Seasons for fuel source?


Ms Nutcracker

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You know the last post on portable stove got me thinking? How do you keep warm once all the fuel runs out? You cannot stay in the same area like that nice hut as fuel source will be depleted. You cant bunker down? Perhaps in a shopping center but even that will not last. :( So to survive a year you might need to travel away from the colder areas so you can source fuel.

This might be an issue! Sure you can pop up random items for fuel but that wont be so realistic in the art of survival. You need to get to the fuel source to sustain the push to survival in winter.

The game vision is that they would release different seasons. Though if season are automatic so after a few months you reach other seasons. Like in real life a cycle? So you can stock up and prepare for the harsh winter when it comes?

Cause if winter 360 days game time like in real life that means it just winter all year! And that means something drastic happen to make it this way. :(

Anyway if this is a good idea? So fuel source and realism can be stocked up?

Does this need to be in the wish list anyway see how the discussion goes...

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I think if you're really finding yourself in a survival situation-if you want to survive-you'll figure out a way to make your heat source more efficient. Right now, living off of all these large cabins, with huge windows and high ceilings...we're wantonly wasting fuel. If you're living year round, eventually (I'd) you'd downsize to something far more efficient and manageable.

Other than that-in the game we don't have the tools to clear cut forest, really with a hatchet and knife you'll only be able to harvest dead wood and very small trees (think wrist size). Also, you'll have spent the time in summer and fall to harvest a considerable store while it is easier to get at. A forest is a really hard thing to beat into submission. ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

IRL you need to collect many cords of wood in the summer and stack it to dry out. Attempting to cut down frozen trees and dry them out in the winter is a serious challenge. So if the game wanted to be more realistic you'd be limited to collecting logs from established piles by the sides of buildings and whatnot.

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IRL you want to let the wood dry for at least 1 summer, preferably 1.5 - 2 years, before burning it. This is to remove the water from the wood. Dry wood (contains 20% water or less) burns better, giving you more heat from the same amount of wood. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to burn wood that has a much higher water content. You will need more wood for the same amount of heat and it will smoke more and produce more ash, so you need to clean you stove/ fireplace and chimney more often. And it's harder to light obviously, but not impossible.

But in a forest, there is also a lot of dead wood. Any dead wood that you find that is off the ground will likely be pretty to very dry, even if it's covered in snow. As long as the wood is off the ground, water will run off it and not get a chance to work it's way into the wood. Fallen branches that are caught in the trees or brush, branches that are dead but still attached to a tree, dead standing trees are all good sources of fire wood that can be used (almost) immediately. And many species of needle trees like pine often have dead branches attached to the lower portion of the trunk that are often even dry on the outside because the higher branches protect them.

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I was just thinking about this today... When I run out of matches and fire starters... what do I do? Is there flint out there? Some other way of starting fires?

There is a rare find of a magnifying glass but that's it. No other way to start a fire. So only start fires when you have to and keep them burning as long as you can.

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But that doesn't mean it's impossible to burn wood that has a much higher water content.

Have you tried it? I remember trying to get frozen spruce to light. With enough kerosene it would kind of scorch, but without a large existing fire going to dry it out it was just futile. Dead wood can be used, but it's also frozen and has typically soaked up a lot of water over the fall that's now frozen inside it. And that's not even getting into the issue of how you chop up frozen wood at -30 or -40 below. This is a very different issue than simply cutting some frozen dead logs at 20 f. above. At one point I started clearing out some snags with a Mosin-Nagant. That worked, but isn't advisable :D Drier areas of the arctic may be easier, but I found the effort ridiculously difficult on my first winter on the homestead and just gave up. That was a decade ago so kerosene was still reasonably cheap, and I just used that. There's an art and a science to selecting, collecting, drying and storing wood for different kinds of fires.

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