam ports on one boiler, whether boiler_outlet blocks or direct pipe connections, split one shared boiler budget and cannot duplicate steam.
• Passive Create Fluid Tanks add pressure volume from their configured fluid capacity, so larger storage actually buffers pressure.
• Create fluid valves block steam pressure traversal. Closed valves isolate pressure instead of leaking or bypassing steam.
• Open pipe ends and unconnected outlets act as atmospheric relief. Broken pipe ends drain toward steamPhysics.openPipeTargetPressure (0 pN/m² by default); when smoothing is enabled, both stored steam and engine output fall along the same pressure curve instead of snapping off instantly.
• Boiler-mounted steam_relief_valve blocks protect the physical Create Fluid Tank boiler they attach to. They can mount on the top or horizontal sides of the boiler, auto-open at 2.2 MpN/m², close below 1.7 MpN/m², have a 720 mB/t baseline vent rate, scale relief authority with active boiler production once open, and can be forced open with redstone.
• When Create Aeronautics is installed, powered aeronautics:steam_vent blocks consume FSA steam proportional to their live Aeronautics gas output. Vents can either sit on FSA-fed boilers or be pipe-fed by placing them on top of a Create fluid pipe carrying FSA steam. The default conversion is 5000 m³ -> 10 mB/t, controlled by aeronauticsCompat.steamVentMbPerM3.
• Overpressure warns at 1.5 MpN/m² and bursts at 2.5 MpN/m². A burst is deduped per physical boiler, depressurizes the whole connected steam network, uses (12.0 + 0.45 * networkVolume) * 1.0 explosion power capped before scaling at 36.0, and adds a client-side steam cloud, layered boom/hiss sounds within 200 blocks, and configurable screen shake within 150 blocks.
• Create Big Cannons projectiles that strike a Create Fluid Tank belonging to an active steam boiler force a boiler rupture. Pressure networks use current pressure and depressurize the connected steam network; active boilers without stored pressure still rupture at full burst pressure.
• On Sable/Aeronautics simulated contraptions, boiler bursts project the visual/world explosion to real-world coordinates and also apply local randomized damage to nearby sublevel blocks. Most destroyed sublevel blocks are vaporized; only sparse edge damage drops items.
• Engines never read an adjacent boiler directly. A boiler must expose steam through an explicit boiler_outlet or a valid direct boiler-to-pipe port, and a pipe network must deliver that steam to the engine inlet.

Steam remains visible in Create tanks and pipes through a high-visibility tinted vanilla water render path. Unconnected boiler outlets, open pipe ends, running cylinder exhaust, and boiler bursts emit custom translucent steam particles, and leak clouds can scald entities.

Steam Admission Control

The horizontal steam_admission_valve throttles one active engine inlet without restricting the shared pipe main. Newly placed valves start fully open in Manual / Telegraph mode. Right-click the controller to increase its 0..15 admission step and sneak-right-click to decrease it. A normal Create-wrench click switches between Manual / Telegraph and Redstone Link modes without rotating or disconnecting the pipe.

In manual mode, use an Engine Order Telegraph item on the valve to create, copy, or bind a telegraph channel. The built-in lever and every loaded telegraph on that channel synchronize in both directions without loading distant chunks. Sneak-use a telegraph item on the valve to clear its channel.

In Redstone Link mode, the controller exposes two built-in frequency slots and accepts an analogue 0..15 command. Signal 0 fully closes admission and signal 15 passes full steam. An empty frequency pair remains a full-open bypass. Existing valves saved before the dual-mode remodel load in this mode to preserve their prior behavior.

The valve must be directly beside exactly one active steam_inlet, with the inlet nozzle facing the valve. Its requested engine flow is the normal pressure-dependent request multiplied by the active control value divided by 15. If the network cannot satisfy every consumer, the normal proportional allocator preserves requested throttle ratios. Delivered flow scales both SU and RPM continuously; other valve branches remain normal bidirectional steam paths. The controller follows the linked cylinder ring orientation automatically: it extends upward on upright engines and below the pipe body on inverted engines. The authored pressure body owns the valve center while short Create pipe arms render only on its other connected horizontal faces.

Display Link Readout

Create Display Links can read steam network data from boiler_outlet blocks and active Create Fluid Tank boiler controllers through the Steam Network source. The source supports Summary, Pressure, Safety, Flow, and Network modes from the normal Display Link configuration screen. Each mode writes one row, so multiple Display Links can target different rows on the same Display Board without overwriting each other.

Steam Pressure Gauge

The steam_pressure_gauge is a passive analogue instrument for boiler rooms and ship bridges. Hold the gauge item and sneak-right-click any tank block in an active Create Fluid Tank boiler, then place the gauge elsewhere in the same dimension. The item keeps the selected source so multiple gauges can be placed from one selection; sneak-use the item in the air to clear it.

The gauge reads the boiler controller's authoritative Full Steam Ahead pressure without consuming steam. Its needle maps zero pressure to the low stop and the configured burst pressure to the high stop. The exact clicked tank remains the anchor when Create changes the multiblock controller, while a relative, orientation-aware link lets the gauge and boiler rotate together on Sable/Aeronautics simulated contraptions. Unloaded or missing sources are not force-loaded; the needle returns smoothly to zero and goggles report the unavailable source.

Planned Polish

• Optional volumetric steam cloud simulation for steam trapped in closed spaces.