A The Long Dark version of the M40 Swedish Mess Kit

[UTC-10]

A kit that will contain:

Pan, pot, wind shield, lamp oil stove

Pot nominal capacity about 1.4 liters, pan nominal capacity about 0.5 liters. Can only really use either the pot or the pan at any one time.  

From the way the device is used, the stove item goes inside the wind shield which makes it wind protected (maybe in all but full exposure blizzard winds).  It puts out almost no effective light like most stoves in the game, and as opposed to stoves in the game relatively minimal radiant heat - the lamp oil stove unit is not a big one so the radiant heat from it is anyone's guess.  This ignores how hot the kit can get when in use - beware of burns.  It obviously cools immediately when the stove goes out.  

As opposed to a campfire and like a pot belly or two surface stove or a forge furnace, it can always be lit from a match (maybe even fire striker) in terrible wind conditions.  It cannot be lit with a magnifying lens.  Like any other campfire or stove it can be lit from a burning torch or flare.  The lamp oil stove burns for an hour or two or three when starting at full?? 

It all nestles into one fairly compact package which is for aesthetic purposes as compact does not impact the manner in which it is carried.  It weighs about 1 kilogram. 

And of course, at this stage in the game, it has about no chance of being implemented.  But one can hope.  

It would make for a portable stove to cook a meal or warm up drinks under pretty bad conditions.  Naturally you can still freeze to death waiting for the meal to cook.  

[intrepidus08]

a portable stove is meaningless, as it is extremely easy to light a fire, which heats and cooks 2 things at the same time. The only possible advantage of a portable stove is the mechanical igniter, which does not use any type of fire starter.

[Lexilogo]

18 hours ago, intrepidus08 said:

a portable stove is meaningless, as it is extremely easy to light a fire, which heats and cooks 2 things at the same time. The only possible advantage of a portable stove is the mechanical igniter, which does not use any type of fire starter.

Eh, going off this suggestion I actually think it could be handy. Instead of having to worry about keeping on top of fuel, you have oil and a 1 kilo portable stove, and you hardly need to worry about wind protection.

However, it wouldn't put off a lot of heat (because you can't dump a bunch of sticks into it) and you couldn't recycle its fuel into Torches, both of which I think would be a serious disadvantage. A mechanical lighter would make up for that, and with balancing downsides like needing repair at the Milling Machine, instantly consuming 5g of oil every time it starts up, and not being present on Loper, I think it could work nicely.

[The Feng Hunter]

On 10/14/2024 at 5:33 PM, intrepidus08 said:

a portable stove is meaningless, 

I don’t necessarily think this is true. MANY potential safe houses — from Draft Dodger’s Cabin in Pleasant Valley to the Cabin in Sundered Pass’s Abandoned Settlement — cannot be viable at this moment because they lack an functional indoor stove.

This said, a small camping stove would be a game changer and make the most remote places suddenly viable for ultra long gamers.

This said, I don’t think it should just be lantern oil though — the flame wouldn’t be hot enough. You’d want propane or kerosene canisters or something similar that ALSO produces minimal carbon monoxide and smoke. 

Edited October 18 by The Feng Hunter

[UTC-10]

The M40 actually uses an alcohol burner that is a separate item that the body of the mess kit fits over as a wind shield.  Since alcohol was not a working fuel in the game I presumed that lamp oil would be the most practical fuel.  Since the burner is also separate and not integral to the mess kit I would not expect such a device, in game terms, to have a mechanical igniter, as has been suggested, for the combination of burner, lamp oil, and an effectively infinite life igniter would tend to make fire starting comparatively trivial throughout the game (assuming one finally found the complete mess kit or just the burner part). 

Any kind of fire in an enclosed space would be hazardous to the occupants.  As a user device I would expect the devs to restrict its use generally to areas where the campfire can be lit.  On the other hand it is not that big a device so who knows what the devs might do with something like that, assuming they thought to introduce it. 

OMG, the cabin is full of toxic gas from that darn mess kit!  Now I have to wait for six hours for the gas to dissipate and there is a blasted blizzard with deadly cold temperatures starting to envelope the building! 😨

[The Feng Hunter]

As someone who worked in catering for YEARS, I can assure you that Sterno flames — that is, alcohol flames used to warm chafing dishes — are not toxic in the amounts we’re talking about here.

If they were, weddings around the world would be regular mass casualty events.