Fire
Building a fire is one of the most important aspects of the game. It can be used to keep you warm, cook food, and create a light source. Fire is also used in the procurement of javelins.
Contents
Starting a fire
Wood, an abundant resource, is required for lighting a fire. A fire must be built on top of pile or heap of wood material, such as branches, twigs or pre-prepated firewood.
The player character must stand adjacent to the pile or heap of wood that will be lit as a fire, before lighting it. Fire can't be lit from a further distance away. Once the player is standing next to the wood pile ready to be lit, he or she can press the F key, and then choose the direction in which .
Depending on the weather, the amount of wood available, the skill of the player and other factors, it might take several tries to light a fire. Don't fret if it's taking four or more tries. If it's possible to increase the amount of wood for lighting the fire (which should be easy, by gathering or cutting down more branches and twigs), you can always try that. As a rule of thumb, the larger the amount of kindling, the more certain it is you'll light a fire faster.
If a player has built himself a log cabin dwelling that includes a finished stone fireplace, it is necessary to place the pile of branches, twigs and other kindling in front of the fireplace, and then use the push command to shove the selected amount of wood into the fireplace.
Fires cannot be started on water, only on dry land. Fires cannot be lit in the interiors of structures either, other than building a fireplace in the interior of a log building.
Whether outside in the wilderness or inside an interior, the player character does not need to actually see the wood heap to start a fire. This can help on dark winter nights with zero visibility.
Minimum fuel required
The minimum number of wood necessary to build a fire are 3 branches, 3 spruce twigs, or 3 blocks of firewood. However, the less fuel you use, the less time the fire will last.
If you want to start a fire with a slender tree trunk, tree trunk, a log or a wooden board, you first need to add at least 3 pieces of kindling, i.e. spruce twigs, branches or firewood.
The amount of kindling needed to light a fireplace fluctuates around 35-45 branches and twigs.
Heat and length of a fire
The time a fire take to burn seems to only depend on the quantity of wood used. In a fireplace, it seems to follow the following equation :
Y = 8x + 10 This basically means that if you have 'x' blocks of firewood, it will take 'y' minutes to burn.
For example,
- 40 blocks of firewood takes 5 hours and 30 minutes game time to burn off.
- A raw tree trunk can burn for over a day
Also, the more wood you burn at once, the more heat it will produce. So, if you wish to produce a lot of heat for a long time, you'd better make a large fire from the beginning, rather than progressively adding wood.
The origin of the burned wood (spruce, willow,...) does not change the fire length nor the heat produced.
Uses of fire
- Keeping warm: A crucial function to ward off hypothermia and its effects, especially during the night time (when it is always colder than during the day), during the colder months of the year (winter, early spring, late autumn), and after the character has been exposed to a lot of cold (after much swimming and not resting in front of a fire).
- Cooking: Without fire, it it not possible to cook, roast or otherwise brew any food in the game, whether it's roast meat or fish, a soup, a porridge, a flatbread, or a herbal brew or drink.
- Lighting torches: Once you've crafted simple wooden torches out of branches, you also need something to light them with, otherwise they won't work. For this purpose, you need to start at least a small fire.
- Manufacturing javelins: Aside from the necessary material (an already crafted wooden staff) and the necessary hand tools (knives, etc.), the javelin also requires at least a small lit campfire for crafting. Javelins are some of the easiest to manufacture ranged weapons and weapons in general.
- Agriculture: Fires are necessary to prepare the grounds for agricultural uses. The player needs to light fires on the chosen locations where he or she will grow crops and once the fires burn out, wait a few days, until the earth cools down. The ashes and charcoal from the burnt fires serve as natural fertiliser for the ground. Once the ground cools down, the player can use a wooden shovel or Iron shovel to prepare the ground, and then plant the seeds he or she wants to grow into crops.
Potential risks: The spread of fire
It is possible for fire to spread, both to standing trees and to other piles of wood. This especially useful when preparing the ground for agriculture.
If not contained in a fireplace, fire can also spread to your house, so be careful.
Gallery
An example of a larger fire
