I was not aware of that bit about newer ones. Do those still use gunpowder, or are they a completely new chemical compound.
The only flare I’ve every used was an old one that had a sticky paste that burned bright red inside. Stunk horribly.
New ones are basically big, expensive glowsticks.
The stink that comes from old ones is from the sulphur, I’m fairly certain. Hey, a new feature, they cover your scent too! Probably too many variables for one item, though.
What about tons of books which nobody really needs after a Cataclysm?
[ul][]dictionary (big and heavy, seen in libraries and in households)
[]encyclopaedia (very big and very heavy, seen in libraries and a few households, especially in rich households like mansions. If it appears in a mansion, multiple encyclopedias should spawn in a row)
[]telephone book (big and not-so-heavy, seen in many households)
[]catalog (big and not-so-heavy, seen in some shops and a few households)
[]law book (big and heavy and very boring, seen in banks, courtrooms (which do not exist in this game yet), sometimes in offices and very, very infrequently in households, too)
[]poorly written science-fiction (medium-sized and light, seen in households and libraries)
[]cash account book (small and light, seen in shops, offices and banks)
[]song book (medium-sized and medium-heavy, only spawns in churches)[/ul]
This list may go on endlessly, but I stop now. 
Like normal books, it’s technically possible to read them, so the game should treat these simply as normal books. But if you read them, you’ll only waste your time, you won’t improve any skill and you won’t learn any crafting recipe. These books will even bore you (negative morale modifier). So the only purposes of such books are
[ol][li]firestarter[/li]
[li]throwing object[/li][/ol]
The point of this is to introduce more flammable objects into the game. 
And it also adds a bit diversity to the game.
glowsticks are in the current 0.4 release, also you can construct similar things from batteries and some scrap electronics that last for years, can’t remember the name right now though.
Flares certainly would be a nice addition though. Make sure we can ignite gasoliene with them.
[quote=“Austupaio, post:22, topic:1177”]New ones are basically big, expensive glowsticks.
The stink that comes from old ones is from the sulphur, I’m fairly certain. Hey, a new feature, they cover your scent too! Probably too many variables for one item, though.[/quote]
Flares produce their light through the combustion of a pyrotechnic composition. The ingredients are varied, but often based on strontium nitrate, potassium nitrate, or potassium perchlorate and mixed with a fuel such as charcoal, sulfur, sawdust, aluminium, magnesium, or a suitable polymeric resin. Flares may be colored by the inclusion of pyrotechnic colorants. Calcium flares are used underwater to illuminate submerged objects.
According to Wikipedia.
Seeing all this talk about road flares I feel compelled to nominate flare guns.
Real glowsticks are chemical lights. Very low intensity but last for a long time. Let’s you at least see your hand in front of your face.
Dildos. Seriously, for batteries.
Rechargeable batteries
Electric radiators/heaters
Craftable steel/metal bolts/arrows
Icehockey masks in sporting goods stores and sometimes regular houses
cackles
You bash zombie in the head with your dildo (active)!
You bash zombie in the head with your dildo (active)![/quote]
put one in a tin can for a cheap and nasty noise maker
You bash zombie in the head with your dildo (active)![/quote]
put one in a tin can for a cheap and nasty noise maker[/quote]
I will neither condone nor condemn this line of thinking…however, I do need more ‘batteries’
Remember my suggestion for “useless” books? Now I have written JSON for it! If you didn’t noticed it, a recent commit introduced JSON definitions for books.
I introduce two things:
[ul][]a naming convention: the ID of these books start with “wastebook_”. It means that it is a book which is useful for throwing and/or burning only.
[]a new symbol color: I use a red question mark (“?”) for all of these books. I chose red because red is the color of fire. It is the symbol for “wastebook_”s[/ul]
Warning: I did not test any of the code yet (because I am currently not able to), it may even have syntax errors.
Here is the JSON code snippet for all of these “waste books”:
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_dictionary",
"name" : "dictionary",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "A big and heavy bi-lingual dictionary; it is basicly just a very long list of vocabulary of a foreign language.",
"weight" : 8,
"to_hit" : 1,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 5,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 8,
"bashing" : 8,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 30,
"fun" : -1,
"skill" : "null",
"rarity" : 40,
"price" : 300,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_encyclopaedia",
"name" : "encyclopaedia",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "This absurdly big and heavy book, which is part of a series of twenty-something books, contains a lot of definitons of everything, but it is outdated and doesn’t improve any of your skills. Reading it will just bore you, but it is excellent for throwing.",
"weight" : 10,
"to_hit" : 2,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 6,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 10,
"bashing" : 10,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 30,
"fun" : -1,
"skill" : "null",
"rarity" : 10,
"price" : 500,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_lawbook",
"name" : "law book",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "A big book which describes in very exact terms what you are allowed to do in society and what you aren't. Since society does not exist anymore, its contents are highly irrelevant now.",
"weight" : 7,
"to_hit" : 2,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 11,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 7,
"bashing" : 10,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 30,
"fun" : -2,
"skill" : "null",
"rarity" : 12,
"price" : 100,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_scifi",
"name" : "poorly written scifi novel",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "A short science-fiction novel which is really poorly written, even for people that are dumb as a brick. You can read it, but it will just bore you.",
"weight" : 1,
"to_hit" : 0,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 4,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 2,
"bashing" : -3,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 20,
"fun" : 0,
"skill" : "none",
"rarity" : 25,
"price" : 30,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_telephonebook",
"name" : "telephone book",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "Just a long list of telephone numbers of people of which most of them are (un)dead now.",
"weight" : 2,
"to_hit" : 0,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 2,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 5,
"bashing" : -1,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 15,
"fun" : -1,
"skill" : "none",
"rarity" : 50,
"price" : 50,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_catalog",
"name" : "catalog",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "A very outdated product catalog of some random store which probably does not exist anymore as well.",
"weight" : 2,
"to_hit" : 0,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 0,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 4,
"bashing" : -1,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 15,
"fun" : -1,
"skill" : "none",
"rarity" : 40,
"price" : 45,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_songbook",
"name" : "song book",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "Full of songs about god.",
"weight" : 6,
"to_hit" : 0,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 3,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 6,
"bashing" : 4,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 2,
"fun" : 0,
"skill" : "null",
"rarity" : 30,
"price" : 120,
"required_level" : 0
},
{
"type" : "BOOK",
"id" : "wastebook_cashaccountbook",
"name" : "cash account book",
"max_level" : 0,
"description" : "This small book is basicly just about who bought what (and when) at which price in which amount. Reading it is a very efficient way to bore yourself to death.",
"weight" : 1,
"to_hit" : 0,
"color" : "red",
"intelligence" : 8,
"symbol" : "?",
"material" : ["PAPER", "NULL"],
"volume" : 2,
"bashing" : -2,
"cutting" : 0,
"time" : 10,
"fun" : -2,
"skill" : "null",
"rarity" : 33,
"price" : 75,
"required_level" : 0
}PS: please comment on this suggestion, especially if I made mistakes.
Just remembered.
Scythes.
I like to think of them as THE ultimate survivalist weapon. You could even pin those nasty feral beasts.
Not one comment on my ridiculous weapon?! Really!?
@Miloch: Is this gun able to fire grenades and bullets ant once? In other words: How do you want it to work in the game?
Wuzzy, I don’t think the idea of the waste books is a terrible one, but personally I’d wait a bit for sticking them in. I plan to introduce “item variation” in the fairly near future for .6 (setting up the system for getting thing over to json was only the first step), and the first bit of that will be varying names and descriptions.
So you can have one “wastebook” item with identical stats, and a long list of alternate name/description combinations for it. Far more useful than creating a new entry for each book, I think, and honestly not that far out!
That would be a very useful thing to add. If desired, a lot of flavour could be added to items with the randomized descriptions. The Sig Mosquito you picked up might be stainless steel or black. Nothing gameplay related at all, just description fluff.
Wuzzy: The gun works like a M203 mounted on an M16. It’s under mounted. 