Campfires...

[Cerelum]

Is there a helpfile of how to make them in non wood areas?

I am playing a class that can make camp in the wilderness, but I can't figure out how to make fires.

[mansa]

>help fire

Campfire Making                                                    (Gameplay)

   To create a campfire you need sufficient fuel and kindling.  Once you
have these things then you can make your fire.  To make the fire you
use the craft command.  There isn't a required skill needed to make a
campfire.  Currently, anyone can make a campfire if they have the
right materials.

Once the fire is built and lit it will need fuel or it will burn out.
Things that burn work best for this (wood, cloth, oil, dried dung, etc).  Use the
command 'put' to add objects to your fire.

Syntax:
craft <items...> into a campfire
light campfire
put <item> fire

Example:
>craft twig into tinder
>craft tinder 2.tinder 3.tinder into kindling
>craft branch into firewood
>craft kindling firewood 2.firewood 3.firewood into a campfire

> light campfire

> put log campfire

Notes:
"Forage kindling" will yield materials that can be made into kindling.

"Dung" can be crafted into dried dung, which can then be made into campfires.

Fires will burn and consume items depending on the material they
are made of.  Materials like stone and bone may not be consumed.  Objects
in a burning fire may not be retrieved.  You can extinguish the fire first
to retrieve objects.

See also:
   darkness, extinguish, forage, crafting, light, dung

Delay:
   after

[Cerelum]

>help fire...

So it's just not possible without a branch object?

[mansa]

>help fire

Campfire Making

...

Notes:
"Forage kindling" will yield materials that can be made into kindling.

"Dung" can be crafted into dried dung, which can then be made into campfires.

[rinthrat]

Any character can make a campfire. The blurb about making camp in the wilderness refers to wilderness quit. You can quit in any wilderness room, like rangers could.

Dried dung will work for a campfire instead of firewood. I am not sure if branch objects even work without crafting them into fireworks first.

[Sokotra]

How easy is it to make a campfire with dung?  Maybe I didn't have the ingredients just right but for some reason it seemed ridiculously hard and time consuming the last time I tried.  I don't know if it requires you to be way too specific with your ingredients or what.

[Riev]

How easy is it to make a campfire with dung?  Maybe I didn't have the ingredients just right but for some reason it seemed ridiculously hard and time consuming the last time I tried.  I don't know if it requires you to be way too specific with your ingredients or what.

Its time consuming because  you have to dry the dung, first, you can't just use some sloppy fecal matter.

I think it still requires some sort of kindling though.

[Sokotra]

How easy is it to make a campfire with dung?  Maybe I didn't have the ingredients just right but for some reason it seemed ridiculously hard and time consuming the last time I tried.  I don't know if it requires you to be way too specific with your ingredients or what.

Its time consuming because  you have to dry the dung, first, you can't just use some sloppy fecal matter.

I think it still requires some sort of kindling though.

Yeah, did the drying and everything... just couldn't get the combination right of dung, kindling, etc.  Seemed a bit overboard on requiring specifics when you clearly have enough.

[Bushranger]

It took me a very long time to figure this out as well as requests asking questions about the dried dung cook fires to figure out the recipe. It's unfortunate because the example given only shows making a campfire with wood when I think that is probably the least common way to make a fire when wood is valuable and dung is cheap especially in Allanak and the south.

Tinder/Kindling is not used in a dung cook fire and you just have to get the right number of dried dung to make it.

[mansa]

It took me a very long time to figure this out as well as requests asking questions about the dried dung cook fires to figure out the recipe. It's unfortunate because the example given only shows making a campfire with wood when I think that is probably the least common way to make a fire when wood is valuable and dung is cheap especially in Allanak and the south.

....

Can you put in a request to change the helpfile to include another example?

[John]

Can you just post the example here? It's obnoxious that poor commoners who've used dung to fuel their fires all their life can't work out how to make a dung fire (and yet we're all graced with the knowledge of how to make a wood campfire).

Staff can delete the post if they view it's not allowed. But as I said, it's obnoxious and ridiculous that this isn't common knowledge.

[John]

Everyone can post on the forum though. So I'm saying if someone  knows the recipe for a dung fire that we post it on the forum until whichever staff member can update the help files does update them.

It's stupid that we don't have documented how to refill grills (and according to staff the only way I know involves a bug, a bug I will certainly keep exploiting until they tell me how to do it properly) or make dung fires despite the fact it's a basic and necessary ability to survive in Zalanthas (ICly survive, not survive from a coded perspective).

[Cind]

Making campfires is janky and I've only attempted it one time. I'm not going to jump through that many hoops to make a campfire that seems to burn even large things very quickly. The reason being that if I -could- make a campfire easily, I would expect it to be like the office watercooler, a center for roleplay. Then comes the issue of it burning things up that quickly, and if I'm playing in the south or don't have good scan I'm just not going to have access to that kind of fuel.

I was able to do some campfire rp, when someone else was feeding for one. Was pretty fun, and seems like it should be commonplace. But people just don't seem to make one that often, probably for the reasons above.

I think it would be great if they were fixed, and if (some) animals were afraid of them.

I'm sure the local mekillot would not be afraid of them.

[John]

Making campfires is janky and I've only attempted it one time. I'm not going to jump through that many hoops to make a campfire that seems to burn even large things very quickly. The reason being that if I -could- make a campfire easily, I would expect it to be like the office watercooler, a center for roleplay. Then comes the issue of it burning things up that quickly, and if I'm playing in the south or don't have good scan I'm just not going to have access to that kind of fuel.

I was able to do some campfire rp, when someone else was feeding for one. Was pretty fun, and seems like it should be commonplace. But people just don't seem to make one that often, probably for the reasons above.

I think it would be great if they were fixed, and if (some) animals were afraid of them.

I'm sure the local mekillot would not be afraid of them.

Campfires in the north are actually really easy.

"Forage kindling" almost always guarantees kindling.

A brand new Novice Cooking skill will have trouble in turning the kindling into tinder. After an hour or two of trying (IC hours) you should have 3 lots of tinder though.

Craft tinder 2.tinder 3.tinder into kindling turns it into kindling. DOn't worry if you fail, the tinder isn't destroyed.

Forage wood will almost always get a branch (depending on the grove). Craft branch into firewood will get you firewood every time (may take 3 branches though).

Craft kindling firewood 2.firewood 3.firewood works pretty easy (don't worry if you fail, nothing gets destroyed and you can try again).

1 campfire will run for 3 IC hours (30 RL minutes). You know the fire is about to go out when it "goes dim". Feed it 1 branch or 1 piece of firewood and it will become a medium fire again and last a good while. Worst case: you go through two branches or two lengths of firewood in 1 night.

I've seen people RP out campfires "back in the day" up north. It's pretty cool and thematic. I wish it was that easy and as well documented in the south. It's a big bugbear of mine that it isn't that well documented.

If you want to remove a campfire (perhaps you don't want to leave traces of your presence) then I believe (from memory) "clean room" when holding a broom does the trick, but it has been a couple of years since I've tried. Do note though, that hunt MAY have a chance of spotting the campfire (not sure if it is hardcoded into certain rooms or if it's because there was a PC made campfire in the room).
----
Does all of the above sound like a lot of IC info to post? Maybe. But it's also all 100% common sense. It's great that the code actually works how you would expect it to IRL and that fact shouldn't be hidden. Every single player knows that blowgun use branches from poison for the stalker class but we're going to obfuscate how campfires work? That doesn't make sense.

[rinthrat]

I goofed. Look at the next post.

[rinthrat]

Drying dung should require less cooking skill. It's not a hard thing to do, or shouldn't be. But right now it fails a LOT. It's annoying, does not make any sense, and I don't see it serving a purpose.

[Sokotra]

...and shouldn't we find plenty of dung lying around that is already dried and ready to be used as fuel?  The whole drying process seems to take too long for enough dung to make a campfire.  You should only need to do that if you've gathered all the dry dung sitting around and you have a hankering to play with the fresh stuff.   

From personal experience, there wasn't enough fresh dung lying around and the drying process and getting the right materials together took me a couple of in-game days, if I remember correctly.

Conclusion:  Seems broken, virtually everyone should be able to forage dried dung most places and get a campfire going in a few minutes.

[Feco]

I also think it is unreasonably difficult to get the materials to make a fire.  Campfires are fun and thematic, and it would be really neat if they were really, really easy to make.

Especially with shit you dig up in the desert.  Neat.

[John]

It'd make sense for "forage kindling" in the desert to produce dried dung. It's more dangerous then digging in the city (raiders, scrabs, gribblies), it's more costly (higher water cost) and there's more chance of failure (producing dried dung). But on the upside it's potentially quicker. Seems like a pretty good trade off to me.

[Riev]

It'd make sense for "forage kindling" in the desert to produce dried dung. It's more dangerous then digging in the city (raiders, scrabs, gribblies), it's more costly (higher water cost) and there's more chance of failure (producing dried dung). But on the upside it's potentially quicker. Seems like a pretty good trade off to me.

Honestly, I'm for this idea. Forage kindling in desert environment has a chance to find a dried lump of dung.

[Sokotra]

It'd make sense for "forage kindling" in the desert to produce dried dung. It's more dangerous then digging in the city (raiders, scrabs, gribblies), it's more costly (higher water cost) and there's more chance of failure (producing dried dung). But on the upside it's potentially quicker. Seems like a pretty good trade off to me.

Honestly, I'm for this idea. Forage kindling in desert environment has a chance to find a dried lump of dung.

I think they should make it fairly easy to find dried dung in the desert and some sort of dead, dried plant material or whatever.  There's plenty of animals, both virtual and actual npc's, that can produce dung... not just mounts.  Same thing within the city, pretty much, the dried dung should be the actual fuel and you can also craft it into kindling or tinder.  Drying fresh dung seems like it should be an unnecessary last resort in most cases.  I would think that there should be plenty of dead, dried stuff lying around most places in Zalanthas.

[Cerelum]

I've just randomly typed get dung in rooms that I know mounts will frequent, like the Caravan Way and gotten a few handfuls of shit.

I sorta wish that they didn't have a (null) description, so they weren't invisible to the look command.

Also, the drying dung thing is ridiculously difficult, but I'm all for things that increase cooking skill, because brew is hidden behind cooking skill for a few classes and everyone wants brew.

I'd be all for shit showing up where ever there is shit, then shit collectors would be more in demand.

A frilly, red-rob templar screws up his face, "This whole city is full of shit, soldiers find me someone to clean this street up by the afternoon!"

[Brytta Léofa]

"key dung" is what you want, brother.

[chrisdcoulombe]

Mo dung mo problems

[valeria]

I wish wet dung had a decay timer to dry out in the environment over time.  Pros: more dried dung for campfires.  Cons: less wet dung for the dung cart.