PRIMATIVE FIRE MAKING SKILLS

[German4XXX]

It would be a nice touch and I don't think OP if you made it time consuming and lower odds of success even with 100 percent fire making skill. Would be cool for the ultra long runs where matches turn to dust from degradation or a frustrating experience for a new play through with no matches and trying to start a fire in desperation (frustrating if not impossible as it would be in real life for a random survivor who may or may not possess this skill).

[XvSH4DYxX]

This is a great idea +1

[Rehamk]

+1

[elloco999]

+1

[AmericanSteel]

+1

[Shanti]

+1

[lilpipsqueak]

I'm not against the idea, but I'd like to know more before I throw in my +1.

How would this work exactly? Would you have to forage for the right kind of sticks first, or use twice the tender or wood? Or what exactly? Also.. I'd like to see what they do with the NPCs to determine if matches would still be a problem in the long-running games.

Side thought: Your matches are degrading? Wow... my games haven't gotten that long yet (challenge accepted). On the other hand, my current game (stalker difficulty) has had problems finding enough matches to light a fire every day until I move to the next area, so I've had the same fire burning for the last 30 days now to conserve matches.

[AmericanSteel]

Primitive fire, like a fire plough or a drill, takes a ton of practice, the right materials and a bit of luck with what cards nature plays at the table. It also consumes a fare chunk of calories in a quick burst hoping to get a coal before your stamina flags.

I would think a bow drill would require the same materials as a bow. The spindle would require an arrow Like shaft and a hearth board. Every time you use the drill the condition wears. Every time you use the shaft of the board they would be consumed a bit too.

I also think we need to add a primitive edge to maintaining that spark or coal... Charcloth. Though you can make a chat substraight out of other things besides cloth. I would say the devs need to make another crafting option for a char bundle, taking the char material and combining it with a tinder bundle. Give a 10% bonus to lighting a fire over a tinder bundle alone. Also let us harvest pitch, fatwood or lighter. Have that give a +10 bonus to replace the accelerant in fire making.

[Ikaris]

I've made fire in the woods in winter with friction, fabric lint scraps, luckily dry cedar that I had to make curly starter sticks from along with tinder shavings, old man's beard (tree moss/fungus thing ... didn't shave the old man). You learn how and then its actually easy unless everything is soaking wet. Haven't had to do the human hair fire starter thing but it works too to get your tinder going.

Matches turning to dust ... BS ... that takes decades. Get them wet, dry them out. You may need to cut out a set of 2 or 3 at a time for paper matches, but the chemicals are still there.

If its cold and dry, moss and fungus work well enough to get dead dry twigs going (which are inevitably in the lower under branches of larger trees), then you slowly build up. Cedar if a gift that burns well even when damp.

Game balance is one thing, buy breaking the laws of physics and nature is another...

[AmericanSteel]

I've made fire in the woods in winter with friction, fabric lint scraps, luckily dry cedar that I had to make curly starter sticks from along with tinder shavings, old man's beard (tree moss/fungus thing ... didn't shave the old man). You learn how and then its actually easy unless everything is soaking wet. Haven't had to do the human hair fire starter thing but it works too to get your tinder going.

Matches turning to dust ... BS ... that takes decades. Get them wet, dry them out. You may need to cut out a set of 2 or 3 at a time for paper matches, but the chemicals are still there.

If its cold and dry, moss and fungus work well enough to get dead dry twigs going (which are inevitably in the lower under branches of larger trees), then you slowly build up. Cedar if a gift that burns well even when damp.

Game balance is one thing, buy breaking the laws of physics and nature is another...

Unfortunately, matches degrade once picked up. One of the reasons why people search houses but don't loot them completely. Leaving it alone, which is gaming the system, allows it to last forever. It goes against all the rules of survival I know and has been beaten to death in numerous threads. One of the reasons why I suggested a Fire Bundle early on (which Hinterland Bethany logged), so we can save an ember of the fire of another use and possibly at another location. Also another reason why people want to make candles or render animal fat for oil.

I have made primitive fire from West Texas to Arkansas, Bosnia to Colorado and from Panama to Kuwait, in various seasons. Some times I was successful and other times I was not. Trying to come up with the materials to make a bow drill in Kuwait was almost impossible, but a lens focus fire worked like a charm. The cold, wet of Bosnia and high mountain desert of Colorado were hard in their own ways. Put me out in West Texas or Arkansas and I could get a fire going PDQ. The enduring cold and snow covered conditions of TLD are going to be brutal in their own ways. However, making primitive fire was never "easy". It took time to gather the materials, fabricate my tool set, gather the combustibles and then get busy. I can only imagine how hard it would be to do so while fighting mother nature (in all her forms) to survive in an area like the game zones.

[Boston123]

I've also made fires using "primitive" methods, and while the fire-bow is arguably the "best" for 95% of the North American continent, even that is difficult to use. There is a reason, after all, that up until flint+steel were developed, people just ... didn't let fires go out. They watched them and kept them fed and going 24/7, as it would be a serious PITA to start them going again. If the fire did go out, they would send a runner to a neighbor to go borrow an ember, vs going at it with the firestarter.

Recently, I've been interested in building a "pump drill", where all the actual work is done via attached weights and centripetal force, and the only input from the user is to push a bar up and down. They can get rather fancy, but in its most basic state, you can just lash the thing together.

It could also be useful for crafting. Things can be made more "structurally sound" by drilling holes in them for attaching support bars and lacing, as opposed to lashing/wrapping them to the frame.

[AmericanSteel]

There is a reason, after all, that up until flint+steel were developed, people just ... didn't let fires go out. They watched them and kept them fed and going 24/7, as it would be a serious PITA to start them going again.

Along this line, most people from western cultures from the iron age on kept a pot going over the fire. Those who could afford a pot This was really seen during colonial expansion even into the early 20th century. If you constantly added a bit of water and whatever you had leftover into the pot you always had something that was safe to eat. Sort of a cooked down leftover gruel. The low simmer kept it bubbling which killed off or prevented harmful pathogens. This was also a pot that was cleaned during "spring cleaning", along with the threshing on the floor. Imagine what your significant other would say if you only washed a pot once a year?! :shock:

I have only tried to keep a fire going "all the time" on one occasion and it was a bear. Feeding the fire was the chore from hell. It is also one of the reasons why I now stock up with about 3 gallons of water and about 30 units of wood before I consider myself reasonably safe. Being locked indoors for a week or two with a blizzard raging outside changes your priorities

[lilpipsqueak]

Primitive fire, like a fire plough or a drill, takes a ton of practice, the right materials and a bit of luck with what cards nature plays at the table. It also consumes a fare chunk of calories in a quick burst hoping to get a coal before your stamina flags.

I would think a bow drill would require the same materials as a bow. The spindle would require an arrow Like shaft and a hearth board. Every time you use the drill the condition wears. Every time you use the shaft of the board they would be consumed a bit too.

I also think we need to add a primitive edge to maintaining that spark or coal... Charcloth. Though you can make a chat substraight out of other things besides cloth. I would say the devs need to make another crafting option for a char bundle, taking the char material and combining it with a tinder bundle. Give a 10% bonus to lighting a fire over a tinder bundle alone. Also let us harvest pitch, fatwood or lighter. Have that give a +10 bonus to replace the accelerant in fire making.

+1 for this or something like it.

I like the balance between not just tools but also a sharper calorie cost.