Candles

[Calico Jack]

Regular wax candles or even 36-hour survival candles as found items... maybe craftable tallow candles as an animal byproduct. Either way, candles seem conspicuous by their absence. They'd fit nicely with the interior space ambiance too.

[Vinceofpyrenees]

I like this

[Salty Crackers]

To be honest, now we don't really need candles. Since we have fish oil now, you can use the kerosene to fuel the storm lantern or make torches.

[Wastelander]

19 minutes ago, Salty Crackers said:

To be honest, now we don't really need candles. Since we have fish oil now, you can use the kerosene to fuel the storm lantern or make torches.

You're not wrong, but we also have three different sodas that only differ in skin and name, so an alternative light source could still work

[EternityTide]

Candles have the advantage of being slower burning, but the disadvantage that you can't "add" two candles together, like you can with kerosene/fish oil. Also, unlike storm lanterns, candles extinguish in high winds.

[akodo1]

Candles being a found item that you can take advantage of...that makes sense.  I can get behind that.  Especially because candles are a common 'survival' item as they work great for both providing light and warmth in small spaces (like snow shelters)

Often these candle posts include comments along the lines of 'and then you find bee hive and make your own candles!'  I am totally against that.  Not many bee hives around, not sure you'd even notice them in the winter (talking natural hives not stumbling across the back-yard of a bee keeper) and besides, looking at what the native people did, simple lamps using various animal fats were what was used for light.

Cooking fish producing oil is a good way to represent that.  That seems like a good 'forever' way of getting light.

In summary:  Found candles = good suggestion.  Crafting candles  = no.

[Calico Jack]

3 hours ago, akodo1 said:

Not many bee hives around, not sure you'd even notice them in the winter (talking natural hives not stumbling across the back-yard of a bee keeper) and besides, looking at what the native people did, simple lamps using various animal fats were what was used for light.

Very true. I read something about bees not producing wax below 60 degrees F and stopping flying altogether at not much less - I guess that's why they aren't buzzing around in The Long Dark! Although tallow candles are made from fat, not beeswax, and you're already procuring fat when you kill deer... hence the suggestion. 

[Joelle Emmily]

I'd like to see candles, and the ability to fashion candles, added to the game. IRL, it's easy to find or make waxes, and I used to use melt old, mostly used up candles on the stove in frozen juice concentrate cans to make new one. If Bee hives are ever added to the game, which I think they should, bee's wax would be another source of fuel.

[Wastelander]

1 hour ago, Joelle Emmily said:

I'd like to see candles, and the ability to fashion candles, added to the game. IRL, it's easy to find or make waxes, and I used to use melt old, mostly used up candles on the stove in frozen juice concentrate cans to make new one. If Bee hives are ever added to the game, which I think they should, bee's wax would be another source of fuel.

Well, seasons are apparently a long-term development goal according to the roadmap, so we might just see beehives, yes. They'd also make a nice additional threat - get to close and you get stung.

[akodo1]

On 9/25/2016 at 11:14 AM, Joelle Emmily said:

IRL, it's easy to find or make waxes,

IRL, where in the wilderness would one find waxes beyond the already mentioned beehive?  How does one manufacture waxes?  

[Wastelander]

1 hour ago, Sp4rrowh4wk said:

Fish Oil? Was this a part of the interloper update? explain plz

It was added with the last update, you now get a small amount of lamp oil whenever you cook a fish.

[cekivi]

I would hazard a guess that candles are now the most requested and oldest item on the alpha wish list

Still a good idea. I'm in favour of finding them though - not crafting the candle. While tallow candles are definitely a thing given how simplistic the current animal harvesting system is I think it's best to leave it out for now. Especially since wild animals don't have much fat on them to begin with.

[akodo1]

Your statement about simplistic harvesting made me think.

In North America the first nations people as well as earlier pioneers here as well as medieval peasants in Europe and probably people all throughout the world...in most cases when they butchered an animal, they got every scrap of meat off, organs too, and harvested the bones as well.  In this 'harvest everything' methodology of butchering they collected fat and made tallow and with that tallow made candles.

Our survivor is doing very simplistic butchering.  He seems to be harvesting the easy meat.  He sure isn't harvesting the organs (beyond the intestine to use as a crafting material)  and while it probably would be reasonable to allow him to harvest a few big bones for crafting, I don't think we can assume our survivor has the time nor skill to harvest a carcass to the extent that he is capturing fat to make tallow to make candles.

[EternityTide]

1 hour ago, akodo1 said:

Your statement about simplistic harvesting made me think.

In North America the first nations people as well as earlier pioneers here as well as medieval peasants in Europe and probably people all throughout the world...in most cases when they butchered an animal, they got every scrap of meat off, organs too, and harvested the bones as well.  In this 'harvest everything' methodology of butchering they collected fat and made tallow and with that tallow made candles.

Our survivor is doing very simplistic butchering.  He seems to be harvesting the easy meat.  He sure isn't harvesting the organs (beyond the intestine to use as a crafting material)  and while it probably would be reasonable to allow him to harvest a few big bones for crafting, I don't think we can assume our survivor has the time nor skill to harvest a carcass to the extent that he is capturing fat to make tallow to make candles.

Seal fat lamp:

'nuff said.

[Calico Jack]

5 hours ago, cekivi said:

Still a good idea. I'm in favour of finding them though - not crafting the candle. While tallow candles are definitely a thing given how simplistic the current animal harvesting system is I think it's best to leave it out for now. Especially since wild animals don't have much fat on them to begin with.

Yeah, good point, especially about the 'quick and dirty' nature of harvesting in the game. Maybe if and when seals ever become a thing, candle / lamp crafting could be realistic. Those dudes are fat. On the subject of animals and fat, has the phenomena of rabbit starvation ever come up in discussions here? Now THAT would be an interesting dynamic..!

[Tbone555]

i've been part of so many different candles discussions here on the forums that all im gonna say at this point is YES

[Scyzara]

5 minutes ago, Tbone555 said:

i've been part of so many different candles discussions here on the forums that all im gonna say at this point is YES

+1 !!!

[Hotzn]

+1

[akodo1]

On 9/29/2016 at 7:03 PM, EternityTide said:

Seal fat lamp:

'nuff said.

 

and if we have seals, then a seal fat lamp makes sense.

This is because seals have blubber, a thick layer of fat on the surface.  This is fat that is easy to get to.  In most other animals fat runs in ribbons through the meat and forms a barrier over organs.  It is organ fat that is the easiest to get to, and that was traditionally used for making tallow.   Seal blubber is much more easily accessible, so it would be more realistic for someone who kills a seal to sit out in the wilderness and hack off some blubber to use as lamp oil. 

HOWEVER THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WHO HARVEST SEAL FAT FOR THEIR LAMPS TAKE THE SEALS BACK TO CAMP WITH THEM AND PROCESS THE CARCASS IN DETAIL AS I DESCRIBED ABOVE.

You can get fat from anything but it's generally done when doing a detailed processing of the carcass, not an 'in the field' process, both for animals with more fat and more easily accessible fat, as well as for for animals that it's harder to harvest off of.

I thought of actually including the suggestion that if seals were introduced they might be one of the animals you could harvest blubber from and craft tallow.  I also thought about bears.  Bears were hunted frequently right before they went into hibernation for bear grease which could be burned for light, but was used also as a general lubrication.  Thing is, in TLD, it's not fall...it's winter, or at least an extremely odd and unseasonal cold.  I think it's unlikely this happened just at the point where bears are fat and about to hibernate.  I think it's more likely it's spring/summer when the bears aren't fed up enough to hibernate when BAM winter type weather shows up OR bears were hybernating during winter, and winter just never ended, so bears woke up starving.

Seals tend to be fat more year round as they are in the water year round needing that insulation.

[EternityTide]

There's actually nothing stopping seals being added to the game. We have grey seals here in Wales, and you can frequently see whole colonies of them basking in the sunshine on the shore. they'd make an excellent prey animal, but hard to catch if you don't sneak up on them. 

[Wastelander]

27 minutes ago, EternityTide said:

There's actually nothing stopping seals being added to the game. We have grey seals here in Wales, and you can frequently see whole colonies of them basking in the sunshine on the shore. they'd make an excellent prey animal, but hard to catch if you don't sneak up on them. 

Yep. How thick is their skin though? I could see harvesting a seal carcass putting more strain on a knife, but at the same time, I don't know much about gutting animals IRL. Also, just how dexterous are they? I can see them being way superior to a human in the water, but how are they on land?

[EternityTide]

5 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

how are they on land?

Need I say more.

[Wastelander]

C-cute

That speed though... wouldn't that enable us to, you know, club them to death? Would make sense, but I can just see animal rights activists hoist the black flag over this.

Seals or similarly fatty animals are needed though anyway if the upcoming advanced cooking system ever wishes to take off seriously and realistically, since most game animals just don't have that much fat (aside from their brains), so even without candles as the topic at hand, we're gonna need some fat ones in the future, and I highly doubt a wild moose is gonna cut it.

[akodo1]

On 10/1/2016 at 10:20 AM, EternityTide said:

There's actually nothing stopping seals being added to the game. We have grey seals here in Wales, and you can frequently see whole colonies of them basking in the sunshine on the shore. they'd make an excellent prey animal, but hard to catch if you don't sneak up on them. 

I would agree that seals would be a good addition...but I'd place a handful of animals ahead of them.

 

[Wastelander]

13 hours ago, akodo1 said:

I would agree that seals would be a good addition...but I'd place a handful of animals ahead of them.

 

True, especially 'cause we'd only see them on two maps. unless someone finds a very good explanation for sudden inland-migration of seal colonies