[Poll] Fire making alternatives

[SteveP]

This is not intended to advocate specifically for any particular fire technologies but to see what level of interest there is for several of various alternatives. It does not mean Hinterland will necessarily adopt any of them. The rationale for a primitive fire making technology is to address the finite limit on matches and other items for making fire. It would give the player an option for making fire in the case where all other means are exhausted and a magnifying glass (the only non-degradable fire making tool) simply are not available.

[Boston123]

1) "hand drills" and "fire plows" wouldn't really work in the environment that TLD takes place in, they require locales with very little air humidity

2) The fact that we still don't have some form of "lighter" is criminal.

As someone trained in numerous ways of primitive fire starting, and carrying both "flint and steel" and numerous matches in my BOB, 99.999% of the fires I start get started with some form of lighter.

[SteveP]

Moisture in wood is very problematic for making bow drills however, indoors, the humidity is very low in frigid environments. Not every type of wood is suitable; softwood seems to be preferred over hardwood. The wood has to be cut from standing dead trees or cut from the inside of cured wood.

I am apparently able to add new options to the poll without upsetting previous votes. I've seen flashlight and headlight reflectors used on Dual Survival which is quite interesting. They also made an improvised lens using the only liquid available, urine. Who  knew? Making fire using ice was an idea mentioned in the movie, The Edge.

[Dirmagnos]

If fire low is made properly then there is really nothing that prevents it from working in LD conditions. It may require a bit more effort, but aside from that it should be ok. Getting wood properly dried for it and then keeping it dry is another issue.

 

[vancopower]

By the way you can survive indefinitely already with using the magnifying lens, and lots of torches if you prepare on time you should add not needed option for the 2nd and 3rd question if you want more efficient results. Although I would vote for zippo lighter just because is so cool.

[hauteecolerider]

I've started fires with the magnifying lens. However, at least in Pilgrim mode, I travel/explore/gather from sunup to sundown, and thus when I get back to the base it's too dark to use the mag glass. There's also those cloudy/foggy/windy/blizzardy days where you can't count on the sun (though I haven't yet tried it on overcase/foggy days) being out when you need to make a fire and melt snow to fend off dehydration.

Umm, that last bit was kind of a long sentence, wasn't it?

[elloco999]

I've lived for 100 days on stalker using only the magnifying glass to start fires (or torches lit from fires I started with the magnifying glass but I did this only to bring the fire inside). I did this just to test if it was possible and it is. You won't be able to light a fire every day, but if you have a base that doesn't need a fire to keep warm, you only need a fire to boil water and cook food. It never happened that I couldn't light a fire for more than 2 days in a row. So making sure you have a decent supply of food and water is all that's needed. And I do that anyway.

[elloco999]

39 minutes ago, elloco999 said:

I've lived for 100 days on stalker using only the magnifying glass to start fires (or torches lit from fires I started with the magnifying glass but I did this only to bring the fire inside). I did this just to test if it was possible and it is. You won't be able to light a fire every day, but if you have a base that doesn't need a fire to keep warm, you only need a fire to boil water and cook food. It never happened that I couldn't light a fire for more than 2 days in a row. So making sure you have a decent supply of food and water is all that's needed. And I do that anyway.

I had to go earlier, so I'll finish my post now:

Despite the fact that it is doable to live with only the magnifying glass as a fire starter, I would like to see additional long term methods for starting fires. Assuming the knives are made of carbon steel they could be used with a hard sharp stone (like flint) as a "flint & steel", or a "steel" could be added to the game. Combined with charred material (punk wood, cattail heads, bark, pine cones, cloth) this is a great way to start a fire.

I would also like to see a zippo lighter just because it adds to the atmosphere of the game IMHO. And it would give the bottles of lighter fluid/ accelerant another purpose.

21 hours ago, Boston123 said:

As someone trained in numerous ways of primitive fire starting, and carrying both "flint and steel" and numerous matches in my BOB, 99.999% of the fires I start get started with some form of lighter.

You must have started a lot of fires to be trained in numerous ways of primitive fire starting, while starting 99,999 out of every 100,000 fires with a lighter

[SteveP]

I use a Zippo (Tm) lighter and it only lasts about a week per refill. When camping, I carry a couple of small Ronsonol (Tm) fuel cans of about 150 ml or 250 ml. One can lasts me quite a while around 3-4 months; I guess I need about 5-10 ml per refill. Even if the lighter isn't used, the fuel will still evaporate from the lighter. On the web, the recommendation is to fill the lighter until it starts dripping fuel. I never do that. Depending on the type of Zippo, excess fuel makes a really huge flame and is wasteful. 5 ml is just about right while 10 ml will last a few days longer. Zippo or Ronson fuel are just specific formulations of naphtha and is nearly identical to Coleman (Tm) so I can refill the smaller fuel cans for a very long time with a 4 litre can so that's about 400 lighter refills or around 8 years of lighting from a gallon of naphtha. Naphtha is not a specific formula, it is a hydrocarbon obtained by distillation from oil, coal or wood and has a specific boiling range of between 30 °C and 90 °C  for light Naptha (as used in lighters and Coleman fuel) Heavy naphtha has a boiling range of between 90 °C and 200 °C such as charcoal starter fluid with boiling point of 150 °C to 180 °C. It does not work in Zippo lighters. The spark is not hot enough to ignite the vapors although if the lighter is already hot, you can get it to relight. See video below.

The flint in a Zippo lighter will last about 2-3 months of daily use (20 lights/day) If you break the flint from a dead Bic in half, it works fine to use in the Zippo. You would need a good supply of flints to keep a Zippo working for a long time.

Kerosene has a boiling point of between 150 °C and 275 °C and tests have shown it does not work in a Zippo lighter especially in the cold. One would need to have flints and some type of naphtha fuel in the game.

http://firepedia.com/performers-2/safety/naphtha/
http://ehsrms.uaa.alaska.edu/CMS/Laboratory/MSDS/MSDS%20by%20Vendor/Clorox%20Co/Kingsford%20Lighter%20Fluid.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha

 

[Dirmagnos]

Kerosene would work in zippo, it wont light as easily and wont burn as well, but it will do the trick.

When i was younger and used to go hiking, i had a cheap zippo and since i didnt know any better i used both kerosene and gasoline with it. Worked just fine, probably due to my ignorance that i shouldnt have used those. Used it for about 2 years and it was still working in the end.

[elloco999]

It's true that the fuel in a regular zippo evaporates over time even if you don't use it. That's why I have a peanut lighter (actually, I have a cheap knock off, but it does the same):

It's basically a small round zippo with an air tight seal in the lid to prevent evaporation of the fuel. I hardly ever use it so it would constantly be empty when I want to use it if it didn't have the air tight seal.

As for fuel to use for a zippo in TLD, I would suggest the accelerant that's already in the game. It may not be the ideal fuel to use, but at least it will give these items a useful purpose later in the game. And I do believe the small bottles we can use to fill the lantern are already labeled "lighter fluid"...

[Dirmagnos]

4 hours ago, elloco999 said:

Im in love.

[SteveP]

I have heard of mixing kerosene with alcohol or light naphtha to get it to light in a zippo. You just need enough vapor to get it going and then the kerosene burns although smokily. I never looked closely at the accelerant to see what it is. You know, this lantern has a piezo igniter. That means it has to have a volatile fuel and kerosene probably would not ignite. Did a quick google and found no kerosene or naphtha lanterns with piezo igniter; only butane or propane. My experiences with butane lighters with piezo igniters is that they work poorly for a while and then refuse to work at all after a while. That's a shame because they are the few refillable butane lighters. Butane is used for those wind proof torch lighters. If only there was a refillable Bic lighter or a torch lighter that worked by flint sparks (actually, it's ferrocerium not flint) After reading the below article, torch lighters use a catalytic process to ignite the fuel air mixture. You can ignite them with another lighter so a ferrocerium igniter would also work. Can't seem to find one though. Drat!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighter

[Skitfaced]

Tons of fire making s**t here http://cavemanchemistry.com/oldcave/projects/fire/fire3.html

[Skitfaced]

why do you need char? and flint and steel in the same question? you can't make char without a metal container can you?

[elloco999]

1 hour ago, Skitfaced said:

why do you need char? and flint and steel in the same question? you can't make char without a metal container can you?

Starting a fire with flint and steel without char is much harder. You need something to catch the sparks and in my limited experience the is no substitute for char. Why need flint and steel? You don't as long as there are plenty of other options. But this thread is about new alternatives and flint and steel is one of them.

Yes, you can make char without a metal container. Dig a small hole, put in the material you want to char and cover it back up. Now light a fire on top of it. After a while, remove the fire and dig up the material. It's a bit harder to gauge the right amount of time to char the material this way but it's certainly doable.

[selfless]

I can't vote in your poll 'cuz I have no interest in any of the number 2 or 3 items.  But I think for gameplay, the complexity of firestarting using only a magnifier as a tool is equal to any other long term method presented here.  Yeah, you might substitute a difference of obtaining certain materials or low chance of success for the current waiting for the sun to come out, but I do not see that as significantly different or interesting.  But I guess I am more interested in play, not realism.

[SteveP]

6 hours ago, Skitfaced said:

On 2016-03-14 at 4:07 PM, hauteecolerider said:

I've started fires with the magnifying lens. However, at least in Pilgrim mode, I travel/explore/gather from sunup to sundown, and thus when I get back to the base it's too dark to use the mag glass. There's also those cloudy/foggy/windy/blizzardy days where you can't count on the sun (though I haven't yet tried it on overcase/foggy days) being out when you need to make a fire and melt snow to fend off dehydration.

Umm, that last bit was kind of a long sentence, wasn't it?

why do you need char? and flint and steel in the same question? you can't make char without a metal container can you?

You are right. We would need a mechanic to get primitive char if we did not have the metal tin. I am assuming that we could make char using that. In primitive conditions, they would char the amadou by putting it in a hollow log and plugging the hole with clay or just by dropping a spark into a fluffed up piece of dry amadou prepared by scraping a slice.

On a foggy day you can't start fire using sunlight. Amadou could be used to carry an ember that lasts a long time until you are ready to remake your fire. It would considerably reduce the need for matches assuming there is an indefinite supply of it. I'm sure the devs will figure out some way to make life difficult and challenging whatever they might decide to add.

http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2011/easy-way-to-use-fomes-fomentarius-as-tinder/

3 hours ago, selfless said:

I can't vote in your poll 'cuz I have no interest in any of the number 2 or 3 items.  But I think for gameplay, the complexity of firestarting using only a magnifier as a tool is equal to any other long term method presented here.  Yeah, you might substitute a difference of obtaining certain materials or low chance of success for the current waiting for the sun to come out, but I do not see that as significantly different or interesting.  But I guess I am more interested in play, not realism.

I think people would enjoying making fires the primitive way using flint and steel or adding char to a bow drill or to use amadou to carry fire to a new location which would work when a torch might blow out. I suppose you would have some container to carry the amadou char. You can still answer question 1 with yes, no or the other options. It is not necessary to select any of the options for questions 2 or 3. If you want to make indefinite fires, you would need a magnifying glass of some type and that is not a guaranteed spawn at all. I would love to see an animation or interactive graphic animation for bow drill or any other method.

Animations for the various mechanics in the game has probably already been suggested, I think by Skypiercer on another Topic in wishlist. I wonder if we could have a poll on that in general and solicit feedback from the devs as to whether it is a costly development add-on. It is certainly something that I have seen requested numerous times elsewhere and would permit complex interactions such as flint knapping or interactive fire making with a bow drill especially where you wrap cord around the rod, bear down with a mouth held pivot board and pull back and forth without use of an actual bow. I incorrectly named it Inuit Bow Drill but there is no bow! You need two hands free to work it thus the pivot board is held in the mouth. I have renamed that option Inuit Strap Drill.

 

Concerning the Zippo fuel, the accelerant appears to be some type of naphtha for refilling lighters so it would work in the Zippo. I don't know if there is an issue with using the name Zippo since it is trademarked but the item name could simply be Lighter and I assume you could get 100 or more refills from the accelerant can and two weeks of lights from the Zippo with each refill depending upon how many fires you light and how long you use it as a light source. Zippos also make that great *snick* sound when you close them. They also work for light!! and are supposed to be wind proof. Well in my experience, they are not completely wind proof but much better than a match.

Potassium permanganate (KMnO₄)is also great for starting fires. It will spontaneously ignite with both sugar and glycerine. I don't have any but I think it might also light from any fat since that's why glycerine is made from. KMnO₄  is also useful for purifying water and for antiseptic when diluted in water and also for marking signals in the snow for aircraft also diluted. Here is a link about all the uses of it: http://www.intherabbithole.com/potassium-permanganate-the-most-useful-survival-chemical/

Apparently it can also be used with antifreeze which you could get from abandoned car radiators.

The following instructable describes how to boost the reactivity of potassium permanganate by the addition of various other chemicals.

The amount of water makes a big difference with some of the reactions and mixtures must only be made just before use to avoid problems of spontaneous ignition. Use extreme caution if you try this at home or in the woods. Please review all the safety precautions and research well. You can make explosions. Such techniques were used to ignite Molotov cocktails.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Start-Fire-with-Water/

 

 

[selfless]

2 minutes ago, selfless said:

2 hours ago, SteveP said:

I think people would enjoying making fires the primitive way using flint and steel or adding char to a bow drill or to use amadou to carry fire to a new location which would work when a torch might blow out. I suppose you would have some container to carry the amadou char. You can still answer question 1 with yes, no or the other options. It is not necessary to select any of the options for questions 2 or 3. If you want to make indefinite fires, you would need a magnifying glass of some type and that is not a guaranteed spawn at all.

Question 2 does requires an answer.  I can't tell if Question 3 is being tested or not.  So only those who are willing to give an answer for Question 2 can vote.  (.Poll making is hard.)

FYI, the magnifier is guaranteed to spawn, but hidden; no guarantee on every player being able to find it...

[SteveP]

2 hours ago, selfless said:

Question 2 does requires an answer.  I can't tell if Question 3 is being tested or not.  So only those who are willing to give an answer for Question 2 can vote.  (.Poll making is hard.)

FYI, the magnifier is guaranteed to spawn, but hidden; no guarantee on every player being able to find it...

It's multiple choice so if it won't allow None then it's broken. Once you vote, you cannot redo which sucks. I have confirmed and entered a bug report. I have added none of the above which should work around the problem of requiring one or more answers on multiple choice.

[SteveP]

How is the Ronson doing in the polls? feels a bit like Bernie Sanders eh?

[SteveP]

So far 18 people have taken this poll. Over half feel the fire technology is insufficient to survive indefinitely; I'm not sure the intention to make it possible to have long survival runs, fire being the most essential of technologies. I laughed when my freezing starving character asked "Can I eat trees?"

Ronson and flint & steel with char seem to be the two most popular fire technology choices. I wonder how long the Ronson fuel will last. Maybe if we could make it out of birch bark! Birch bark is one of the most valuable resources. You can even tap the tree for precious sap to make syrup with. Maple syrup was pure gold for the early pioneers. It seems like our guy is a pioneer but he sure is up against long odds. Pun intended.

[selfless]

6 hours ago, SteveP said:

So far 18 people have taken this poll. Over half feel the fire technology is insufficient to survive indefinitely; I'm not sure the intention to make it possible to have long survival runs, fire being the most essential of technologies. I laughed when my freezing starving character asked "Can I eat trees?"

Ronson and flint & steel with char seem to be the two most popular fire technology choices. I wonder how long the Ronson fuel will last. Maybe if we could make it out of birch bark! Birch bark is one of the most valuable resources. You can even tap the tree for precious sap to make syrup with. Maple syrup was pure gold for the early pioneers. It seems like our guy is a pioneer but he sure is up against long odds. Pun intended.

But it takes 100 gallons of birch sap to make one gallon of syrup or roughly triple the amount of sap as sugar maple which is already one heck of a lot to collect, store and boil off.  Also the sap only flows when outdoor temps are occasionally above freezing which shouldn't happen until Spring.  But yeah, syrup is cool.  It is shelf stable and osmoticly preserved.

Regardless, I'm pretty certain the world they've built is only meant to contain the 90+ days of the first, post-event winter.  I can't believe the intention is to create a situation for players to build a home in.  Rather, I hope to see a region where survival is challenging both short and long term that the character is driven to escape from.  

Issue with sandbox of course is there is no escape.  Or timeline.  Not sayin' off-grid living couldn't be a feature or mod, just that it is not where I see this bus going right now.  I do enjoy reading about what others think.

[SteveP]

On 2016-03-18 at 8:40 AM, selfless said:

Regardless, I'm pretty certain the world they've built is only meant to contain the 90+ days of the first, post-event winter.  I can't believe the intention is to create a situation for players to build a home in.  Rather, I hope to see a region where survival is challenging both short and long term that the character is driven to escape from.  

Issue with sandbox of course is there is no escape.  Or timeline.  Not sayin' off-grid living couldn't be a feature or mod, just that it is not where I see this bus going right now.  I do enjoy reading about what others think.

So you are saying that the game is designed to kill us eventually? I don't care for that. I find the game is very unforgiving of early mistakes but perhaps it is adaptive or heuristic. My recent new lives have been very Spartan. Not much for ammo or supplies.

[SteveP]

Quote

 

The following is a classification of the chief methods of fire-making by friction based upon the presumed order of development:

A. On wood (reciprocating motion) by:

1. Simple two-stick apparatus. - Indians of North, Central, and South America; Ainos,Japan; Somalis, Africa; most Australians, &c. The most wide-spread method.
2. Four-part apparatus:. mouth drill, and two-hand drill. - Eskimo, some Indians, Hindoos, and Dyaks.
3. Compound, weighted drill. - Iroquois and Chukchis.

B. On wood (sawing motion) - Malays and Burmese.

C. On wood (plowing or planing motion) - Polynesians; some Australians.

D. Of minerals. (Percussion) .

1. With pyrites (or stone containing iron) and flint. - Eskimo and Indians of the North (Algonkian and Athapascan stocks)
2. Flint and steel.

Modern and disused methods and appliances. Besides the lens, mirror, and aerophore - there are pyrophores, the hydrogen lamp, matches, and various chemical and electrical methods that are beyond the scope of this paper

 

Aboriginal Fire-Making