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Wood Burning Stoves


Dreadstone

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I see in some of the small cabins what looks like cast-iron wood burning stoves. I've not been able to get them to function as a wood burning stove however. Are they just cool looking normal stoves, or am I doing something wrong? ... and if they're just pretty normal stoves will they ever be altered to be actual wood burning stoves? That would make the cabins out in the woods much more awesome. Especially if they actually heated the cabin as well. A nice stove warmed winter cabin out in the woods amongst the trees and the snow.

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I agree! It would be quite a good addition for the Winter survival, and also gives ways to cook safely than with campfires. One of the things I liked the most about This War of Mine was the heating mechanic for the winter... although wood is a limited resource in TWoM and in PZ its pretty much endless (specially since Erosion! :))

 

If we had to add a "con" to this: visible smoke comming out the chimney, which could attrack both Zombies and [Future] NPCs

 

 

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This has been mentioned quite a few times before :)

 

i know i've mentioned it beforehand and its a good idea and generally quite a few like the idea

i can imagine it being implemented at some point but not a very high priority so it will be a while

 

Ohbal i Love the idea of the con of it is the smoke attracting NPC's (when implemented) or walkers!

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If campfire smoke doesn't attract walkers or NPC's why should fireplace/wood stove smoke? What because you can build them indoors and therefore NEED to have a con because of that? What about the con of the crafting skill required to create one as opposed to the campfire kit, which anyone can create? What about the fact a campfire kit is portable where as a wood stove/fireplace is not?

 

Sorry but I don't believe every time you get something good you need it to have a con to match any positives it has, this is how we got the stupid empty jars and lids (which don't come in packs unlike how they are actually sold in stores) for pickling which are rare as hell and only last a lousy two months (far less then what anyone who pickles even as a hobby would use them for), because people feel the need to add some con that really shouldn't exist.

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Well, of course its just my opinion, but its nice to have a balance in most gameplay elements. If you are getting only goodies from an action, that action will spread and become the standard. Its just a matter of exploitable mechanics. Most of the things you do in life have pros and cons, so its my opinion that a survival game should mimic this scenario. 

 

I also think that the smoke from the campfires should be visible as well. Hell, I've been making my fires behind walls just because I thought the light could attract more Zeds (I have a powerful imagination, lol). Besides, the smoke comming out from these kind of fireplace is more visible than the one from a campfire (unless you are doing a mess with your fire!). The smoke comes out white and dense from the chimneys, right?

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I just think only adding these cons to indoor fires is ridiculous, as ether source would create similar amounts of smoke. Just because a campfire has no chimney attached to it doesn't mean that smoke is going somewhere it wasn't before. Also your right a campfire creates light, and sound which should attract zombies. But in both cases there really is no way to tell if the user was purposely keeping their fires small, to create less smoke. I don't exactly need a large bonfire to cook my mouse stew.

 

Also considering this is PZ where many people accidentally start their houses on fire from cooking, I doubt raiders using smoke as a signal for prey is really such a good idea, unless they like eating charcoal anyways. But if both would have to have cons I should think the sound and light from campfires would have a good chance to attract nearby zombies, where as an indoor fire which is burning on a regular basis should attract more raiders than anything.

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I never said this cons should only be added to indoor fires ;). I'm just saying that everything you do in a game should have "pros" and "cons"... otherwise those actions will be exploited by most players. The player should be forced to take decissions based on the situation, taking into account that those said actions may have consequences. 

 

I admit it has been a long time since I made my last [real] campfire (not counting BBQs 8-)), but I remember that depending on the type of wood and state (humid or dry) the smoke colour and density varies greatly. This is just a guess based on old memories, but under normal conditions a small campfire doesn't throw a lot of smoke. 

 

The village were my parents live is a rather small place with only a few houses, all buildings made with stone. In winter, the white smoke comming out of all chimneys draws quite a beautiful picture... but under PZ scenario it would be like having a huge "here I am" sign above your safe-house. 

 

In any case, said system would be pretty hard to implement right. It should take into account LoS... and I think it has been made clear enough that the game doesn't stream enough map to make this calculations something possible, so I'm afraid I'm just throwing all this theories for the sake of discussion :)

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I hear you. I just think often times they add cons to balance the pros, so overall you equal out to zero. The problem with that is people always look for the "best" builds, the most effcient ways to do things. Even just looking at the traits I would say most of them are totally out of balance. Now I would say they are all balanced when chooseing traits is really just deciding how your character is going to play (in a perfect world which we will never see), and no one set of traits can be said to be better than any other.

 

Take light drinker for example, it only gives -2 so it shouldn't be some god awful negative trait but I feel like it may as well be nonexistant with the effect it gives. There are very few types of alcohol in game to drink and even then they are giving those other uses, like whiskey can be used as a disinfectant. Even when my character drinks with the trait all that happens is I get a wasted moodle, that's it, maybe this impacts me doing things but since alcohol may as well be food, I can just drink and then go to sleep.

 

Now if it were up to me I might make light drinker a -4 to -6 BUT I would make it so even drinking like 1/4 or 1/2 a bottle has a chance to make you black out, and you just wake up somewhere random, maybe in the baseball field surrounded by zombies! Or if after drinking I get a massive hangover and feel like crap the next day, effecting my physical performance.

 

I also think for a negative trait to really count for much or to be weighed equally you need what it effects to matter. Well what if you could actually make your own alcohol, say a substantial amount of it from your own still. Now you got a potential food souce which makes this trait awful to have if you wanted to do some drinking and well... just about anything.

 

Anyways not saying that you personally think campfires should have no cons, but I feel like when things like fireplaces/wood stoves get brought up as an idea and people talk about adding cons to them, then say nothing about other fire sources like campfires needing cons as well it makes me think people see them as fine.

 

Sorry but I can find a lot wrong with a damn 2 pound campfire kit which I can pick up with my bare hands, after putting it out seconds before, then tossing it in my bag and moving it to a new location in mere minutes (gametime). Especially when it's graphic is clearly a ring of stones, yet the kit is made with 3 wooden planks and a damn sheet! Have the PZ devs never actually held one of those stones? I would guess they weigh close to 1-2 pounds each, and try grabbing one after you've had a fire going for a few hours! Go ahead! Let me know how your hand feels afterwards!

 

In all honesty that kit should require a cooldown time before packing it up, which starts after you put out the fire (or after it died from no fuel), and weigh about 20 pounds. It should also be made from 10-20 stones, not 3 planks of wood+sheet/twig/book/etc. So much for realism eh?

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I just think only adding these cons to indoor fires is ridiculous, as ether source would create similar amounts of smoke. Just because a campfire has no chimney attached to it doesn't mean that smoke is going somewhere it wasn't before. Also your right a campfire creates light, and sound which should attract zombies. But in both cases there really is no way to tell if the user was purposely keeping their fires small, to create less smoke. I don't exactly need a large bonfire to cook my mouse stew.

 

Also considering this is PZ where many people accidentally start their houses on fire from cooking, I doubt raiders using smoke as a signal for prey is really such a good idea, unless they like eating charcoal anyways. But if both would have to have cons I should think the sound and light from campfires would have a good chance to attract nearby zombies, where as an indoor fire which is burning on a regular basis should attract more raiders than anything.

 

I think the problem is that zombies should be attract to the smells from fires (indoors and outdoors). Players/NPCs should be able to see smoke (indoors and outdoors) from fires, except at night.

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I think the problem is that zombies should be attract to the smells from fires (indoors and outdoors). Players/NPCs should be able to see smoke (indoors and outdoors) from fires, except at night.

 

You could do that if you want. I would just use it to release my inner pyromaniac and grab some food from the fridge in houses and toss it in the oven as I leave and turn it on. Nice zombie BBQ death traps all around.

 

You say the problem is zombies should smell the fires, why? I've never heard of zombie lore which claims they were able to track people's locations by smell, or even that they could smell. Everything I've heard is based on sound and sight.

 

Of course if they can smell fires why not people, ones who haven't bathed in months, possibly years?

 

Edit: Now that I think about it there is a few cases where they give some significance to zombie's using a sense of smell, like to determine weather your a zombie or not, but this idea is kind of a stretch, as someone whose scented thierself to smell similar to a zombie would smell like a person+ zombie.

 

Also in these cases you'll notice they use zombie scent to pass through zombies unharmed but they can talk during this time and the zombies don't catch on lol.

 

Sorry but if your going to make rules for zombies stand by them and have them make sense, if they can smell fire from hundreds of yards away or even further you wouldn't be able to hide your scent anytime you went outside anywhere close to zombies. I mean using guns wouldn't matter at all as they would smell you before you even got close enough to fire a gun.

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I think the problem is that zombies should be attract to the smells from fires (indoors and outdoors). Players/NPCs should be able to see smoke (indoors and outdoors) from fires, except at night.

 

...

 

You say the problem is zombies should smell the fires, why? I've never heard of zombie lore which claims they were able to track people's locations by smell, or even that they could smell. Everything I've heard is based on sound and sight.

 

...

 

The 'Zombie Survival Guide' by Max Brooks says "In many cases, and given ideal wind conditions, zombies have been known to smell fresh corpses from a distance of more than a mile...It is not known exactly what particular secretion signals the presence of prey: sweat, pheromones, blood, etc. In the past, people seeking to move undetected through infested areas have attempted to "mask" their human scent with perfumes, deodorants, or other strong-smelling chemicals. None were successful."

 

True that I haven't read it anywhere, but I would say its not a far stretch to assume that they would be attracted to the smell of flesh cooking in the wind. But, admittedly I have no references to the accepted Brooks/Romero lore.

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I think .. building ... a cast iron wood burning stove is a bit beyond the scope of the game  .... as I believe it is not truely intended for players to live more than at most a few months ....  players will ... I don't think there has ever been a game where players didn't vastly exceed what developers expected .... but the requirements to liquefy enough iron to make a decent stove are vast

 

I was pointing out there are several cast iron stoves visible already in various vanilla game buildings ... and it woud be awesome to be able to use them ... as for them "needing a con" .... well as opposed to campfires .... you can't pick them up and take them with you .. the best you can do is to tear down the structure around them and rebuild it the way you want it

 

someone mentioned fireplaces ... completely seperate thing which would also be awesome ... and quite viable to build from scratch or from scavenged materials ... it is quite possible to build a serviceable (if not pretty) fireplace from stones, mud, and trees ... early fireplaces were little more than a firepit with some sort of chimney above them .... seems safer and more realistic than just plopping your campfire out on the floor in the middle of Twiggy's

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I like the idea of the stove and i think its cons are not as equal to its pros but it still has some. It cant be moved, requires constant attendance, requires finding/making an ax to use, and would take a bit longer than the typical propane or electric stove. It would work after power went out and could heat the house. It has pros and i feel its not op. Fireplaces could be used to cook as well but take more wood, would require more time and skill to cook with it, and would leave smoke which i feel should only attract NPCs. Along with that Campfires should be a bit more complex as skotie was saying. I feel you should have to build multiple parts to it or run the risks. You start with the basic campfire kit that when placed has a simple pile of logs. That can create smoke, show off light, put the smell of food in the air while cooking, and start fires. The after you place it down you can make a fire pit ring out of a few stones 5-20. This limits the fire potential by a lot. Then you could also build a cover to it to limit that possibility even more as well as limit the light and smell at the cost of heat and some resources like stones, bricks, mud, or something like that.  The light then would only be shown off in one direction, food may cook faster, Heat is the same, and smoke would be viable from less of a distance. The later it can be fixed into a fireplace when ready for you to build up your home. 

Just saying what came to my mind. Hope to hear what you guys have to say.

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the game I recently went into a house and found a wood stove. I thought "Great!" I made it my base because of the cooking and heating potential. After I moved my stuff to this new base I went to load some wood into the fire and was surprised to find out you cant use it that way. It was so obvious that it would work that I never questioned it. I just moved in and made it my base. It never occurred to me that it wasn't allowed.

 

As far as what you were saying King jjwpenguin, I posted something on that a bit ago myself. It was called a Dakota fire pit. I had a link to you tube showing someone building it. How to build a layered fire to be smoke free. So I agree there could be more to a fire then there currently is but the wood stoves not working has me baffled. I hope it's something that will be implemented in the near future.

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