Purify vs. Boil

[Random Fires]

What's the difference between boiling water and purifying it?

Seems to take the same amount of time.

I've never tried accessing a fireplace without a fire going, can you purify water without fire? Is that it?

[Kevers003]

So purifying is great if you don't have easy access to a fire, however boiling and purifying do exactly the same thing.

Boiling = you use fire to kill bacteria.

Purifying = using purification tablets to kill bacteria.

They are the same, but I suggest saving purification tablets for times when you don't have a fire to boil the water.

[Random Fires]

Murhaha... Just figured it out.

Tablets can be used at any time in the inventory screen to purify. BUT, the use of tabs will also apply to any water already boiled/pure water in your inventory.

Gotta put down/drop any pure water, use tablets, purify remaining dirty water, then pick up your clean water...Saves tabs.

Maybe removing purify water from the fire UI would clear this up.... So much wood wasted.

One more small step to survival!

[elloco999]

Gotta put down/drop any pure water, use tablets, purify remaining dirty water, then pick up your clean water...Saves tabs.

That sounds like a bug to me...

Maybe removing purify water from the fire UI would clear this up.... So much wood wasted.

There is a "purify water" option in the fire UI? That doesn't make sense to me.

[Jeremy JPOW Powell]

We added the purify water to the fire tab because people kept forgetting they had tablets and never used them. The purifying clean water does sound like a bug and I'll check it out.

Jeremy

[elloco999]

I never use them myself, but that's because I store them at my base in case I ever need to purify some water when I don't have a fire. Of course, that never happens, so I never use them.

Using purification tablets while inside the fire UI doesn't make sense. It wastes burn time of the fire. And if it takes as long to purify the water using tablets as it takes to boil it, you may as well boil. Since the fire UI closes when the fire is out, it's not possible to purify water from the fire UI when there is no fire burning.

I get the reasoning of wanting to remind the player that there is another way to make the water safe, but I don't think putting this option in the fire UI is a good way to do it. (And no, I don't know a better way )