Blake81

This is something that's been on my mind for a while now, specially after I saw its success on Starbound.
 
The ideas is to have two separated stances of PZ on Steam, one the Stable versions, and one with the latest IWBUMS (if there's one at the moment). That way, we can playtest the IWBUMS and still have our Stable game for use online and such.
 
This avoids all of the annoyances of having the latest IWBUMS corrupt your save (if it were to happen) and doesn't limit your choice of servers when you want to play online. As IMHO, the biggest deterrent for me when going for the IWBUMS branch isn't losing my saves, but no longer being able to access the MP servers I play on.

I had the exact same suggestion on the French forum today. Saw this on my brother's steam account with Starbound too and thought of the same question : why not with PZ? 

AT LAST!! Now I can finally re-arrange my Warehouse home without the need for a sledgehammer!!

This is funny as lately, I've been having exactly the opposite issue as you.
 
I already MAX'd my foraging skill, but for some odd reason, now all I find are rocks, sticks and even logs, instead of all those useful herbs, shrooms and berries I used to find.
 
TBH, I really don't mind the RNG too much, but there should be some way to at least discern what you're looking for. Like say, we're on a patch of forest, where logs and sticks are the most common, but instead I am looking for berries. I should be able to CHOOSE what I'm looking for, and then have the RNG draw items from that pool.

Fire is, a few tweaks and rebalances aside, still more or less the same system we implemented way back in the early days of Zomboid and I agree I don't find the behaviour of the fire natural and realistic enough. We're at the point now where I don't want to promise anything new until we get stuff out there, but I do really want a graphic and functional overhaul of it since it's still very spritey and going through all the other issues with it will surely happen at the same time.

Well, I just found a completely new fact about fire that's perhaps the most ridiculous of all.....
 
SNOW BURNS!!
 
Yeah, you read that right...
 
As the white of snowy winter covered all of Mul, there was over a dozen of rather large hordes around one of my Gas Caches, being too dangerous even to sneak. So, I decided I'd draw the hordes into the forested areas west of Mul and burn them with a few molotovs in a place where the danger of burning the whole city wouldn't be so great. It worked, but it was there when I discovered it.
 
A few burning Zeds fell down onto the snow-covered road, and the fire spread over the snowy tarmac as if it was on a wooden floor....
 
Seriously.... what's next? Burning water?

Unless that Ash has a chainsaw and a shotgun... then I don't the shovel's gonna be much help in removing him unless you sneak up behind him...

Long long ago, being secretly annoying, we proposed doing recipes similar to . . .
 
Rice || Pasta + BoilingWater + CookingVessel
 
Where CookingVessel can be anything from pots, saucepans, frying pans .etc just by tagging their item definition.
 
For small quantities of pasta, a saucepan does make sense, but there's no real reason to hitch it to only a saucepan.
 
/Annoying

I love this warehouse.
 

I have been thinking for a while that the selection of stuff we can paint with the paintbrush is quite limited; just a Skull and some arrows, and nothing else.
 
So, I was thinking that we should have some more stuff we could paint, both on the walls and signs. Here are a few ideas.
 
 
- LOOT
 
Pretty self-explanatory; this is a place that still has some loot left. It could be used by helpful survivors pointing you to a place that had stuff they didn't need, just as it could be used by some evil ones leading you to a place ridden with traps or with a horde inside.
 
 
- $$$
 
Someone inside is willing to trade. Just like the loot sign, this one could be used both for good and evil. This could help the survivors to find those willing to trade stuff more easily, but it would also tell the more thief-minded ones where's a place worth raiding.
 
 
- Zs!
 
Zeds inside, and in great number. Steer clear of this place. However, just like that it could be used by wary survivors to keep would-be thieves away from their homes, as they would fear the hordes.
 
 
Those are all I could think of. Feel free to post your own ideas.

I have been thinking for a while that the selection of stuff we can paint with the paintbrush is quite limited; just a Skull and some arrows, and nothing else.
 
So, I was thinking that we should have some more stuff we could paint, both on the walls and signs. Here are a few ideas.
 
 
- LOOT
 
Pretty self-explanatory; this is a place that still has some loot left. It could be used by helpful survivors pointing you to a place that had stuff they didn't need, just as it could be used by some evil ones leading you to a place ridden with traps or with a horde inside.
 
 
- $$$
 
Someone inside is willing to trade. Just like the loot sign, this one could be used both for good and evil. This could help the survivors to find those willing to trade stuff more easily, but it would also tell the more thief-minded ones where's a place worth raiding.
 
 
- Zs!
 
Zeds inside, and in great number. Steer clear of this place. However, just like that it could be used by wary survivors to keep would-be thieves away from their homes, as they would fear the hordes.
 
 
Those are all I could think of. Feel free to post your own ideas.

Ohh! I do like this idea. Maybe we could have a ''Compost Burner'' or something along those lines; something we could use to burn organic matter to create ashes, and ashes mixed with dirt make for some really fertile soil. This could give us a good reason to loot all that rotten food you find everywhere once power fails. Dunno if using dead Zeds would be too much of a danger....
 
Also, I think it could have much more potential beyond being just a trash burner. Maybe if we put a fire at the bottom of a tank, it'd be far safer as a cooking station than your average Campfire. After all, a fire inside of a metal barrel or trash can is much less likely to spread on the ground (unless you knock it down).

Ohh! I do like this idea. Maybe we could have a ''Compost Burner'' or something along those lines; something we could use to burn organic matter to create ashes, and ashes mixed with dirt make for some really fertile soil. This could give us a good reason to loot all that rotten food you find everywhere once power fails. Dunno if using dead Zeds would be too much of a danger....
 
Also, I think it could have much more potential beyond being just a trash burner. Maybe if we put a fire at the bottom of a tank, it'd be far safer as a cooking station than your average Campfire. After all, a fire inside of a metal barrel or trash can is much less likely to spread on the ground (unless you knock it down).

Why don't you just, like, throw it away? That's what I always do. Or if you're so hell-bent on destroying something, just put them on a dead Zed and burn its corpse somewhere.
 
IMHO, a ''Destroy Item'' mechanic has too much potential for griefing or even simple accidents of ''Oops! Pressed the wrong button and destroyed my Sledgehammer!''.
 
A system to turn rotten food into something useful would be nice, tho....

I'd love to paint storage units a given color. That way it's easier to keep loot organized between multiple people playing Co-Op.
You can say "weapons go in the red box, fresh food in the green box, and medical items on the blue shelf." Or whatever way you want to set it up.

What about a "cleared" or "empty" sign for places you already looted?

I have been thinking for a while that the selection of stuff we can paint with the paintbrush is quite limited; just a Skull and some arrows, and nothing else.
 
So, I was thinking that we should have some more stuff we could paint, both on the walls and signs. Here are a few ideas.
 
 
- LOOT
 
Pretty self-explanatory; this is a place that still has some loot left. It could be used by helpful survivors pointing you to a place that had stuff they didn't need, just as it could be used by some evil ones leading you to a place ridden with traps or with a horde inside.
 
 
- $$$
 
Someone inside is willing to trade. Just like the loot sign, this one could be used both for good and evil. This could help the survivors to find those willing to trade stuff more easily, but it would also tell the more thief-minded ones where's a place worth raiding.
 
 
- Zs!
 
Zeds inside, and in great number. Steer clear of this place. However, just like that it could be used by wary survivors to keep would-be thieves away from their homes, as they would fear the hordes.
 
 
Those are all I could think of. Feel free to post your own ideas.

That's because you can't just DROP them; you have to PLACE them like when placing furniture, then just turn them on like a TV.
 
Radios are, in fact, the only piece of equipment that you can also place down as a piece of furniture.

You have to turn them on AFTER you put them down, else they turn off by themselves. Everything else you're doing it right.

Funny thing, I actually use radios as a sort of distraction now and then so I support this idea. When I wanna distract a horde from somewhere, I just set down a radio, grab a Walkie and hide before spamming Q. Surely enough, the Zed go towards the radio, but they don't attack it or anything; they just keep ''Dancing'' around it like it was party music.
 
That said, I'd love if we could somehow stick a Tape Recorder to a radio and make one really good radio distraction device...

I agree with the OP; the fire's spread is beyond ridicule, to the point I find it less risky to start shooting around with a shotgun near a few big hordes before even considering a molotov; at the very least the shotgun won't destroy my loot.
 
I've more than once made a couple experiments on fire, mostly to see what it does (and to sate my own pyromaniac impulses, hehe) and I've found a few ''rules'' that seem to apply to fire.
 
- Zeds always burn the same
 
Which means, real slow, it matters not if you have Super-Zeds (custom stats set to strongest) or Puny-Zeds (or weakest), they always take the same time to fall down and burn to death, which is about 1-2 hours. And they all come with the so-called ''Fireball Effect'', which means that if you throw a molotov or similar bomb at a horde, not only they won't die, but they'll turn into one giant mass of flame that'll burn down everything it touches.
 
I once saw the entirely of WP wiped out like this on a server because some guys thought it'd be funny to leave flame bombs with sensor inside of the GIGA Mart. Server Admin had to reset the place...
 
 
- Kitchen fires are WAY TOO OVERPOWERED compared to started fires (with Gas Can and Lighter).
 
One day I was bored, so I decided to do a big springtime corpse cleaning. I gathered all the dead Zed on the parking lot next to the Large Warehouse in Mul (My Safehouse), all piled real close to each others and though ''Now, with just this lit match, everything will burn... hopefully not my base.'' and man, I couldn't have been more wrong. It took me SIX WHOLE GAS CANS and setting fire to the pile on 9 different places to keep it burning long enough to at least destroy the corpses....
 
I tried the same thing later on, but this time gathering the dead inside of one of the houses of the walled condo. I must say it was easier here; the house burnt to the ground with only one Gas Can, but the fire didn't spread to other houses. All good here.
 
One other day however.... I tried the same thing by burning some rotten food on a microwave..... good god. Not only the entire house burnt down in a matter of seconds, but the fire spread so far and fast that by the time it was over, all of Mul north of the Sunstar Motel had been reduced to cinders, even McCoy and the forest between them and the highway was reduced to ashes. And this was a fire that started on the Kate and Baldspot's Safehouse, so do the math of how far it reached.
 
Currently, Kitchen fires have the potential of ruining a map, and why they're so overpowered obeys no rhyme or reason...
 
 
- Fires only burn and advance when you're looking at them.
 
I once tried to set fire to the whole forest between Dixie and the highway Spiffo just for fun, so I made a campfire, headed deep into the forest and set some rotten food on it to burn, headed out and waited.... waited.... and waited. Nothing was happening. So I went back to where the fire was and I noticed that, despite the food being long burnt, it hadn't set the place on fire, so I decided to wait there until it did. Once it did, I dashed away and waited once again... except that this time I forgot about it. Almost a week of in-game time later, I remembered about that fire, so I went to check on it. Surely enough, it was still burning.... AND EXACTLY HOW I HAD LEFT IT.
 
I haven't had the chance to try this on MP, but on SP, it seems like fire won't advance unless you're, at the very least, within sight of it.
 
 
- The Extinguishing Mechanic is a joke, and rain doesn't put fires out
 
I was really excited about the Extinguish Fire mechanic when it first came out, but this was only until that incident that scorched Mul and I futilely tried to prevent my safehouse from burning.
 
First of all, you can't do it alone; fire spreads WAY, WAY FASTER than what you can put it down, and since you EMPTY A WHOLE BUCKET OF WATER per try, unless you have at least 12-15 ppl working as a perfectly coordinated fire brigade divided in two teams, one that puts out the fire while the other fills their buckets again, it's simply impossible to even prevent the fire from spreading. And let's not forget that the Zeds won't precisely sit down and watch you work while you do this, so maybe have a third team of ppl putting the Zeds down, and more importantly, stopping them from spreading the fire.
 
And finally, rain doesn't seem to put fire out; during this big all-scorching fire, it rained TWO TIMES, and the fires were unaffected. I'm no firefighter myself, but if movies are to be believed, a good rain outmatch a good team of firefighters in putting a fire down, specially if it's in an open area.
 
 
- Everything burns the same
 
Asphalt or bare dirt, wooded or brick walls, grass or sand, it doesn't matter, fire spreads thru them all in the very same fashion. Starting a fire on a parking lot isn't much more safer than doing so in a forest. Specially if there are lots of corpses around.
 
 
So, to sum up, until fire receives some serious re-balance, I'll continue to fear kitchen fires more than the infection and never ever use any weapon that might start a fire.

I agree with the OP; the fire's spread is beyond ridicule, to the point I find it less risky to start shooting around with a shotgun near a few big hordes before even considering a molotov; at the very least the shotgun won't destroy my loot.
 
I've more than once made a couple experiments on fire, mostly to see what it does (and to sate my own pyromaniac impulses, hehe) and I've found a few ''rules'' that seem to apply to fire.
 
- Zeds always burn the same
 
Which means, real slow, it matters not if you have Super-Zeds (custom stats set to strongest) or Puny-Zeds (or weakest), they always take the same time to fall down and burn to death, which is about 1-2 hours. And they all come with the so-called ''Fireball Effect'', which means that if you throw a molotov or similar bomb at a horde, not only they won't die, but they'll turn into one giant mass of flame that'll burn down everything it touches.
 
I once saw the entirely of WP wiped out like this on a server because some guys thought it'd be funny to leave flame bombs with sensor inside of the GIGA Mart. Server Admin had to reset the place...
 
 
- Kitchen fires are WAY TOO OVERPOWERED compared to started fires (with Gas Can and Lighter).
 
One day I was bored, so I decided to do a big springtime corpse cleaning. I gathered all the dead Zed on the parking lot next to the Large Warehouse in Mul (My Safehouse), all piled real close to each others and though ''Now, with just this lit match, everything will burn... hopefully not my base.'' and man, I couldn't have been more wrong. It took me SIX WHOLE GAS CANS and setting fire to the pile on 9 different places to keep it burning long enough to at least destroy the corpses....
 
I tried the same thing later on, but this time gathering the dead inside of one of the houses of the walled condo. I must say it was easier here; the house burnt to the ground with only one Gas Can, but the fire didn't spread to other houses. All good here.
 
One other day however.... I tried the same thing by burning some rotten food on a microwave..... good god. Not only the entire house burnt down in a matter of seconds, but the fire spread so far and fast that by the time it was over, all of Mul north of the Sunstar Motel had been reduced to cinders, even McCoy and the forest between them and the highway was reduced to ashes. And this was a fire that started on the Kate and Baldspot's Safehouse, so do the math of how far it reached.
 
Currently, Kitchen fires have the potential of ruining a map, and why they're so overpowered obeys no rhyme or reason...
 
 
- Fires only burn and advance when you're looking at them.
 
I once tried to set fire to the whole forest between Dixie and the highway Spiffo just for fun, so I made a campfire, headed deep into the forest and set some rotten food on it to burn, headed out and waited.... waited.... and waited. Nothing was happening. So I went back to where the fire was and I noticed that, despite the food being long burnt, it hadn't set the place on fire, so I decided to wait there until it did. Once it did, I dashed away and waited once again... except that this time I forgot about it. Almost a week of in-game time later, I remembered about that fire, so I went to check on it. Surely enough, it was still burning.... AND EXACTLY HOW I HAD LEFT IT.
 
I haven't had the chance to try this on MP, but on SP, it seems like fire won't advance unless you're, at the very least, within sight of it.
 
 
- The Extinguishing Mechanic is a joke, and rain doesn't put fires out
 
I was really excited about the Extinguish Fire mechanic when it first came out, but this was only until that incident that scorched Mul and I futilely tried to prevent my safehouse from burning.
 
First of all, you can't do it alone; fire spreads WAY, WAY FASTER than what you can put it down, and since you EMPTY A WHOLE BUCKET OF WATER per try, unless you have at least 12-15 ppl working as a perfectly coordinated fire brigade divided in two teams, one that puts out the fire while the other fills their buckets again, it's simply impossible to even prevent the fire from spreading. And let's not forget that the Zeds won't precisely sit down and watch you work while you do this, so maybe have a third team of ppl putting the Zeds down, and more importantly, stopping them from spreading the fire.
 
And finally, rain doesn't seem to put fire out; during this big all-scorching fire, it rained TWO TIMES, and the fires were unaffected. I'm no firefighter myself, but if movies are to be believed, a good rain outmatch a good team of firefighters in putting a fire down, specially if it's in an open area.
 
 
- Everything burns the same
 
Asphalt or bare dirt, wooded or brick walls, grass or sand, it doesn't matter, fire spreads thru them all in the very same fashion. Starting a fire on a parking lot isn't much more safer than doing so in a forest. Specially if there are lots of corpses around.
 
 
So, to sum up, until fire receives some serious re-balance, I'll continue to fear kitchen fires more than the infection and never ever use any weapon that might start a fire.

I agree with the OP; the fire's spread is beyond ridicule, to the point I find it less risky to start shooting around with a shotgun near a few big hordes before even considering a molotov; at the very least the shotgun won't destroy my loot.
 
I've more than once made a couple experiments on fire, mostly to see what it does (and to sate my own pyromaniac impulses, hehe) and I've found a few ''rules'' that seem to apply to fire.
 
- Zeds always burn the same
 
Which means, real slow, it matters not if you have Super-Zeds (custom stats set to strongest) or Puny-Zeds (or weakest), they always take the same time to fall down and burn to death, which is about 1-2 hours. And they all come with the so-called ''Fireball Effect'', which means that if you throw a molotov or similar bomb at a horde, not only they won't die, but they'll turn into one giant mass of flame that'll burn down everything it touches.
 
I once saw the entirely of WP wiped out like this on a server because some guys thought it'd be funny to leave flame bombs with sensor inside of the GIGA Mart. Server Admin had to reset the place...
 
 
- Kitchen fires are WAY TOO OVERPOWERED compared to started fires (with Gas Can and Lighter).
 
One day I was bored, so I decided to do a big springtime corpse cleaning. I gathered all the dead Zed on the parking lot next to the Large Warehouse in Mul (My Safehouse), all piled real close to each others and though ''Now, with just this lit match, everything will burn... hopefully not my base.'' and man, I couldn't have been more wrong. It took me SIX WHOLE GAS CANS and setting fire to the pile on 9 different places to keep it burning long enough to at least destroy the corpses....
 
I tried the same thing later on, but this time gathering the dead inside of one of the houses of the walled condo. I must say it was easier here; the house burnt to the ground with only one Gas Can, but the fire didn't spread to other houses. All good here.
 
One other day however.... I tried the same thing by burning some rotten food on a microwave..... good god. Not only the entire house burnt down in a matter of seconds, but the fire spread so far and fast that by the time it was over, all of Mul north of the Sunstar Motel had been reduced to cinders, even McCoy and the forest between them and the highway was reduced to ashes. And this was a fire that started on the Kate and Baldspot's Safehouse, so do the math of how far it reached.
 
Currently, Kitchen fires have the potential of ruining a map, and why they're so overpowered obeys no rhyme or reason...
 
 
- Fires only burn and advance when you're looking at them.
 
I once tried to set fire to the whole forest between Dixie and the highway Spiffo just for fun, so I made a campfire, headed deep into the forest and set some rotten food on it to burn, headed out and waited.... waited.... and waited. Nothing was happening. So I went back to where the fire was and I noticed that, despite the food being long burnt, it hadn't set the place on fire, so I decided to wait there until it did. Once it did, I dashed away and waited once again... except that this time I forgot about it. Almost a week of in-game time later, I remembered about that fire, so I went to check on it. Surely enough, it was still burning.... AND EXACTLY HOW I HAD LEFT IT.
 
I haven't had the chance to try this on MP, but on SP, it seems like fire won't advance unless you're, at the very least, within sight of it.
 
 
- The Extinguishing Mechanic is a joke, and rain doesn't put fires out
 
I was really excited about the Extinguish Fire mechanic when it first came out, but this was only until that incident that scorched Mul and I futilely tried to prevent my safehouse from burning.
 
First of all, you can't do it alone; fire spreads WAY, WAY FASTER than what you can put it down, and since you EMPTY A WHOLE BUCKET OF WATER per try, unless you have at least 12-15 ppl working as a perfectly coordinated fire brigade divided in two teams, one that puts out the fire while the other fills their buckets again, it's simply impossible to even prevent the fire from spreading. And let's not forget that the Zeds won't precisely sit down and watch you work while you do this, so maybe have a third team of ppl putting the Zeds down, and more importantly, stopping them from spreading the fire.
 
And finally, rain doesn't seem to put fire out; during this big all-scorching fire, it rained TWO TIMES, and the fires were unaffected. I'm no firefighter myself, but if movies are to be believed, a good rain outmatch a good team of firefighters in putting a fire down, specially if it's in an open area.
 
 
- Everything burns the same
 
Asphalt or bare dirt, wooded or brick walls, grass or sand, it doesn't matter, fire spreads thru them all in the very same fashion. Starting a fire on a parking lot isn't much more safer than doing so in a forest. Specially if there are lots of corpses around.
 
 
So, to sum up, until fire receives some serious re-balance, I'll continue to fear kitchen fires more than the infection and never ever use any weapon that might start a fire.

I agree with the OP; the fire's spread is beyond ridicule, to the point I find it less risky to start shooting around with a shotgun near a few big hordes before even considering a molotov; at the very least the shotgun won't destroy my loot.
 
I've more than once made a couple experiments on fire, mostly to see what it does (and to sate my own pyromaniac impulses, hehe) and I've found a few ''rules'' that seem to apply to fire.
 
- Zeds always burn the same
 
Which means, real slow, it matters not if you have Super-Zeds (custom stats set to strongest) or Puny-Zeds (or weakest), they always take the same time to fall down and burn to death, which is about 1-2 hours. And they all come with the so-called ''Fireball Effect'', which means that if you throw a molotov or similar bomb at a horde, not only they won't die, but they'll turn into one giant mass of flame that'll burn down everything it touches.
 
I once saw the entirely of WP wiped out like this on a server because some guys thought it'd be funny to leave flame bombs with sensor inside of the GIGA Mart. Server Admin had to reset the place...
 
 
- Kitchen fires are WAY TOO OVERPOWERED compared to started fires (with Gas Can and Lighter).
 
One day I was bored, so I decided to do a big springtime corpse cleaning. I gathered all the dead Zed on the parking lot next to the Large Warehouse in Mul (My Safehouse), all piled real close to each others and though ''Now, with just this lit match, everything will burn... hopefully not my base.'' and man, I couldn't have been more wrong. It took me SIX WHOLE GAS CANS and setting fire to the pile on 9 different places to keep it burning long enough to at least destroy the corpses....
 
I tried the same thing later on, but this time gathering the dead inside of one of the houses of the walled condo. I must say it was easier here; the house burnt to the ground with only one Gas Can, but the fire didn't spread to other houses. All good here.
 
One other day however.... I tried the same thing by burning some rotten food on a microwave..... good god. Not only the entire house burnt down in a matter of seconds, but the fire spread so far and fast that by the time it was over, all of Mul north of the Sunstar Motel had been reduced to cinders, even McCoy and the forest between them and the highway was reduced to ashes. And this was a fire that started on the Kate and Baldspot's Safehouse, so do the math of how far it reached.
 
Currently, Kitchen fires have the potential of ruining a map, and why they're so overpowered obeys no rhyme or reason...
 
 
- Fires only burn and advance when you're looking at them.
 
I once tried to set fire to the whole forest between Dixie and the highway Spiffo just for fun, so I made a campfire, headed deep into the forest and set some rotten food on it to burn, headed out and waited.... waited.... and waited. Nothing was happening. So I went back to where the fire was and I noticed that, despite the food being long burnt, it hadn't set the place on fire, so I decided to wait there until it did. Once it did, I dashed away and waited once again... except that this time I forgot about it. Almost a week of in-game time later, I remembered about that fire, so I went to check on it. Surely enough, it was still burning.... AND EXACTLY HOW I HAD LEFT IT.
 
I haven't had the chance to try this on MP, but on SP, it seems like fire won't advance unless you're, at the very least, within sight of it.
 
 
- The Extinguishing Mechanic is a joke, and rain doesn't put fires out
 
I was really excited about the Extinguish Fire mechanic when it first came out, but this was only until that incident that scorched Mul and I futilely tried to prevent my safehouse from burning.
 
First of all, you can't do it alone; fire spreads WAY, WAY FASTER than what you can put it down, and since you EMPTY A WHOLE BUCKET OF WATER per try, unless you have at least 12-15 ppl working as a perfectly coordinated fire brigade divided in two teams, one that puts out the fire while the other fills their buckets again, it's simply impossible to even prevent the fire from spreading. And let's not forget that the Zeds won't precisely sit down and watch you work while you do this, so maybe have a third team of ppl putting the Zeds down, and more importantly, stopping them from spreading the fire.
 
And finally, rain doesn't seem to put fire out; during this big all-scorching fire, it rained TWO TIMES, and the fires were unaffected. I'm no firefighter myself, but if movies are to be believed, a good rain outmatch a good team of firefighters in putting a fire down, specially if it's in an open area.
 
 
- Everything burns the same
 
Asphalt or bare dirt, wooded or brick walls, grass or sand, it doesn't matter, fire spreads thru them all in the very same fashion. Starting a fire on a parking lot isn't much more safer than doing so in a forest. Specially if there are lots of corpses around.
 
 
So, to sum up, until fire receives some serious re-balance, I'll continue to fear kitchen fires more than the infection and never ever use any weapon that might start a fire.

I agree with the OP; the fire's spread is beyond ridicule, to the point I find it less risky to start shooting around with a shotgun near a few big hordes before even considering a molotov; at the very least the shotgun won't destroy my loot.
 
I've more than once made a couple experiments on fire, mostly to see what it does (and to sate my own pyromaniac impulses, hehe) and I've found a few ''rules'' that seem to apply to fire.
 
- Zeds always burn the same
 
Which means, real slow, it matters not if you have Super-Zeds (custom stats set to strongest) or Puny-Zeds (or weakest), they always take the same time to fall down and burn to death, which is about 1-2 hours. And they all come with the so-called ''Fireball Effect'', which means that if you throw a molotov or similar bomb at a horde, not only they won't die, but they'll turn into one giant mass of flame that'll burn down everything it touches.
 
I once saw the entirely of WP wiped out like this on a server because some guys thought it'd be funny to leave flame bombs with sensor inside of the GIGA Mart. Server Admin had to reset the place...
 
 
- Kitchen fires are WAY TOO OVERPOWERED compared to started fires (with Gas Can and Lighter).
 
One day I was bored, so I decided to do a big springtime corpse cleaning. I gathered all the dead Zed on the parking lot next to the Large Warehouse in Mul (My Safehouse), all piled real close to each others and though ''Now, with just this lit match, everything will burn... hopefully not my base.'' and man, I couldn't have been more wrong. It took me SIX WHOLE GAS CANS and setting fire to the pile on 9 different places to keep it burning long enough to at least destroy the corpses....
 
I tried the same thing later on, but this time gathering the dead inside of one of the houses of the walled condo. I must say it was easier here; the house burnt to the ground with only one Gas Can, but the fire didn't spread to other houses. All good here.
 
One other day however.... I tried the same thing by burning some rotten food on a microwave..... good god. Not only the entire house burnt down in a matter of seconds, but the fire spread so far and fast that by the time it was over, all of Mul north of the Sunstar Motel had been reduced to cinders, even McCoy and the forest between them and the highway was reduced to ashes. And this was a fire that started on the Kate and Baldspot's Safehouse, so do the math of how far it reached.
 
Currently, Kitchen fires have the potential of ruining a map, and why they're so overpowered obeys no rhyme or reason...
 
 
- Fires only burn and advance when you're looking at them.
 
I once tried to set fire to the whole forest between Dixie and the highway Spiffo just for fun, so I made a campfire, headed deep into the forest and set some rotten food on it to burn, headed out and waited.... waited.... and waited. Nothing was happening. So I went back to where the fire was and I noticed that, despite the food being long burnt, it hadn't set the place on fire, so I decided to wait there until it did. Once it did, I dashed away and waited once again... except that this time I forgot about it. Almost a week of in-game time later, I remembered about that fire, so I went to check on it. Surely enough, it was still burning.... AND EXACTLY HOW I HAD LEFT IT.
 
I haven't had the chance to try this on MP, but on SP, it seems like fire won't advance unless you're, at the very least, within sight of it.
 
 
- The Extinguishing Mechanic is a joke, and rain doesn't put fires out
 
I was really excited about the Extinguish Fire mechanic when it first came out, but this was only until that incident that scorched Mul and I futilely tried to prevent my safehouse from burning.
 
First of all, you can't do it alone; fire spreads WAY, WAY FASTER than what you can put it down, and since you EMPTY A WHOLE BUCKET OF WATER per try, unless you have at least 12-15 ppl working as a perfectly coordinated fire brigade divided in two teams, one that puts out the fire while the other fills their buckets again, it's simply impossible to even prevent the fire from spreading. And let's not forget that the Zeds won't precisely sit down and watch you work while you do this, so maybe have a third team of ppl putting the Zeds down, and more importantly, stopping them from spreading the fire.
 
And finally, rain doesn't seem to put fire out; during this big all-scorching fire, it rained TWO TIMES, and the fires were unaffected. I'm no firefighter myself, but if movies are to be believed, a good rain outmatch a good team of firefighters in putting a fire down, specially if it's in an open area.
 
 
- Everything burns the same
 
Asphalt or bare dirt, wooded or brick walls, grass or sand, it doesn't matter, fire spreads thru them all in the very same fashion. Starting a fire on a parking lot isn't much more safer than doing so in a forest. Specially if there are lots of corpses around.
 
 
So, to sum up, until fire receives some serious re-balance, I'll continue to fear kitchen fires more than the infection and never ever use any weapon that might start a fire.