Found a Fire Striker?!?

[Greavette]

Has anyone ever found one of these?

Haven't even tried it yet

[wynarator]

Yeah, I've found it in some locker playing on 183.

[elloco999]

I haven't found any in my current game, but I've found some at the Camp Office and Trapper's Homestead in earlier games. I've had 1 game were I found a total of 3 fire strikers. They are great to carry with you for emergency fire starting when outside as they don't degrade when in your inventory, unlike matches.

[tsotha]

But don't they degrade 10% with each use?

[elloco999]

They used to degrade 10% per use, but this has been lowered in an update. Since I haven't found one since the update I can't tell you at what rate they degrade now.

I used them mainly as an emergency firestarter because even if all your matches degrade while outside (I always carry just a few of my lowest condition matches) it will always be there.

[RobZombie1357]

I found a 44% condition fire striker at Coastal Highway a couple of days ago, and each use degrade it by only 2%!

[elloco999]

Nice, make the firestriker far more usable!

[tsotha]

Oh, sweet. I've found a couple but the plan was to use them only after all my matches had degraded. Which, as it turns out, is typically long after I'm dead.

[Owen153]

Matches degrade? :shock: wow, I really hadn't noticed, nor survived long enough for that to be an issue I guess...

I've definitely found a few firestarters, but never used them since matches seemed to be in ample supply, at least for now...

And the only other fire starting device I found, and only once, was a magnifying glass, but never got around to using it because of a combination of blizzards and wolf attacks. :roll:

[tsotha]

The glass seems like it's of limited utility. Without torches or slow matches or some other way to move fire the only point to it I can see is for managing food and water. Even then invariably halfway through cooking a fish a blizzard will kick up and blow your fire out.

On top of all that apparently the photons hitting the glass wear it out

[elloco999]

The magnifying glass is a good tool to use if you want to make a fire next to a carcass to thaw it or to keep it from freezing (or to keep you warm while you harvest). These fires have to be made outside anyway, so if the sun is shining use the magnifying glass if you have it. After harvesting and if there are no wolves too close, you can immediately cook your meat while the fire is still going.

A fire while harvesting can also save your life. I had chased a deer into a wolf yesterday just before dark. The next morning a blizzard prevented me from collecting the guts and I had to wait until 13.00 before I could go out. The carcass was of course fully frozen so I started a fire to thaw it while boiling some water. When the carcass was almost thawed I started to harvest it. It also had 2.5kg of meat left so I harvested that as well. Half way through, I heard a wolf growl. The fire kept it back so I could make my way in the other direction. Without the fire I would probably have been attacked.