Steam Vent

A Steam Vent is a geyser that periodically emits large amounts of 500 °C Steam. In the base game, it is one of the hottest geyser types and is a major source of both heat and water. An average Steam Vent produces about 750 g/s of steam over a full cycle, which makes it a significant geothermal feature even when its output is not used for power.

Because it outputs steam directly, a Steam Vent can be harvested for water by condensing the gas, or used as a heat source for industrial builds. One of the simplest and most common uses is to feed its output straight into a Steam Turbine, which converts steam into water while deleting most of the heat. This makes Steam Vents especially valuable when paired with turbine-based cooling loops or power setups. Since the turbine produces the same power from steam at lower temperatures as long as the steam remains usable, cooling the output before it reaches the turbine improves energy recovery.

Steam Vents are also useful as a source of hot steam for rockets and other systems that accept steam as fuel or working fluid. Steam Engine does not need a fuel tank or oxidizer tank; it is fueled by piping steam directly into the engine. In practice, the steam must be delivered through gas pipes, and the route should be kept short and well insulated until better insulation materials are available. Once fueling is complete, excess steam should be vented from the pipes, since even insulated piping can eventually crack as the steam loses heat and condenses. A thermally reactive pipe material can also work if the pipe warms above steam’s effective condensation point and remains isolated from external heat exchange.

A Steam Vent can be especially convenient when it is paired with a chamber built from Insulated Tiles and managed with heat-producing devices to keep the steam from cooling. This is important because the vent is often far from the surface, so any heating strategy must account for the long transport path and the need to preserve steam temperature on the way to the destination.

• Steam Vents are an enormous heat source because they output very hot steam and a large total mass over time.
• They are well suited to direct turbine feeding, since Steam Turbines can condense steam into water while removing heat.
• Steam-based rockets can be fueled without separate oxidizer or fuel tanks.
• If a Steam Vent is entombed under Regolith, the Steam Engine will not accept fuel.
• A Steam Engine alone can reach destinations up to 10,000 km, and a Steam Engine combined with a Solid Fuel Thruster can reach 20,000 km destinations.

There is also an exploit involving pressure: placing the vent in a small puddle of liquid can let it exceed the normal 2 kg pressure limit and keep compressing gas without a cap. For this to work, the puddle must be at least two tiles wide, with less than 2 kg of liquid in the vent’s tile and room for the liquid to move aside. If the liquid has nowhere to go, it will be deleted and the exploit stops working.