Would Steamshit be less insufferable if it just entirely dropped the Victorian shit altogether and tried to come up with an original style that more holistically incorporates the steam stuff?
>>47734794
It would be less unsufferable if it was a proper punk setting and dropped the fucking cogs too.
>>47734794
It would be cool if the incorporation of steam punk technology felt practical and utilitarian rather than just heavy jewelry with no purpose.
>>47734794
It would be less insufferable if it wasn't 100 times more concerned with the aesthetics than the actual technology and culture of the setting
>>47734794
Nah. Victorian styles are cool. It's just that a lot of steampunk designers think adding gears and pipes and shit to stuff is all you need to do. The best steampunk stuff actually looks like the added elements have some function.
In my "steampunk" setting, some factors use gears as holy symbols, not unlike Mad Max, but no one wears useless gear like in OPs pic.
>>47734794
Steampunk is fine. Cogfop is what's shit.
>>47734794
Victorian shit is good.
Steampunk lost its way when it became less about the Victorian-era struggles, and more about ludicrous cog-bullshit and electro-cannons.
I think that the "insufferable" part is just a lame meme for snobs to rag on a particular fashion aesthetic that they don't appreciate because it's so easy to make fun of.
"You've got useless cogs! They don't have a practical purpose!"
"UGH, goggles? You can't even see through them when they're on your top hat! And those cogs don't do anything!"
"Brown and brass, brown and brass, there's more to life than just brown and brass! AND COGS."
I understand that there's a lot of cool things about steampunk that the people who enjoy steampunk-inspired clothing might not care about, and while that a little upsetting, a lot of the steampunk fashion designs have a unique charm to them.
It's sort of like getting upset about Gothic Lolita fashion because the participants aren't all masochistic/sadistic pedophile cannibal vampires.
>>47735055
>a lot of the steampunk fashion designs have a unique charm to them.
Is that why 90% of Steamshit all looks like the same retarded hodgepodge of nonsense?
>>47734933
This.
The small handful of stuff that's steampunk: the what-if tech developed mainly along steam power lines is actually kinda interesting. The steampunk: let's put gears on everything and pretend we're all sepia toned is fucking cancer.
That said, I think the gentleman adventurer is ripe as fuck for some good satire, but we can't really get that.
>>47735094
No, that would be Sturgeon's Law.
>>47734794
The problem with Steampunk is that Last Exile exists, and Last Exile is perfect. (none of that Senpai of the Silver Shitshow crap, though)
>>47735200
Last Exile is more dieselpunk, though.
You can all go choke on a bag of dicks.
>>47735278
*tips cog fedora*
>>47735097
>not following the daring exploits of OTHAR TRYGVASSEN, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!
baka desu senpai
>>47735304
Shit guys, do you see that? He got me. We have a badass over here.
>>47734794
No, steampunk is fine. The only problem is the people who strictly adhere to one interpretation of it and refuse anything else. Whether it be those who put brass, gears, and gauges on everything or those who restrict it entirely to the destitute suffering under the cruel nouveau-riche. It's the same shit that killed cyberpunk as a genre.
>>47734794
It is insufferable because of the average fan, not an inherent flaw.
Girl Genius and Space 1889 are both excellent and excellent examples.
>>47735383
yeah because 'choke of a bag of dicks' because people insulted your garbage aesthetic truly painted you as a master debater
>>47735364
>OTHAR TRYGVASSEN
>not seeing that name and noping the fuck out
>>47735387
>It's the same shit that killed cyberpunk as a genre.
You're profoundly stupid.
>>47735501
yes he does leave an awful lot of injured people in his wake doesn't he?
>>47735491
That's good because there is nothing to debate. You guys are worse than hipsters.
>>47735515
Cyberpunk died, at least in America, because everyone adhered closely to the "fringe people versus megacorps."
>>47735387
>It's the same shit that killed cyberpunk as a genre.
What killed Cyberpunk is the terrifying fact that we are beginning to actually live it.
Steampunk was never good and has only gotten worse.
>>47735529
you're saying this is defense of a literal hipster aesthetic with nothing to recommend it beyond lmao le clockworks and 'quirky' (ie obnoxious autistic) neckbeard characters who all talk like they came out of Dr Who
>>47735536
Not remotely.
>>47735539
That shit where the guy made Dubya's mouth move every which-way in a pre-recorded video made my blood run cold.
>>47735557
Don't forget about the obligatory teslawanking
>>47734794
Steampunk tends to be shit because it drops all the Victorian stuff beyond the aesthetic. Good steampunk should read like a Jules Verne novel.
But that's just like my opinion, man.
>>47735539
Cyberpunk was killed by the lack of cyber (this shit always comes much later than the novels and movies would have you believe) and the improving economic situation in the U.S.
Now both of those are quickly changing, but that just means the good stuff is not so much sci-fi as plain-old, here-and-now fiction.
>>47735557
Let me give you a hand up onto the bandwagon. Would you like me to hold your hair while you fellate /tg/?
>>47734794
Like any kind of styling I think it takes the right kind of balance to affect 'looking good'. Your pic for instance? I don't like. If I had to narrow it down I'd say the glasses, hat, and shit hanging around his neck, look stupid.
While the following is... well a bad example, but for the most part nothing about the outfit (and just the outfit) is objectionable to my sense of style... everything else looks pretty good though, for the record.
>>47735600
Wow someone is getting cranky. Time to change your clockwork diapers buddy, also change your name to Lord Smidleyflap the Second or whatever quirky name you're itching to share with us all while you shout SO RANDOM funny one-liners.
>>47734794
If it were a genre.
Cyberpunk is a genre. It's about a dystopian view of futuristic technology -- how tech can tear us apart and make us question our humanity. Yeah, you can have cyberpunk in the vein of Bladerunner or the Matrix, where it's all about loners with sunglasses in rainy cities, but you can also have stories like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where there's a neo-Renaissance visual aesthetic that helps the viewers identify people by philosophy.
Steampunk is a visual aesthetic. It has nothing to say. It just exists. If it involved stories that couldn't be told without steam technology, I could deal -- but it doesn't, and I can't.
>>47735629
It's sad you assume I'm defending Steampunk. Assuming makes an ass out of you.
>>47735629
>clockwork diapers
I like where this is going
>>47735465
Girl Genius is mediocre at best. Foglio's art style is awful (the faces are particularly hideous) and the writing is weak.
>>47735657
You're only partly correct about cyberpunk. You're speaking more about transhumanism that cyberpunk, which is admittedly a closely related genre and the two often spill over into each other, but the direct tech and how it affects the individual/society/etc. is squarely a transhumanism thing. Cyberpunk is mostly a sendup of capitalism and fears of Japan basically buying all of the US.
>>47735600
>getting this mad over people talking shit about your aesthetic choices
You must have a tiny cock and no balls (or vice versa).
>a "-punk" setting that inevitably focuses on the privileged elite rather than those on the fringe of society
>the steam technology has no ramifications on the world around it other than giving the rich fun new toys
>the world consists entirely of London, with no exploration of pre-WW1 tensions or a massive colonial empire
Steampunk would be so fucking easy to do right. Just set it around a Marxist worker's revolt or in Hong Kong and you'd be set.
>>47735657
>how tech can tear us apart and make us question our humanity.
That isn't unique to cyberpunk. In fact, of your examples, they're based on a philosophical post-apoc novel, the Allegory of the Cave, and post WW2 conspiracy fiction, respectively. The themes of the Matrix in particular covered where predated in pop culture by Dark City, Expressionist neo-noir, and The Invisibles, superheroic urban fantasy.
The Difference Engine, the codifier for steampunk in pop culture, has a theme of the political ramifications of technology. Most other steampunk works focus on the optimism of technology, progress, and exploration.
>>47735658
Yeah how unreasonable of them to assume that you're defending steampunk after attacking someone for daring to insult it, how incredibly unreasonable of them.
>>47735795
That's a nice theory.>>47735658
>>47735795
The pinnacle of eloquence and wit
>>47735813
Yes. You don't know me.
>>47735800
If it were actually steampunk like it claims, Inganock would be a great steampunk work. I have no clue how to accurately categorize what type of -punk it is though, it's throwing me off.
>>47735800
I think you're on the right track.
The "punk" could refer to some kind of artisan rebel who builds their own shit, DIY style. Inventors and artists (who are also aristocrats) tend to be the common archetype for a lot of steampunk characters.
I think some kind of Doc Savage-esque scientist/adventurer is the better choice for a steampunk hero with a plotline like Jules Verne stories, a thinly-veiled commentary on imperialism and Western exceptionalism.
Like you said: it's so easy. There are so many things you can do. Which makes it all the more frustrating that it's so often done poorly.
>>47735879
From what I can gather it's steampunk with body horror.
>>47735919
Aristocrats can easily make for a fine "punk" protagonist if you keep the heavyhanded social codification and morality of the Victorian era in mind. A wealthy libertine is the punk when surrounded by impoverished moral crusaders.
>>47735919
>Which makes it all the more frustrating that it's so often done poorly.
You could say that for a lot of schlock genre fiction though. I don't see any reason to get upset over bad steampunk novels.
>>47735800
>>47735919
>>47735975
So, to answer OP's question: the key to fixing steampunk might be to ramp-up the Victorian shit
>>47735923
The problem is that it's blatantly referencing Shadowrun, and the -punk themes I'm catching are ones I consider to be cyberpunk. But it's steam tech with magic instead of modern technology.
>>47735580
links?
>>47736067
Yes, but not necessarily the aesthetics.
>>47736079
The type of steampunk a lot of people say they want is just cyberpunk except everyone is covered in coal dust.
>>47734794
The problem with steam punk is not the Victorian setting. But the hipsters that discovered it and made it their own. I have seen so many kids take Victorian style garb and add a cog to it and call it steam punk. Little do they know that cogs are clockpunk. They also get those stupid goggles from the 40's/50's and combine it with their stupid cog shit and Victorian garb. When really its the wrong era and 50's shit is more diesel punk.
They main point behind steam punk has really been lost. The main point behind it was a what if reality inwhich Babbage was able to finish his difference engine and the effects it would have on society.
The term steam punk was coined in the 80's I believe. Which for what ever reason hipsters really love things from that time specifically. Just like how the faux nerd hipsters try really hard for the stereotypical media image of a nerd during that time.
But steam punk has been around way longer before the term was ever considered. Stories by Jules Vern were steam punk at heart and also the steam man which was written during the Victorian era.
So its really hipster kids that are the problem and not the genre itself.
>>47737095
Actual Victorian and Edwardian sci-fi isn't steampunk.
I don't know where your whole "hipster" obsession is coming from either. Cogfop is about twenty years old.
>>47737146
Because authors like gk chesterson weren't influence by juels Vern at all °-'
Dude the entire fucking sub genre his based on his shit. You're a fool.
And its called clock punk. Was coined around the use time as steam punk. There were many clock punk novels before the term was created.
>>47737146
Not all Victorian SciFi falls under the steam punk category. Shit like flatland sure as fuck doesn't and neither does princess of mars. But shit like steam man fuck yeah it does.
And what I mean about hipsters is that nobody cared about this shit before. We even had a steam punk movie and no one gave a shit. Now we have a generation of young kids who like things just because they are old or because people don't know about it and its not mainstream fucking shit up for legit alfans and not people who want to look cool.
>>47736067
The fix for steampunk is to make it more punk and less steam. That necessarily increases the Victorian-to-steam ratio, but that's not the actual goal.
>>47734794
It would only be insufferable if it stopped being used solely for aesthetics and "culture" and had some actual engineering mumbo-jumbo to back it up. 95% of Steampunk is just "Modern but Victorian" tech or "Victorian but with Cogs and Smoke."
I'd like all the steamfags to fuck off and stop ruining victorian sci-fi. My favourite game has enough going against it without those cog wearing fucks.
>>47738310
What game is that, anon?
>>47740116
Dystopian Wars. A game I love, but it's been ruined by cogfops and mismanagement
>>47735200
>The problem with Steampunk is that Last Exile exists
Could I get a shout out for Wachenröder, Gahkthun, Sharnoth and Iganock then?
>>47734794
What about post-apocalyptic steampunk?
As an engineer, nothing rustles my jimmies more than seeing steampunk shit. I love the fuck out of Dieselpunk and it's sister Decopunk since it's actually practical and something that could have been done in its era.
What it really runs down to is that they do shit that they shouldn't be able to do with Steam technology and it ruins everything about it. Doctor Who had a cool approach to it, basically a planet was orbiting a neutron star that constantly released EMP's which would fuck with any computer so they used steam systems as a cheap alternative.
How about Western Steampunk? Screw Victorian England. How about Steam Punk Cowboys vs Wuxia Chinamen vs. Noble Savage Injuns?
>>47734989
>useless gear like in OPs pic
Those radiators won't bleed themselves.
I think the most steampunk book I've ever read and liked was Stadt der Regenfresser.
It's a pre WW1 adventure featuring a berlin street boy and the self proclaimed son of Humboldt on their journey to south america to find a lost civilisation.
It's a little bid over the top with thing like the lost civ has airships because the nephew of Da Vinci was one of the conquistador. Or the main enemy being a hive of gigantic Phasmatodea.
Sadly there isn't an english translation I believe
Have any of you ran a steampunk game before? What was it like?
>>47742738
Is dieselpunk close enough?
If so,I have a game in a few hours.
Steampunk would be more sufferable if it were to actually use Victorian themes.
And British themes, there are some themes that are so powerful in British society that they're as valid today as they were then (Coming to a true break-the-back-of-the-nobility head during WW1)
Make it less about smug upper class Cunts having high adventure and tugging each other off and more about the filth encrusted common man and the uprising, when the lower classes dragged themselves belly down out of the mines and proclaimed, tools raised to the sky
>You faggots have had it too good for too long, give us our slice of the pie.
A Steampunk setting where the lower classes are a hotbed of discontent, the Empire is on the edge of not a world war, but on the precipice of the common man throwing down tools and a full blown war between the rich and the many.
Hope and Glorious Revolution, technological, social and class.
>>47735055
>I think that the "insufferable" part is just a lame meme for snobs to rag on a particular fashion aesthetic that they don't appreciate because it's so easy to make fun of.
Not really. Do you realize how annoying it is when something incredibly shit and lazy becomes popular? It's the same reason people dislike dat boi. The bitter part is that unlike dat boi, steampunk actually has potential. It just needs to purge the retards, who make up 90% of the subculture.
Steampunk should just be separated into two punk settings. Actual steampunk, and cogpunk
>>47743018
>The war of classes breaks out in the capital. The factories and slums being fortified and taken up by the low class, while the high class have fortresses for houses
>The high class take to the streets to combat the rabble in their high quality, marble and gold steam tanks and thin legged walkers, noblemen armed with bright, glaring white suits of steam spewing armor, carting around fancy, ornate guns
>The low class take to the fight with ramshackle, steam and smoke spewing monstrosities, built with parts laying around and reclaimed from battles or scrap yards, but the machines are all in working order despite their messy appearance due to actual engineering and construction know how behind the wheel. Roaring, smoke belching tanks thundering down streets, with thick, heavy legged walkers crushing the side walks and cobbles beneath their feet, as workers take to the battle in what amounts to as brass cans for suits and construction tools retooled as weapons
>The rich have airships at their disposal, but the low class have the benefit of churning out mobile artillery platforms from their factories
>>47734933
no worse than the average medieval fantasy setting
>>47742873
The problem with Dieselpunk is that the pre-90s were "it". World War 2 isn't quite.. "punk".
Take a mix of Grease, blaxsploitation, the Breakfast Club, Dukes of Hazzard, Streets of Fire?
From how I see it, the real world lived one foot inside dieselpunk as it slowly made its way to cyberpunk.
>>47744392
WW2 is what I consider late dieselpunk, with WW1 being early and the interwar period roughly bracketing the aesthetic.
>>47742738
I have run and been in a few using the ogl steampunk system. We enjoyed it.
This seems like as good a thread as any for this...
I've been thinking a bit lately about the tech side of steampunk, trying to come up with what sort of underlying tech developments would be necessary to make steampunk shit possible and what the larger ramifications of those would be, and what scientific/technological ideas from the 19th century that didn't pan out might lead to if they actually did. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "hard" steampunk, but at least putting a little thought into the tech and its associated babble. Some of the things I've come up with:
>Metallurgy
Stronger materials and construction techniques would be required to make bigger, better steam-powered stuff. The techniques involved in this would not only be useful in making higher-pressure boilers and parts capable of withstanding greater force, but also in making stronger artillery and perhaps also armor plating as well. This could hasten the onset of the dreadnought era of naval warfare, which in real-world history was a bit late for the steam era.
>Caloric
The caloric theory of heat held that heat was in fact a substance, a weightless, invisible fluid called caloric. In reality, this theory was supplanted during the 19th century, but what if instead it had been proven true by the isolation of pure, concentrated caloric? Concentrated caloric could provide a means for miniaturization of steam engines, as you could do away with the need for carrying coal or other fuel and building in a furnace for burning it. The boiler would simply be heated by direct injections of concentrated caloric. Caloric would presumably be expensive to produce and somewhat hazardous to work with, so fuel-driven boilers would remain the norm for most applications, but fancy caloric-heated devices could be present as a more exotic feature in the setting for roles where the cost and risk are worth it (or the user simply doesn't care).
>>47744595
>Steam guns
This is a common feature in steampunk, but one that I don't think is very well thought-out. They're just obviously inferior to ordinary firearms, practically speaking. You need to either carry a bulky, heavy steam pack to provide the pressure, or be connected to a stationary steam engine -- and in either case, the steam power source is an obvious vulnerability that conventional firearms simply don't have. The only way I see it being practical is for defense of a fortification or (air)ship, where the steam lines are not exposed and you're not expected to be moving much. More a matter of stationary emplacements than man-portable weapons.
However, a more practical analog for personal weapons would be compressed-air guns, in the style of the Girardoni air rifle. In the real world, the air rifle never really caught on because the air canisters were delicate, hard to make, and a pain to refill; however, these are all factors that are easily dealt with in a steampunk milieu, where advanced materials and industry can allow for more durable, cheaper canisters and steam-driven compressors can make refilling easier. If the air rifle caught on, it could push back the development of metal cartridges for conventional firearms quite a bit, as a faster rate of fire (and even semi- or full-automatic fire, with further development) has already been accomplished. The upshot of this: There may not be any revolvers in the steampunk wild west; gunslingers would wield air pistols instead.
>Luminiferous aether
This was the prevailing theory of light and other kinds of EM radiation throughout the 19th century. I haven't come up with any good applications for it yet, but I think it's worth noting as a potentially handy concept for steampunk technobabble.
>>47734794
if you want people actually using more steam technology in a more realistic way, and have the whole rebelling against the aristocracy... you basically get 1632.
Sure the early books have a lot more modern guns and gas engines, but by the 1635 books that stuffs breaking down or becoming rare, steam power is becoming the thing, and stuff like pepperbox revolvers.
There is even a line where one guy wonders if the because of the differences in how technology an resources develop, if the steam engine might become the norm rather than the internal combustion engine. They have the time and technology to be perfecting the steam engine for long while before reproducing internal combustion engines becomes practical.
>>47744607
>Steam Gun
Steam power and/or hydraulics to power the moving and reloading of heavy guns would be the way to go imho.
Trying to stick more complex machinery into smaller guns doesn't really work, and gunpowder was a usable power supply for guns by the time steam power was a thing.
Moving and controlling artillery pieces on the other hand is not a thing that could be done with gunpowder.
>>47734794
Steampunk is good when it's about techno-whiz gentlemen white-man's burdening everything and going off on random archaeological expeditions. In summary it's the Victorian aspects that make it good. The Steampunk aesthetic is just window-dressing.
>>47744680
I could see steam-fired cannon at least being tried; if you have a steam engine attached to your artillery for movement and loading anyway, it makes sense to at least look into using that to propel the payload as well and simplify your logistics a bit. Similarly, I could see people trying steam artillery in defensive emplacements if you have fortified steam-cities with centralized steam lines to power various machinery -- you've got the steam line there, why not use it? Though I imagine for defensive emplacements that setup would be a transitional development at best; it would be better for each piece of defensive artillery to have its own boiler so you don't have all your guns tied to a single point of failure.
Steam pressure would be especially plausible for gatling gun type artillery; metal cartridges are a necessity for a conventional gatling gun, but if we're assuming an accelerated rate of steam-based tech development then it would be plausible for a steam-pressure gatling gun to be invented before metal cartridges. Particularly if, as I speculated, the advances in steam-related technology facilitated the use of compressed-air guns, which would remove most of the incentive for developing metal firearm cartridges.
The most plausible might be to have a mix of steam pressure for gatling guns and other small-caliber field artillery, while gunpowder is still used for large-caliber cannon. Gunpowder would certainly be better for generating a whole lot of pressure very quickly, which is what you need for heavier payloads. It's quite plausible that steam might be sufficient for firing smaller rounds, but would take too long to match what gunpowder can provide for heavier shot.
But personal weapons running on steam is just silly; it's far too cumbersome and failure-prone compared to gunpowder. Compressed air has potential, if you really want to diverge from history in this area, but not steam.
>>47734989
Lacepunk is Best Punk.
>>47736154
Think he's talking about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk
Scary shit.
>>47744455
And post 50's is more atompunk/retro-spacepunk, witch then leads into cyberpunk in the 90's.
>>47734794
For me, once you fuck off the "steampunk" term, -punk prefixes are pretty obnoxious, fuck off the goggles and the cogs glued to everything, add a bit more Victoriana, Darkest Africa, actual sci-fi references from the era; finally make it a bit more self effacing, you get what I like. Stuff like Aeronef is pretty cool, the Airships on Mars stuff I like.
>>47734794
I'll join some of the others in recommending solid steampunk novels that actually do something with the idea.
The Leviathan series is pretty decent- an alt history ww1 where the powers are separated by how they wage war. The clankers use massive steam powered walkers, while the darwinists use genetic engineering to make their weapons (the title references a british airship that's basically a giant gas-filled whale).
