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Primitive Firestarting/Sturdy Sticks availability


skyewarper

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Issue: I enjoy playing 6 months later and Apocalypse, occasionally even CD DA, and well, getting a lighter/matches or even a saw from the first house before getting overwhelmed in 2 minutes from a zombie hearing your footsteps isn't too feasible, and running out into the woods being chased by 30,000,000,000 zomboids without any fire starting will leave you a bit cold/hungry/unhappy/in the dark in no time. I love the difficulty, and how impossible it is to really get back into cities once you've left, let alone main roads and pockets which surround houses out of the way. With the fact you can get axes, knives, and hammers from gathered goods I think there should be a way of making sturdy sticks without a saw, or rather a way to start a fire early game without a saw/matches/lighter if there's already ways to get early game tools, which do their jobs while having small durability. Why not a way to make fire the same? How do you get the plank for the fire board? Well. The same way you can in the current version. Destroy a door. (that or add a recipe for solely a fire board by using an axe with a log, basically just splitting a log in half the other half being scrapped, with a sharp tool still needed too to drill it)

Solution? Whether it be making sturdy sticks be a drop from something like doors being destroyed and making planks a less common drop from doors too. Fire boards being craftable by either an axe, and splitting logs and getting barely a fraction back in return compared to using a saw, like 1 or 2 sturdy sticks instead. Even by shaving down a Tree Branch with a knife could work. Even simply the ability to use a Tree Branch as another option for the sturdy stick to not mess with the current balance of Sturdy Sticks, or (not really what I think is necessary) a full new lighting tool/method could even work, such as a fire plow or a Bow Drill with use of Twine (which brings up a whole new issue of balance) or rags.

Balance: This feels like a void of tech by the time you've usually ended up with a saw anyways. By then you've usually gotten to the point where you already have numerous lighters and packets of matches. It may not always end up that way, but that's my (and some people who saw my suggestion in the discord agreed) experiences, and works well for the balance as it is. At that point, it just feels like it's dead content, just to avoid using up your matches, or use as while you're in the middle of nowhere with your fair shake of gear from weeks of gear gained. So making it so the fire board and sturdy stick has a fair failure rate, low durability where a few boards/sticks are necessary to even get it to work, could really give a little boost, while creating more difficulty! How can adding more early game content add more difficulty? Well, with how difficult starting a fire with the new content, it'd make it well, difficult. As you may know, currently keeping a fire stoked for too long creates fires beyond the campfire though. See where I'm going? Making the fire would be tiring, not certain to start quickly while also having it that the current balance of keeping a fire running too long without cautious preventative measures prior a dangerous play.

I'm not suggesting a whole overhaul, but just a quick implementation of a new recipe with a fair fail rating. Attempting to find anyone who's suggested this or similar, was at earliest of June, where the main point became all that was brought attention to, and the fact they called for reform of fire starting was ignored by staff, and april earlier which had only attention by one single member of the community, but then again it was focused about the other details they'd brought up, and might need a bit of attention.

TL;DR: I care a lot about something really not that hugely important. Fire shouldn't be prevented early playing primitively, current methods are outdated by the time it's available. Give Sturdy Sticks an early game achievability or give a supplement to using sturdy sticks for fire. And this has been brought up before, but seems to have been ignored or as a minor part of a different topic or suggestion they've made, months ago.

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So what I'm getting is you are suggesting that we can use an Axe to split a log into some kind of Crude Plank? I think it makes sense. 1 Log = 3 Planks w/ Saw but only 1 Crude Plank w/ Axe. Maybe Crude Planks can't be used in Construction, but can be used in Crafting (i.e. for things like Campfire Kits and Notched Planks). I'd like it if we could sand down a Crude Plank to a normal Plank with Sandpaper or something. This would also allow them to finally make Saws functional weapons with durability, as we would have renewable alternatives to Planks without needing to rely on a Saw 100%.

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Not at all, just added the bit about planks for fire boards as a balance issue fix, if changing that doors drop scrap wood and sturdy sticks instead of planks, so that the whole issue of having to find a saw first doesn't become the preventing measure.

I think the whole point of this post has gone past you though, there needs to be an easier way of crafting fire primitively, as the current fireboard and sturdy stick feels like skipped content, and avoided, as generally by the time you have a saw, you would have many lighters or matches. This isn't a thing about trying to create more planks, or adding sand paper or modifying saws in any way. 

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I'd rather primitive survival/maintenance be vanilla and not a mod. Its such a basic and foundational bit of gameplay that provides renewable means for survival. Mods are for things like boats, planes, maps, etc.

All a player should need to get every carpentry related resource should be a saw, a knife, and a lighter. You should spawn with the latter two every single time on every difficulty.

The knife enables you to split plants into sticks and craft spears from foraged tree branches. It also enables you to craft wedges from tree branches. 

The saw enables you to craft wooden mallets, and most importantly create logs from sawn down trees trees. It CANNOT saw logs into planks however, the idea of handsawing a log down the grain for the length of an entire tree as if you are a human sawmill is ridiculous. The only time you ripcut an entire tree into boards is when you are using powertools. The calories required to do that would make it an impossible survival strategy. Also the idea of sawing a plank into a stick is kinda stupid. A knife can split a plank with much less effort. 

The stick wedges you crafted from sticks/branches allow you to split logs into planks if you have a mallet/hammer. These are very limited use items. 

 

Axes only allow you to go straight to splitting logs to planks, or planks into sticks. Axes are the slowest and worst way to fell trees, but if your saw isn't big enough for a tree, an axe is the way to go, axes are a very versatile but less specialized tool. Saws would be how I fell trees. 

As for keeping these tools throughout a save, it should be possible to renewably and indefinitely maintain quality tools. Axe/hammer heads & Knife blanks/tangs made of quality metal are pretty much indestructible, you can't break or fix them. You need to sharpen them, but they can't break unless you try to smash a zombie's skull when hes lying on pavement and you whack your tool into the pavement. Knife blades/tangs could break when destroying windows or smashing concrete, or batoning if its a crap blade. 

Otherwise for good tools, you would only ever need to sharpen them with a file/whetstone/bench grinder, and fix them by making new handles for them. 

 

I don't like the thought of my world running out of metal tools and glue/tape for fixing them, or having to get renewable tools from zombies. It just doesn't feel right as someone who knows how to maintain and use them. 

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4 hours ago, Badgzerz said:

Axe/hammer heads & Knife blanks/tangs made of quality metal are pretty much indestructible, you can't break or fix them. You need to sharpen them

I also pondered the strange destructibility of fairly durable metal objects. And I support the proposal for sharpening axes / knives, etc. By the way, this can be done with an ordinary stone. I would undertake to make such a mod, and thought, but unfortunately I do not have enough time for the existing mods that I am doing :) Try referring to - soulfilcher

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9 hours ago, Nebula said:

I also pondered the strange destructibility of fairly durable metal objects. And I support the proposal for sharpening axes / knives, etc. By the way, this can be done with an ordinary stone. I would undertake to make such a mod, and thought, but unfortunately I do not have enough time for the existing mods that I am doing :) Try referring to - soulfilcher

True. @Soul Filcherjust came out with Building Time, I think some of these suggestions would fit into that mod well

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