fire/ember carrier

[KinoUnko]

No fire/ember carrier? craftable item that keeps ember burning as long as fuel is added. Very fitting for the game given the setting and available materials, practiced through out history. to make it more gameplay appropriate it could require work bench to make, and femur of large animal like bear or moose (when it is added into the game) as material. A lantern could be repurposed perhaps. Skull of wolf could be another option, less durability than large animal femurs. Fuel can be crafted from Fir/Cedar logs or Coal with same burn durations as campfires. e.g. a Fir log gives 10 wood chips that fuels ember carrier at ~2hr/chip. also renewable from campfire that's been fueled with Fir/Cedar logs or Coal, similar to pulling torches from campfire. ember burn rate at perhaps 25~50% of normal campfire, so a fully fueled carrier can serve as fire source for 24~48 hrs.

a bit heavier than mag glass, but more versatile to lug along.

[Mroz4k]

The issue I see with this in particular is the game balance. Pretty sure it would make firemaking easy - in a way, if one was to create enough "fuel" for it in advance, it could go on forever as a replenishable single match. Kind of beats the purpose of lugging around a ton of torches to achieve the same result, with a difference that torches can also be blown out by wind.

And by the way, there are far easier ways to create an ember carrier - just using some basic materials like birch bark, sticks or potentionally also coal itself could be utilized in creation of ember carrier. Dont have to even add bones for this purpose in the first place.

While I dont want to diss this suggestion, I believe it would make the game a lot easier, and that is not neccesarily what I would like to see. Props on a pretty cool idea, but not as practical for the game in my opinion.

[KinoUnko]

maybe, maybe not. On Pilgrim/Voyageur matches and fire strikers are so plentiful something like this won't make a difference either way, other than another item to craft for the sake of crafting. on harder levels the high risk of obtaining necessary materials has to be weighed against utility of long term fire starter, plus the need to fuel the ember, can balance things out. Plus the item will wear out eventually and new one has to be crafted, so it's not really infinite. You could think of it as a non repairable sleeping bag for a fire. 

[Hotzn]

I don't see what this item would add to the game.

[Mroz4k]

8 hours ago, Hotzn said:

I don't see what this item would add to the game.

It would add a lot, for sure. Thats kind of the problem - it would make fire management way too easy.

22 hours ago, KinoUnko said:

On Pilgrim/Voyageur matches and fire strikers are so plentiful something like this won't make a difference either way,

You have obviously never went on for long enough then. Especially if one utilized fire a lot, one can burn through matches very fast as well. If there are roughly 500 matches in the entire game, and the game continues on for 500 days, and you use 2 fires a day on average... you can make that math. Once all the firestrikers and wood matches are gone, fire starting becomes a real chore, simply relying on the cardboard matches and mag glass...

22 hours ago, KinoUnko said:

on harder levels the high risk of obtaining necessary materials has to be weighed against utility of long term fire starter, plus the need to fuel the ember, can balance things out.

Considering how careful people often are to always only use a single match on lighting a fire in those modes by lighting torch first, I would say that most people would utilize this quite often. Even on difficult modes, fuel is the one thing that is plentiful always, and matches are extremely rare - most people would jump at a possibility to carry a ever-burning fire with them in their pocket, in a heartbeat.

22 hours ago, KinoUnko said:

Plus the item will wear out eventually and new one has to be crafted, so it's not really infinite. You could think of it as a non repairable sleeping bag for a fire. 

Considering you can always use it to create a fire, and then use that fire to light up the new one, the fact that it will use up its condition doesnt matter, because you can simply carry over the flame from one onto another easily. In a way, it really is still renewable.

[cekivi]

This was a really spirited discussion ages and ages ago (I don't even think I was a mod then!)

 

[KinoUnko]

If that thread had turn up in my search I would have skipped creating this one.