Since we’ve been moving in the direction of realism something has been seriously bugging me.
It now universally takes several hours for a proper fire to get going once you’ve started it. This might be realistic for setting a pile of wood on fire or maybe a tree but that shouldn’t be the case if i use an accelerant. Like for example if i pile a bunch of logs and splintered wood up and dump a jerry can or two of gas on it, it shouldn’t take several hours for that fire to get going enough to light nearby tiles.
I always enjoyed using a little constructive arson to distract or kill zeds in a town I want to loot but its unrealistically difficult now. Being able to improvise is one of my fav parts of the game.
Id like the speed and intensity of fire to reflect the materials being lit up. Materials like cloth, wood, gasoline, denatured alcohol, gunpowder, should have different attributes. Maybe make a readiness to burn and rate of burn modifier. That way if i want to pile a bunch of gasoline soaked filthy clothes and various wood debris, i can make a large fire very quickly. Maybe let me make nitroglycerin and let me put a tank of the stuff in the middle of the fire… and a nice trail of gas so that i can huck a molotov at it from a safe distance… just saying…
Dumping a jerry can of gas on a fire does not always constitute a ‘proper’ fire in r/l. It burns so fast, that once the fuel burns off you are often left with just a bunch of scorched wood with all your useful stuff burned off. (not to mention it can be insanely dangerous)
A good fire starts from the ground up, nice and slowly. You start a good bed of coals through proper staging of tinder/kindling, and this in turn will burn just about anything, wet wood included.
Gas can be useful in the initial stages of starting wet tinder>kindling, but a well built fire should carry its self from there pretty easily, its not something that is rushed, especially considering that you are often burning unseasoned trees that you just cut down a few hours ago.
In real life there is not ‘a proper fire’. There is a fire for warmth, fire for cooking, fire for lighting, emergency fire, signal fire etc. For example:
Nodia- Siberian ‘long fire’. This is a fire made of two / three logs. Between those logs is tinder/kindling. It takes approximately 90 minutes to make such fire but it will last a whole night without any interference. It is a very warm fire that provides very weak light. It is almost impossible to cook on such fire. In order to be safe, such fire should not be made of conifer because it is very sparky wood. Sleeping bags may be melted (small / big / huge hole) by a big spark
Trappers’ fire- low profile fire that is made of two thick branches in shape of V. An open part is directed to the wind. Fire is made on the joining point of branches. It is a great way to cook. It is fast and safe.
If you are interested, you can check ‘Northern Bushcraft’ by Mors Kochanski. There are great examples of fires.
It may be very difficult / tedious to implement such system into Cataclysm. The only thing that I do not like about fires in Cataclysm is the fact that there is no dump / seasoned firewood difference
