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I fuse my armour with spirit companions, as a shaman and engineer warrior.
Magic in steampunk settings work great to me, you just need to limit it to certain people and not wide spread.Techno-mages reminds me of mages who fuse tech with spells to reinforce their abilities, and to summon elemental allies such as steam, glass, electricity, and clockwork fetishes(The magic kind) and add werewolves, and vampires living amongst humans some out to destroy while others protect like most mages have to decide to be good, evil, or neutral.

I'm even writing a story thats steampunk with magic, it help engineer mages create automations.
I include shamans, theurge, mages/wizards, vampires, hunters, and werewolves.

Who spoke such ridiculous things? Steampunk is all about the removal of the mundane and logical.
Not to mention, the last time I checked, we are allowed to do whatever we damn-heck-butt please with our imaginations as far as steampunk is concerned.
Steampunk and magic is nothing like putting two wet cats into a bag. It more like putting chocolate into pancakes; it makes perfect sense and them delicious. Without magic, steampunk is boring.
Send such fools my way, and I will give them a lesson in not being mediocre thinkers.

I beg to differ. With magic, steampunk is boring (for me at least) - steampunk for me is all about the might of technology and the human mind, not whatever weird energies are floating around. Magic seems to make it too easy.

I prefer steampunk without magic. That's not to say I think steampunk with magic is a bad idea; indeed, it can be done magnificently. I just prefer it without.

Firstly, magic bugged me a little in that it has the habit of explaining itself. Why does it work? It just does. This ruins it a little for me; especially when it's just used as an excuse to get away with something crazy.
I always preferred science-fiction. Whatever happened, it was always the result of rational activity. The laws of physics might be bent a little (as reality must be in fiction); but everything was explained perfectly rationally, and it made sense. And that made it better for me, because magnificent feats were always the result of science and human (or alien) endeavour, and I like that.
The thing I really like about steampunk is the spirit of it; taking steam power and performing immense feats of engineering with it - like giant mechanical spiders, or flying cities. And its all an achievement because intelligence and technology is behind it all. All these wonders and made more prevalent by the technology behind it; that of steam power, creating engines which seem alive in their operation. Indeed, aether (or rather, odd chemicals and their effects) can be used to wondrous effect. Rampant progress of science! not magic!

I like the wonder of technology and science, not unexplained magic.

But to me, magic ruins it a little. Nothing is quite an achievement anymore. Suppose you create a device the size of the room which will create the most perfect cup of tea ever; only to find your friends conjuring one into existence (or moving things about the make it) - why bother with the machine? But that aside, surely the wonders of technology pale in comparison to the spontaneous effects of the magic, however simple they may be.
Obviously, the more limitless the magic the more it affects things. My acceptable limit is parlour magic, feats of minor conjuration and illusion, or mayhaps communing with spirits. Shooting lasers from your hands is right out (take that, giant robot spider). Supernatural stuff (werewolves, vampires, spirits) can work very well.
If the magic is explained in a rational manner, however, that makes things better.

Off the top of my head, I can't actually think of that many steampunk works with magic (at least that pulled it off well).

~

But as I said, I don't hate steampunk with magic. Such works can be truly splendid, and I enjoy them immensely all the same.

'tis all a matter of taste

Duly noted; although I can think of many, many more steampunk works which don't contain magic.

Not only counter-examples, but also Iron Kingdoms and Arcanum are both steampunk/fantasy games. And games have always been liberal with genres, liking to sprawl across many at a time at their leisure. I like the settings though i must say, but as fantasy ones with Steampunk aspects in them.

Another though: If, instead of referring to steampunk wirh magical elements as steampunk fantasy as I do, but instead to take it as the default of Steampunk, how then would we refer to Steampunk without magic? It seems to me that in the classification of things into genres, we generally start off with nothing and keep adding, so we must start by addind Steampunk first and then the fantasy.

Hah, I like the sound of that! Yet another book on my 'to buy' list. I quite like such explanations of the weird and supernatural.

You speak wisdom there. One sees quite a lot of fantasy-with-steampunk-thrown-in nowadays; it's a nice thing to throw in. A little magic in steampunk can work.

I must check out that film then, I was put off by the bad reviews, but it may be worth it for steam-space-ships alone.