[poll] Fire Starting

[SteveP]

This is a topic to discuss fire starting skill and the various factors that play into fire starting skill. The techniques for starting fires, especially fast fires when you need a defense from a bear or other predator. Please add your thoughts and questions and we'll see if a reasonable set of alternatives emerges for a vote on the ideas. Thank you!

I think we should talk about the various options, the tinder, the kindling, the alternatives to accelerants and the fire boosting materials that can get a fire going fast! Think newspaper bundles, birch bark bundles, straw, pitch and resin extracted from wood, bark or fungi.

[hauteecolerider]

I won't vote yet. 

The idea of harvesting pine resin for use as a fire accelerant is intriguing. I'm not sure how one can use it so it's quickly flammable. I do know it was used to make torches years and years and years ago. I also know it was used to make turpentine . . .

[Boston123]

In real life, there is no such thing as a "fast fire". Fires, even when laid out by someone very skilled, can take quite some time to build up, from tinder to kindling to roaring flame.

I disagree with that whole mechanic of "build a fire between you and the animal to prevent an attack". The fire, again, should take some time to build up, not be "ready to go" in 30 seconds while the animal waits patiently.

Case in point: Last weekend< i climbed Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire with my Scout Troop. we were staying in a cabin, with a nice wood stove, and even with ample supplies of dried tinder (including my favorite, birchbark), kindling, and stacks of split and dried firewood, it still took me around half an hour to go from "empty stove" to "roaring flames and a warm cabin"

It is important to note that TLD "shows" fires incorrectly, as do most survival games. The game shows a Teepee of fuelwood, which in all actuality is probably one of the last things you would want to build. The Boy Scouts recommends (as do I), the following "recipe" for building a fire "fast" (that is, in under an hour)

1) Two "hatfuls" of matchstick sized tinder

2) One "hatful" of pencil-sized kindling

3) a "couple" (like two or three) wrist-sized pieces of fuelwood

Not mentioned is the rough "hatful" of "supertinder", stuff like birchbark, cattail fluff, crumpled paper or pine needles/leaves, that you set fire to, so the tinder will catch, then the kindling, then the fuel. Once the fuel actually catches, then you add more fuel. Not TOO much, as you could choke out the fire, but a couple of pieces at a time, as they catch on fire, under you have "enough".

Then you go gather 10X that amount. There is a saying in my Troop. " Gather enough firewood to last the night, then go get 3X more, because it isn't enough"

A "good" fire (in my opinion) will be rather sparse on actual fuel until everything actually starts burning. Stack too much fuel on there too quickly, and you will likely put the fire out, as the fire now has to heat ALL the fuel to the flash point, instead of a couple pieces at a time.

Another saying in my Troop, " Build the fire a house (with plenty of windows and air), and the fire will live. Build the fire a tomb (close it up), and the fire will die".

We also have another saying, rather Scout-inappropriate (and thusly, used only among the adults), "Pretend the firelay is your woman. You want her to be fully satisfied, so you gotta stuff her full of your love . If you on't, she won't put out" 

Generally, my firelays looks like exploded birdsnests before I take a flame to them. Generally the more (and drier) the tinder and kindling, the better. After the tinder and kindling catch, then I add the actual fuelwood.

[Scyzara]

9 minutes ago, Boston123 said:

In real life, there is no such thing as a "fast fire". Fires, even when laid out by someone very skilled, can take quite some time to build up, from tinder to kindling to roaring flame.

I disagree with that whole mechanic of "build a fire between you and the animal to prevent an attack". The fire, again, should take some time to build up, not be "ready to go" in 30 seconds while the animal waits patiently.

Agreed, both from a gameplay and realism point of view.

We already have accelerant and kerosine ingame to speed up the process of firemaking in emergency situations (e.g. if you're freezing and need to get a fire going as soon as possible), not really sure if we actually need more means to guarantee a 30-second-firestarting with a 100% success rate.

Having respawning natural accelerants like resin or pitch (given they had the same effect as the current accelerant) would probably cause players to use them all the time no matter the circumstances. Which would imo somehow contradict the Dev's current firemaking concept (which is based on the idea that lighting a fire can possibly fail if the characters is still inexperienced). 

I wouldn't mind tinder having a minor influence on the lighting probability, though. But I have no clue how different kinds of tinder should be balanced against one another, e.g. whether cattail heads are more efficient than birch bark or vice versa.

 

I guess it's best to wait for the next update and see which changes it will bring. If we speculate about possible improvements today and the whole system gets a complete overhaul tomorrow, all our today's thoughts may turn out to be pointless because the mechanics themselves got changed.

[SteveP]

47 minutes ago, Boston123 said:

In real life, there is no such thing as a "fast fire". Fires, even when laid out by someone very skilled, can take quite some time to build up, from tinder to kindling to roaring flame.

Gasoline and kerosene are useful fire starting accelerants for use with bears in real life. If I have the right materials, I can have a big blaze going in under 30 seconds. Need dried fir or spruce bows with plenty of dead needles. If you have a bundle of straw you can get a huge flame literally in seconds.

[Boston123]

Just now, SteveP said:

Gasoline and kerosene are useful fire starting accelerants for use with bears in real life. If I have the right materials, I can have a big blaze going in under 30 seconds. Need dried fir or spruce bows with plenty of dead needles. If you have a bundle of straw you can get a huge flame literally in seconds.

The thing is: none of the wood we come across in TLD is dry. Absolutely none of it. All of it is stuff we find frozen in often-subzero temperatures, usually just laying about on the ground.

And, I've done what you describe before. Sure, the pine needs flare up, but when they burn out, you are left with some piddly little sticks. Generally, in order to get a fire going with pine needles, you need a LOT, in order to create an actual "coal" in the center of the clump.

[SteveP]

Hmm, poll question one should be "Does fire work to scare off animals?" I think that's foregone. :-)

With bears your options are: bear spray, air horn, shotgun (noise), 340 magnum rifle or heavier, fire (gasoline) and so forth. Perhaps you are thinking of Rhinos? They put out fires. Little known trivia.

Gee I don't think you can win the debate over the use of fire as a weapon and self-defence on an appeal to realism. As an appeal to fairness, I think we can talk more. Why is it unfair? Does it unfairly cater to a certain kind of player for example? Or is it something every type of player can utilize?

[Pillock]

I don't think the game needs to make you 'arrange' the fire for appropiate airflow and so on, because this is simulated by your fire-making skill number.

I do think it would be good to make a small change to way you light fire though. When I light them (in game) I always use sticks first because I know that just bunging a log onto some newspaper/tinder and putting a match to it wouldn't work in real life, and it doesn't feel right. Adding a forth element to the fire ingredients - kindling - would do the job: sticks would count here, and maybe we could also chop Fir/Cedar logs down with a hatchet. Alternatively, they could use the same principle as coal and extend it to logs and reclaimed wood, so that you have to burn fire for, say, 10 minutes before adding the larger fuel. Adding accelerant could obviate the need for kindling as well as speeding up the ignition.

As for torches scaring off animals: a torch you pull from a fire is essentially a burning stick; when it goes out, it is a stick. I've never really understood what process our character is performing when we have to click about in the menu to harvest a torch into a stick? This wants getting rid of, for a start. But also, I don't think you should be able to relight torches just with a match - it's a just a stick: it wouldn't burn. Unless you've made the torch using cloth and lighterfuel, you shouldn't be able to instantly light it whenever you want; you should need to hold it in a fire for a minute or two. I think if they made this change, forcing you to use fuel and cloth, players would be much more conservative about going near wolves or bears, because it would cost you more to use torches. I know I would be, at least.

[SteveP]

1 hour ago, Boston123 said:

The thing is: none of the wood we come across in TLD is dry. Absolutely none of it. All of it is stuff we find frozen in often-subzero temperatures, usually just laying about on the ground.

And, I've done what you describe before. Sure, the pine needs flare up, but when they burn out, you are left with some piddly little sticks. Generally, in order to get a fire going with pine needles, you need a LOT, in order to create an actual "coal" in the center of the clump.

You are assuming that because it is found lying on the ground that it is automatically wet. Such would be the case in real life but in real life we always search for dry wood which is dead standing wood or the dead boughs an the lower part of all coniferous trees.

You can't create a fast fire out of nothing I agree; you need a fire lay. Gathering those materials can take time.

If you can break off conifer branches, the base of the branch you can break might be as much as an inch in diameter. You also need to find pine or similar resinous wood (fir, cedar etc) that is kindling size and then one inch size and then split 5" logs and so forth, depending on how long you want the fire to last and what you want at the end of it such as coals for cooking.

[cekivi]

45 minutes ago, Boston123 said:

The thing is: none of the wood we come across in TLD is dry. Absolutely none of it. All of it is stuff we find frozen in often-subzero temperatures, usually just laying about on the ground.

And, I've done what you describe before. Sure, the pine needs flare up, but when they burn out, you are left with some piddly little sticks. Generally, in order to get a fire going with pine needles, you need a LOT, in order to create an actual "coal" in the center of the clump.

I wouldn't say that. Winters are cold and have almost zero humidity. Anything dead that's not on or buried under the snow is going to burn really well. Now, everyone's right that a 30 second fire without an accelerant is not possible but with a dead tree (or branch), some sticks and tinder you can get a nice fire going fairly quickly in the winter. Again, as long as it's not frozen to the ground and there's room for air to circulate dead wood will be nice and dry. The branches we collect are presumably freshly fallen deadwood. Just don't build the fire under something that can drop snow on it or on ice! I've had a few fires start to sizzle because I thought my ice fishing camp was onshore... only to find out that I was still on the lake!

Also, if I'm trying to scare off and animal throwing boughs on a fire would be a great place to start!

To go back to the Master of Polling (Chief Statistician?) @SteveP's question I would like to see the following options/changes for fires:

• Homemade fire-starters (rolled newspaper in wax works brilliantly!)
• Commercial fire-starters
• Tinder bundles giving positive fire lighting bonuses depending on what they're made from (e.g. birch bark = fire-starters > newsprint > cedar tinder plug)
• Charred cloth or similar material if primitive fire making makes it into the game (cannot go straight to tinder with these methods)
• Birch and spruce being added as fuels (Birch > Fir but hard to light, Spruce < Cedar but more plentiful?)
• Perhaps a kindling phase? You need to get a fire hot before you could add any fuel. Length of time depends on wood. Basically the coal mechanic
• Ability to split logs into kindling which would burn better, hotter and longer than sticks
• "Curing" wood. Although the wood is dry in winter it would be nice to have a log rack in your shelter to get them super dry. Basically a lighting bonus
• Not a huge fan of gathering pitch and sap. In the winter most trees won't have flowing sap so it's a bit of a disconnect
• I'm fine with the "tepee" fires. Accurate? No. But tepee fires are what most people think of so I'm fine with them artistically.
• Accelerant lets you skip directly to fuel if you use double the amount of kindling and a whole can of it.

Anyways, those are my thoughts

[SteveP]

1 hour ago, Pillock said:

Adding a forth element to the fire ingredients - kindling - would do the job: sticks would count here, and maybe we could also chop Fir/Cedar logs down with a hatchet.

I like this idea; kindling is a vital ingredient of any fire! I think there was an intentional simplification to fires in order to get the game going and functional. We have the basic elements that operate together to permit us to deal with predators, cook food and get water, keep warm and hunt. Has anyone suggesting using fire as a tool to aid in hunting? In real life, it's illegal but it works and you don't have to burn down a forest to do it. You just drive your wild life into a corral trap like a box canyon. You can also drive them into pit traps or dead falls.

Anticipating the opposition to pits by saying "you can't dig in frozen ground in Canada" well yes we do, all the time. We use fire to thaw the ground first.

[cekivi]

20 minutes ago, SteveP said:

I like this idea; kindling is a vital ingredient of any fire! I think there was an intentional simplification to fires in order to get the game going and functional. We have the basic elements that operate together to permit us to deal with predators, cook food and get water, keep warm and hunt. Has anyone suggesting using fire as a tool to aid in hunting? In real life, it's illegal but it works and you don't have to burn down a forest to do it. You just drive your wild life into a corral trap like a box canyon. You can also drive them into pit traps or dead falls.

Anticipating the opposition to pits by saying "you can't dig in frozen ground in Canada" well yes we do, all the time. We use fire to thaw the ground first.

Still don't see the energy vs reward as being beneficial for building pit traps in the long dark. I'd rather be able to build a snow blind to hunt from

I would be against fire as a hunting tool regardless of season. In winter, the undergrowth needed for the fire to propagate between trees just isn't there to sustain a large fire. It'd fizzle out in short order. The fall and spring are likely also too wet. You could start a forest fire in summer... but without any way to control it you'll likely just burn down all your shelters as well as yourself

[TheRealNFK]

Well, the devs may be moving towards a more complex fire starting mechanic, given what's hinted at in the new roadmap:

• Improved firemaking (blowing mechanic; first-person presence)

Beyond that, I got nothing. When it comes to practical fire making knowledge, well, I know how to refuel my Zippo. Other than that, I'm pretty much a Samwell Tarly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FTzdGfXDHI

Minus the servants, though. Although servants would be cool.

[SteveP]

How to extract birch tar from bark:

 

[SteveP]

You can either have a fast fire or a fire that will last a long time; for the latter you need a big stack of wood and a fire that is built incrementally. A fast fire will burn out quickly unless there is a sufficient supply of kindling of various sizes up to the point of being able to ignite the big chunks. If you light a dead pine branch, you get about 30 seconds of fire, then its out. Same with dry newspaper, if you can get it lit. Wind is the problem so often you must spend hours on preparation, building the stone ring and gathering tinder and wood; making kindling. Some days it's easy. Some days its impossible. If you have ten bundles of birch bark, it gets pretty easy.

To get any form of accelerant, you need to render fat. I think birch tar was used more for binding arrow heads and perhaps sealing canoes. Fat is precious; you don't burn it unless there is nothing else; it's an Inuit thing and we don't have that. Add seals and maybe you could build enough surplus fat to make a kudluk. I think, based on the rate of implementation, that this level of sophistication is at least 6 months out if not longer. I am certainly very happy with the large number of features we have gotten. Good work team!

[Shane Retter]

Just going to add a little personal experience to this. I always took rubber tire tube with me, and a candle to cut into 1 inch lengths. Both were excellent for starting fires with wet tinder.

Car tires might be an interesting thing .... as not every location has them, and would mean traveling to get them from time to time. Not an endless resource option, but maybe an interesting use of all the abandoned cars around once all the other 'accelerant' has been scavenged.... and one more reason to play wolf rolette at the Quonset  

[SteveP]

Fire starting poll (bump)

[JAFO]

On 4/20/2016 at 6:12 AM, SteveP said:

Perhaps you are thinking of Rhinos? They put out fires. Little known trivia.

Gets an upvote for having watched that movie.

[SteveP]

On 5/28/2017 at 4:24 AM, JAFO said:

Gets an upvote for having watched that movie.

One movie well worth watching about fire making is In Quest of Fire.

 

[JAFO]

1 minute ago, SteveP said:

One movie well worth watching about fire making is In Quest of Fire.

Curiously enough, that's one of only a dozen or so movies on my laptop!

[SteveP]

Just now, JAFO said:

Curiously enough, that's one of only a dozen or so movies on my laptop!

Sci Fi and Monsters never get old! Just watching the documentary on The Munsters!

[SteveP]

If you were trapped in the wilderness in a cabin with a bear stalking your cabin and your precious cache of meat intended to help you make it through the week long storms that you are expecting in November, you are going to want a way to deal permanently with that unwelcome guest.

Digging a bear pit is a pretty sure and safe way to deal with him but you are right; it is an awful lot of effort. As a way to add long term strategy to the game, a bear pit and a strong meat and fish cache would be one way to do it; you still have to deal with tedium during long periods of darkness and bad weather even if you have sufficient supplies of fuel and food. Crafting decorative items and clothing is the way to go.

Did you know another thing that can be done with a camp fire? You can temper your stones for flint knapping (assuming of course, they are the right kind of stone)!