Jerry can or Jerry can't?


Doc Feral

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Something I noticed: a jerry can self destructs when emptied! I refilled a lantern with an almost empty jerry can and it disappeared from my inventory. I immediately cooked a fish and a tiny bottle appeared. As unpractical as they may be, jerry cans look nice in a base, so if you hold them dear always leave some fuel in them.

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I'll be honest, I don't understand the practical usefulness of the Jerrycan.  Oil ends up in little (plastic?) bottles if you have nothing to contain it, but harvest it from fish.  Jerrycans just seem to consolidate it into one inventory item.  I'm not even sure that's desirable.  Mechanically, I cannot see the advantage to finding one.

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Guest jeffpeng
Just now, NardoLoopa said:

I'll be honest, I don't understand the practical usefulness of the Jerrycan.  Oil ends up in little (plastic?) bottles if you have nothing to contain it, but harvest it from fish.  Jerrycans just seem to consolidate it into one inventory item.  I'm not even sure that's desirable.  Mechanically, I cannot see the advantage to finding one.

I suspect the duality in kerosene canisters to be a remnant from a design state in which there was no automatic creation for these containers and/or there was no way to replenish lamp oil reserves, period. It makes perfect sense that you would find jerry cans in the world, so maybe it originally was just a different flavor of basically the same loot, much like very similar food items co-exist. Another thing I could think about is that they might have been intended to be used to pump gasoline from cars. Some cars actually have gas caps, and assuming most of the cars you find died in the aurora, that, too, would make perfect sense.

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There really is no need for the jerry can. As a matter of personal taste, I suppose I find putting a  4-liter jerry can on the floor or a shelf or counter somewhere (except in a container where it becomes just an item in 'inventory') easier and more visually appealing than the 8 lantern fuel bottles I'd have to place in position. Actually, I do not ever recall seeing a 4-liter jerry can in reality, I am sure there probably are, but I would have expected it to be a 5-gallon (20 liter) jerry can but that would be for gasoline and a bit heavy to tote around in the game. 

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Came by for the title but it does not make sense that the jerry can disappears.  Happened to me and I remember long back ago I thought that it was odd too.

8 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

do not ever recall seeing a 4-liter jerry can in reality

old WWII army jeeps is where I saw one that looks like the in game model.

Edited by Ice Hole
jeep
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A jerrycan (also written as jerry can or jerrican) is a robust liquid container made from pressed steel. It was designed in Germany in the 1930s for military use to hold 20 litres (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 US gal) of fuel.

Why do they call it a jerry can?
Second World War. Western desert army slang for German liquid containers; hence 'jerry cans'. The allied army used them in preference to the army issue as the jerry can's ribbed design made it less prone to leaking in the onerous conditions.

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On 16/12/2018 at 12:41 AM, NardoLoopa said:

I'll be honest, I don't understand the practical usefulness of the Jerrycan.  Oil ends up in little (plastic?) bottles if you have nothing to contain it, but harvest it from fish.  Jerrycans just seem to consolidate it into one inventory item.  I'm not even sure that's desirable.  Mechanically, I cannot see the advantage to finding one.

The only real advantage of the Jerry can is that it is more weight efficient. Fuel in a Jerry can weighs less than 1kg per litre, while fuel in the plastic bottles weighs more 1kg per litre. I’m not sure I entirely understand exactly how it is calculated but there appears to be both a container weight and contents weight applied.

According to the wiki a full 4 litre Jerry can weighs 3.3kg. That seems about right from my experience. I believe a full 0.5 litre  lantern fuel container weighs 0.5kg  (I’ve none close to check right now) but they are much less efficient the less fuel you have in them. Carrying lots of partially filled lantern fuel bottles is the least weight efficient way of carrying fuel. I save fuel in Jerry cans for when I want to move it somewhere else. When transporting lots of fuel to another location I will take a Jerry can if available and if not try to take full lantern fuel containers.

There are lots of little tricks for saving weight. Some stuff like old man’s beard lichen or newspaper rolls weigh less unprocessed, while others like reishi mushrooms and rosehips should be processed as soon as possible to save weight. The savings may not seem like much on their own, but they add up, and the extra piece of food, fuel or medicine that you decide to carry as a result might be what saves you when the wolf bites, the blizzard blows, night falls and you find yourself teetering on the edge of the long dark.

 

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It used to be long ago that the empty cans remained in your inventory - a shame in my opinion that it doesn't work that way. Jerry cans are very useful - they make fuel storage much easier. Like it was already said - jerry cans are way, way more weight efficient than the little lantern bottles. So, you should be mindful not to use up all of their oil when refueling the lanterns or else they might disappear.

You want to store your fuel in the cans if you want to move a lot of fuel to places like outposts, and also because it is much more convenient to store the fuel in bigger amounts then 0.5 l. For "accelerant" needs, you are better off with the small bottles to carry with you, ideally at 0.3 l amount.

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On 16/12/2018 at 12:02 PM, jeffpeng said:

Some cars actually have gas caps, and assuming most of the cars you find died in the aurora, that, too, would make perfect sense.

And they can be opened. So can the car bonnets. What for? Maybe they'll make a use for them some day, what do you think?

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Guest jeffpeng
On 23.12.2018 at 8:39 AM, CathyElksun said:

And they can be opened. So can the car bonnets. What for? Maybe they'll make a use for them some day, what do you think?

The bonnets could be used to make a more or less protected fire in them before Vigilant Flame and the fires getting much "bigger". (I personally would still love to have an option for those small fires as it has gotten rather hard to place a fire in some places since the fire has become a fully fledged camp site.)

Another thing to note is that the batteries in most cars can be removed with right-clicking. So they are their own entities, albeit with no particular function. Seeing how batteries behave with the flashlight I can imagine there once was a use of those planned with the aurora. As for the caps: I'm pretty sure the originally intended use was to get fuel from them. I just makes sense.

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I would love a means to refill the jerry cans from the smaller lantern fuel containers; however, as long as that option is unavailable I prefer to have them just disappear from the inventory.   Ditto applies to the lantern fuel containers.  I would also like to see other ruined items (like the sewing kits, rifle cleaning kits, whetstones, cans, etc.) have some sort of means of refilling or truly recycling them or else have them also completely vanish from the inventory.  At least used torches can be burned so they don't wind up just as litter on a cabin floor somewhere.

Edited by UpUpAway95
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There are times when I have three lantern fuel containers just to add up to .30 l for accelerant,

screen_3caf54a7-2602-4989-8699-a58f39f8b2c5_hi.thumb.png.fc7982aa1efbce5ede79cbd738ce8889.png

Is the item decay the reason the fuel cannot be combined?  If so just then average them when combing.

If theses Jerry cans would be refillable.

Then why not make it an option to dispense x amount of fuel from the Jerry can into a lantern fuel containers?

44 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

 have them also completely vanish from the inventory.

Place ruined items into a container and just like magic.  Poof!  Vanished.

 

 

The original fire was super.

BringBackBlazey:fire:

 

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42 minutes ago, Ice Hole said:

There are times when I have three lantern fuel containers just to add up to .30 l for accelerant,

screen_3caf54a7-2602-4989-8699-a58f39f8b2c5_hi.thumb.png.fc7982aa1efbce5ede79cbd738ce8889.png

Is the item decay the reason the fuel cannot be combined?  If so just then average them when combing.

If theses Jerry cans would be refillable.

Then why not make it an option to dispense x amount of fuel from the Jerry can into a lantern fuel containers?

Place ruined items into a container and just like magic.  Poof!  Vanished.

 

 

The original fire was super.

BringBackBlazey:fire:

 

How long do ruined items placed in containers take to fully vanish from the world?  It seems to me I placed a ruined sewing kit in a trash can at Paradise Meadows Farm and it was still there when I went to place more items in the container a little while later (and was still using up space in that container).  I'm no longer in that zone, so I can't check right now.  My expectation was that it would still be there whenever I returned to that location, along with all the other items I placed in the various containers in that house (e.g. spare clothes in the bedroom drawers and such)... I'm a little worried now about losing all that stuff.

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1 minute ago, UpUpAway95 said:

It seems to me I placed a ruined sewing kit in a trash can at Paradise Meadows Farm and it was still there when I went to place more items in the container

It usually vanishes instantaneously when using other containers.  Not certain why the trashcan did not consume the ruined item.  Try to confirm. That could be a bug.

 

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2 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

It usually vanishes instantaneously when using other containers.  Not certain why the trashcan did not consume the ruined item.  Try to confirm. That could be a bug.

 

Sorry, no can do now - just died... again... in the Forlorn Muskeg.  Back to square 1.  I did make it to 50 days this time though.

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On 12/16/2018 at 3:39 PM, UTC-10 said:

There really is no need for the jerry can. As a matter of personal taste, I suppose I find putting a  4-liter jerry can on the floor or a shelf or counter somewhere (except in a container where it becomes just an item in 'inventory') easier and more visually appealing than the 8 lantern fuel bottles I'd have to place in position. Actually, I do not ever recall seeing a 4-liter jerry can in reality, I am sure there probably are, but I would have expected it to be a 5-gallon (20 liter) jerry can but that would be for gasoline and a bit heavy to tote around in the game. 

 

On 12/31/2018 at 3:10 PM, Ice Hole said:

It usually vanishes instantaneously when using other containers.  Not certain why the trashcan did not consume the ruined item.  Try to confirm. That could be a bug.

 

I left 2 Jerry cans at Grey Morhers. I found them to be useless for the most part. 

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On 16.12.2018 at 10:39 PM, UTC-10 said:

Actually, I do not ever recall seeing a 4-liter jerry can in reality, I am sure there probably are, but I would have expected it to be a 5-gallon (20 liter) jerry can but that would be for gasoline and a bit heavy to tote around in the game. 

There are no 4 liter Jerry Cans in the old German Army/British Army style. They are either5, 10 or 20 liter.

The original design of the Wehrmacht-Einheitskanister aka Jerry Can was 20 liter, but there were also 5 liter versions available which were used in engineer equipment sets for e.g. chain saw fuel or motorboats .  After WW2 a 10 liter version was also introduced.

Version of a 5 liter Jerry Can:

Oldtimer-Reservekanister-von-Siegas-Benz

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  • 1 year later...

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