Primitive Fire Starters

[RetroWaffles]

Firebrands are an eternal annoyance in haven, and although the devs have graced us with a couple of options to circumvent them, (pyrite sparks, flint and steel, matches) these are either hard to maintain a steady supply of, or accessable only through steel. I suggest a couple more primitive solutions as an alternative to rubbing 2 sticks together by hand: a Bow Drill, and a Tinderbox & Kindling.

Bow Drill:
Tool crafted using a tree bough and some string, when equipped in 1 hand, reduces the crafting time of a firebrand by say, 20% at quality 10, and scale from there. If this is too convenient or accessible, maybe it could be a 2 handed tool, like a shovel, or require wild plant fibers rather than any string, meaning it would take a couple days and some farming to get access to.

Tinderbox: would be an item used to store various types of Kindling, made using a quern. Kindling would be an optional ingredient when crafting a firebrand, like spices in cooking, and be pulled from the Tinderbox automatically if it is on your belt or pouch slots. The most basic type would be BirchBark kindling, offering a 20% reduction at Q10, and from there maybe a ground charcoal/coal offering 30%, or more pricey wax/tallow & fabric firestarters offering 40%. Kindling reductions would stack multiplicatively with the bow Drill (i.e., a Q10 bow Drill used with Q10 BirchBark kindling would have a crafting duration of (0.8*0.8=0.64) 64% of the default crafting time.

Admittedly, I have not gotten to use a flint and steel before, and the wiki is unclear on how fast they work, so if these numbers invalidate the much more expensive tool they would obviously need to be dialed back, but I think offering SOME way out of firebrand hell, or at least softening it up a bit with a new tool and some more replaceable consumables, would be a nice feature.

[MachineLegend]

I think kindling should also prolong the time that the firebrand lasts. The firebrand wouldn't be so bad if you could guarantee lighting them.

[Sevenless]

The solutions you're looking for lie in maintaining fire instead of lighting it. Make a brazier, fill it with coal. Candelabra with lit candle. Both of these last multiple days, and are trivial to refuel.

We have all the tools we need in game.

[Kaios]

Firebrands are an eternal annoyance in haven

[MachineLegend]

The solutions you're looking for lie in maintaining fire instead of lighting it. Make a brazier, fill it with coal. Candelabra with lit candle. Both of these last multiple days, and are trivial to refuel.

We have all the tools we need in game.

There is a bad habit in this community of shooting down good ideas in the name of promoting one's own system mastery. Both solutions you set forth require metal, and the post clearly proposes primitive fire starters with material costs.

Just because maintaining fires is effective doesnt mean there shouldn't be stepping stones between those two.

[linkfanpc]

I'm gonna be honest, the long dark has me spoiled in this regard. It feels downright wrong to call yourself a survival game and not let me use tinder to light my fires. +1

[RetroWaffles]

The solutions you're looking for lie in maintaining fire instead of lighting it. Make a brazier, fill it with coal. Candelabra with lit candle. Both of these last multiple days, and are trivial to refuel.

We have all the tools we need in game.

This is true, in past worlds I've even just kept a fireplace burning all day and a torch near it, so provided you're willing to refuel it every couple of hours you can light one fire per day and babysit it. This idea is mostly born out of wanting a convenience that can be kept on your person, there is a real inconvenience in maintaining the fire as your base grows and sprawls, I have found myself just lightning a firebrand rather than go to the torch or brazier because they're far away and it's preferable to having them all over the base and becoming a chore to keep refilled. You would also still be rewarded to maintaining fire, as the drill and kindling could not match the essentially instant speed of right clicking a fire with a torch and right clicking an unlit furnace.

[Sephiron]

The solutions you're looking for lie in maintaining fire instead of lighting it. Make a brazier, fill it with coal. Candelabra with lit candle. Both of these last multiple days, and are trivial to refuel.

We have all the tools we need in game.

I just light a fire when I start playing for the day, and when the heat is full I put it out. If I need to light my cauldron, I click "light my fire!" To relight the campfire and then make a firebrand off the fire.

But it doesn't really make sense if you think about it. Making kindling isn't a bad idea, it makes sense, maybe not as convenient as lighting cat gold but would be a nice addition