Fire is ridiculous

[Xenokiller]

So I was cooking a stir fry and the oven caught fire. By the time we figured out how to fight it, it was too late and 4 months worth of canned food as well as most of the tools were ash.
It did not stop with our safehouse though:

http://imgur.com/a/1SG6S

I'm not salty that the fire started, nor that it burned most of our stuff (we were getting a little too secure), but I think that the way fire spreads needs some review.

I'm not a firefighter so I don't know, maybe the way it's modeled in game is accurate, but it seems very silly to me. IMO the fire should be limited to the building it starts in.

 

 

[Blasted_Taco]

That picture seems like when i land in a terror mission in XCOM and i just blow up everything in my path.

 

Maybe having the fire not spread that much in concrete? I mean i can see why would the grass kinda catch on fire...but why would a sidewalk would catch on fire?

[PlasticandRage]

Yeah asphalt definitely doesnt burn. It melts.

Ive actually been trying to get a fire started in a certain part of my world. Its wall to wall zeds in there, easily the most I've ever seen in one place, its pretty far from my safehouse, and theres a building in the general direction I've been trying to get into. I figured starting a fire nearby and maybe firing off a couple rounds in that direction would do the trick, but I cant for the life of me get one started. Theres like 5 houses over there thatve had the stoves on for days and nothing.

[Blake81]

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.

[Xenokiller]

Yeah asphalt definitely doesnt burn. It melts.

Ive actually been trying to get a fire started in a certain part of my world. Its wall to wall zeds in there, easily the most I've ever seen in one place, its pretty far from my safehouse, and theres a building in the general direction I've been trying to get into. I figured starting a fire nearby and maybe firing off a couple rounds in that direction would do the trick, but I cant for the life of me get one started. Theres like 5 houses over there thatve had the stoves on for days and nothing.

Try leaving some food that can burn (like stir fry) in the oven. Also you might have to be near enough that the are the stove is in is loaded.

[PlasticandRage]

Ill give it the old college try

[fluffe9911]

There used to be a bug where fire could burn over water lol

[Zomboid]

How fast does a fire burn in a house?

 

How do firefighters stop fire from spreading to another house?

 

If anything fire in this game is not dangerous enough.

 

Things we need

 

-smoke blocking your view

-chocking to death from fire smoke

-lung damage from smoke exposure

-fire consistently burning all flammable objects in it's site until the whole area is burned to the ground

 

the only way to stop a fire in a zombie apocalypse is the fire reaching an already burned area or non-flammable region(river) and lots of rain. While the water is on we should be able to hook a hose up to the fire hydrant (firefighter skill?) Actually fire is such a real danger in our non-zombie world that this could make the firefighter class a lot more important.

[Geras]

snip

 

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....

 

snip

 

Next time try making a campfire place first, then put zombies on top of it and start the campfire. Much safer as fire will not spread, and no gasoline wasted.

[valhalla_bound]

Yeah asphalt definitely doesnt burn. It melts.

Ive actually been trying to get a fire started in a certain part of my world. Its wall to wall zeds in there, easily the most I've ever seen in one place, its pretty far from my safehouse, and theres a building in the general direction I've been trying to get into. I figured starting a fire nearby and maybe firing off a couple rounds in that direction would do the trick, but I cant for the life of me get one started. Theres like 5 houses over there thatve had the stoves on for days and nothing.

Just make a camp fire. Do it when there is no rain and keep the horde loaded. Run in a big circle to keep em packed around the fire.

If they leave the screen and get unloaded they stop taking damage.

[PlasticandRage]

Yeah asphalt definitely doesnt burn. It melts.

Ive actually been trying to get a fire started in a certain part of my world. Its wall to wall zeds in there, easily the most I've ever seen in one place, its pretty far from my safehouse, and theres a building in the general direction I've been trying to get into. I figured starting a fire nearby and maybe firing off a couple rounds in that direction would do the trick, but I cant for the life of me get one started. Theres like 5 houses over there thatve had the stoves on for days and nothing.

Just make a camp fire. Do it when there is no rain and keep the horde loaded. Run in a big circle to keep em packed around the fire.

If they leave the screen and get unloaded they stop taking damage.

Thats good to know. So much for my plan to draw them in and run away. I may just not do it at all then. Im not sure the rewards will be worth all that risk. Theres literally the most I've ever seen together in there. If I had to put a number value on it Id say at least a hundred in a single screen area. They got drawn in by a helecopter and then when I was trying to sneak away I set off a house alarm. Its a massive group.

[Way2sp00ky]

 

Yeah asphalt definitely doesnt burn. It melts.

Ive actually been trying to get a fire started in a certain part of my world. Its wall to wall zeds in there, easily the most I've ever seen in one place, its pretty far from my safehouse, and theres a building in the general direction I've been trying to get into. I figured starting a fire nearby and maybe firing off a couple rounds in that direction would do the trick, but I cant for the life of me get one started. Theres like 5 houses over there thatve had the stoves on for days and nothing.

Try leaving some food that can burn (like stir fry) in the oven. Also you might have to be near enough that the are the stove is in is loaded.

 

I've been leaving bottles of bleach in ovens as I traveled from Muld to WP during relocation, I'll check to see if that worked out. More or less as a science experiment lol

 

Edit: Bleach does not start fires sadly

[impetus maximus]

i think it needs tweaking. brick buildings should not catch fire from the outside.

green grass, sand and roads buring should not be a thing without gasoline etc.

zombies that are on fire take way, way too long to die IMO.

 

i have fire spread disabled.

[Axezombie]

Fire kills zombies slowly (2 hours IG) because it was really too OP before they change it, but I also agree on the fire spreading, fire should spread differently on different grounds and completely stop on roads if there is nothing to burn.

[Blake81]

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?

[EnigmaGrey]

You mean "What was before."

Relax. Snow isn't even a tile property -- it's a graphical overlay. Same reason crops can't detect snow ontop of them.

[CaptKaspar]

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?

 

https://gmmaiochi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/burning_ice_cube.jpg?w=645

 

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn113/KazumaShinichi/FireOnWater.jpg

[lemmy101]

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.

[Blake81]

Well, that's all I need to hear, hehe.