Fire Mechanics

[J]

I'd like to touch on the current fire mechanics for camp fires, wood burning stoves, and fireplaces.

Currently when you fell a tree and chop it up, one log weighs 60 lbs. That can be chopped into 10 fire wood, each weighing 6 lbs. One fire wood can be chopped into one tinder weighing 0.6 lbs. This was changed in 1.0.5, and before that one fire wood could be chopped into 10 tinder, each weighing 0.6 lbs. I believe this should be reverted, so one fire wood can once again be chopped into 10 tinder. You'll see why below.

Onto the fire mechanics. Currently, tinder is not burned/destroyed when a fire is lit. While this is likely temporary, I'd like to mention some thoughts. When first starting a fire, of course you need the tinder to get the fire going. Once the fire starts and it "consumes" the first piece of fire wood and/or coal, the tinder should also be consumed. From that point, as long as the fire stays lit the tinder is not necessary to maintain the fire. However if the fire goes out, you must use tinder to get it going again.

When the system works as I've explained above, it makes sense to be able to chop one fire wood into 10 tinder again, since the tinder will not last forever in a fire as it currently does.

[James Wright]

Great tickets. I would definitely agree about 1 firewood chopping into 10 tinder and that's why it was set like that. The reason I changed it was because Joe had concerns about the potential to cause spammed items on the server.

Having the fire consume the kindling on lighting is the correct behaviour and I most likely had that shut off from testing and then forgot to turn it on for the public tests.

One solution would be to make the kindling bundle appear bigger when dropped and then to have the weight match the firewood. That would bypass the issue of being able to create 10 objects instantly and still have the kindling consumable.

Definitely some tweaking needed though. Will update this as the issue is worked on.

[James Wright]

Alright I've made some changes here. I will paste from the changelog. Let me know what you think.

• Fires now take a larger stack of 10 wood to save players having to tend the fire constantly.
• Chopping firewood into kindling now yields 3 pieces of kindling.
• Fires now consume kindling on starting the fire.
• Kindling now weighs 2lb each.

[J]

I really like that fires can accept a larger quantity of fire wood. Will the same be done for coal bundles as well?

I like the changes, however one small thing I'd like to mention. It's called Tinder in-game, and it keeps getting referred to as Kindling in the changelog. Not trying to split hairs here, but they are two different things. http://confessionsofaprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/tinderkindling.jpg

With the weight being changed to 2 lbs, I suggest renaming the in-game item to Kindling as a bundle of kindling is more likely to weigh 2 lbs than a bundle of tinder.

With that being said, another suggestion is to be able to split 1 kindling into 4 tinder (each weighing 0.5 lbs), and adding another slot to the camp fire/wood stove/fireplace interfaces. Both the tinder & kindling are required to initially light a fire but neither are required to maintain the fire once lit. Just a thought to add additional realism. edit A fire COULD be maintained with kindling, however it would obviously burn much faster than fire wood or coal. /edit

Keep up the great work!