The problem with an actual Stirling engine in dda is that they’re out of bounds for crafting, and they’re almost unheard of in the modern world. So you can’t craft one, and you can’t find one, so you’re out of luck.
Really? I mean, the article suggests they are used quite a lot in specialist applications, particularly in scientific devices and for deep-freezing. Seeing as we have freezing cold laboratories in the game it would seem like something that could easily be found there?
It also mentions that they’re very good as part of climate controlled buildings, with their use anticipated to increase due to environmental concerns and conventional AC being far less efficient.
Further, a basic one is literally two sealed pistons full of air connected to a crank, one at room temperature, and one over a heat source, with a mesh filled pipe between them. If you can build any of the pneumatic weapons ingame you should be able to build one of those. They’re extremely simple, the main difficulty being building a sealed piston (could be crafted from any internal combustion engine or made by a skilled fabricator) and getting the timing right (would require some mechanics skill, or a book.)
I’ll have a go at modding it in, jsons should be relatively easy to make sense of I imagine.
They’re not refrigerated by anything technical, they’re just intersecting with naturally cold subprime world. They were perfectly in line with the rest of labs in regards to AC before the Cataclysm.
I had sort of gathered that it was something supernatural making them that cold, but heavy cooling apparatus is still quite key for any high energy science. Teleportation labs would probably be full of equipment to cool the machinery, as well as cryogenic freezers to store samples in.
Being able to find all sorts of neat industrial components in labs would be quite cool I think.
By the way is there a modding guide anywhere? I can read the JSONs fine but knowing what is stored where is a little difficult, the one on the frontpage links to a 404 and there doesn’t appear to be a relevant sticky in the modding forum.