Fire in 10: Way way too much

[antibodee]

but you aint on earth son, an who knows what the plants on a RW are actually like. we think its oak, but maybe its actually future oak, a super dense, really hot type of wood that burns ferociously hot.. or some shiz like that. is it really that hard to avoid death by fire? its not something thats come up for me(though my experiences are likely to be completely different to yours anyway)

It's not about death by fire... more so death by result of fire consequences.  Like homes, food storage, ect burning to the ground.  More so than that.. fire causes too much lag and it's annoying.  I stopped playing on maps over medium size because I was sick of the lag it caused when a huge part of the map is burning far far away from my base.   If there was one thing I could change about fire it would be the lag.  On and off screen, but on screen worst of all.  It's not a viable mechanic until that issue is fixed.  I play the newest first person shooters on the highest graphic settings with no prob, but one screen of cartoon fire buries my machine.

[Goo Poni]

but you aint on earth son, an who knows what the plants on a RW are actually like. we think its oak, but maybe its actually future oak, a super dense, really hot type of wood that burns ferociously hot.. or some shiz like that. is it really that hard to avoid death by fire? its not something thats come up for me(though my experiences are likely to be completely different to yours anyway)

Using my amateur science logic here, dusts of many kinds (gunpowder, flour, coal, to name a few) are borderline explosive when atomised and as we get to bigger and bigger particles, things burn slower and slower. Dense, "heavy" wood would surely burn very slowly or even just smoulder. Raging infernos would likely turn the exterior into charcoal and leave damaged wood inside the timber.

but you aint on earth son, an who knows what the plants on a RW are actually like. we think its oak, but maybe its actually future oak, a super dense, really hot type of wood that burns ferociously hot.. or some shiz like that. is it really that hard to avoid death by fire? its not something thats come up for me(though my experiences are likely to be completely different to yours anyway)

It's not about death by fire... more so death by result of fire consequences.  Like homes, food storage, ect burning to the ground.  More so than that.. fire causes too much lag and it's annoying.  I stopped playing on maps over medium size because I was sick of the lag it caused when a huge part of the map is burning far far away from my base.   If there was one thing I could change about fire it would be the lag.  On and off screen, but on screen worst of all.  It's not a viable mechanic until that issue is fixed.  I play the newest first person shooters on the highest graphic settings with no prob, but one screen of cartoon fire buries my machine.

I don't remember having framerate problems even with large blazes. The most stressful thing is probably the smoke effects but I'm sure the smoke effects were culled on my old laptop if there were more than a couple burning tiles.

[rexx1888]

fire causing lag is gonna be a processor thing, not a graphics thing(which is why it doesnt happen for me).

an really, i enjoy the big terrifying fires... what id love is for floods to be a thing

[Silvador]

fire causing lag is gonna be a processor thing, not a graphics thing(which is why it doesnt happen for me).

an really, i enjoy the big terrifying fires... what id love is for floods to be a thing

Oh, oh! Rivers that swell and break their banks during heavily rainy seasons!

[TLHeart]

Fire is a HUGE threat to life, and has wiped out many real world colonies. Even today fire can destroy a small town with all the fire fighting equipment available... look at what the fires in California do every year.   

As for game play, fire needs to be a threat, not I will wait it out until it rains.

Fire breaks are the best way to stop fires. Stone walls do not burn.

If we are basing anything on realism, lighting isn't going to set fire to a square mile radius after a 6 hour storm.  The ground would be far too wet.   Also, lighting wouldnt strike withing the same small area 20 times in an hour, or at least, it would be, statistically speaking, severely unlikely (at least if the climate is anything like Terra Firma).

Really, lightning actually strikes the same places over and over and over. Most wild fires are started by lightning, even after days and days of rain...

Lightning returns to the same area every storm, due to the electrical alignment of the rocks and trees.

Learn to deal with it, by creating fire breaks, quite easy to do.

[Mystic]

So, what are these "anti-fire materials" -apart from cutting grass- we can use to prevent fire from spreading out?

A two thick layer of stone or metallic walls, or flooring of any type. Fire "sparks" hop two tiles at most when the fire is at a full blaze on a tile so a two wide gap stops any fire from spreading.

This has caused me to wonder: do strong winds cause sparks to hop for longer distances in the game?  Your statement suggests that they don't, but it would be extremely realistic if they did (as the Fire Weather Warning in my real-world area today because of high winds and low humidity aptly demonstrates).  Similarly, I'd think that plant seeds would travel longer distances during periods of strong winds.  I think it would be pretty cool if these mechanics were reflected in the game.

Heck, maybe there could even be a "windstorm" type of weather event where high winds could actually knock down and destroy lightly-built walls and exposed structures (with varying percentages of likelihood based upon their construction materials).

[thenightgaunt]

I agree that it seems like fire now spreads much faster. In some cases to fast to even deal with. I had a boomrat die on me on a map and it burned away my entire farm area.

Though this means that now I need to start building my farms intelligently with gaps, sandbags and all the other suggestions from this thread. Which I kinda like because until I read it here I hadn't really thought of any of those techniques.

While the faster fire is annoying, it doesn't bother me too much. Though if it's fast now, it would be nice if there was a "fire response" technology to research that would double or triple colonists' effectiveness vs fire.

[Cassey]

10c.  Didn't see any patchnotes pertaining to anything important.  I downloaded 10d, but haven't seen a need to install it.

Off subject:  But recruitment works a LOT better in 10d, even those with 99% come over eventually.

[Silvador]

So, what are these "anti-fire materials" -apart from cutting grass- we can use to prevent fire from spreading out?

A two thick layer of stone or metallic walls, or flooring of any type. Fire "sparks" hop two tiles at most when the fire is at a full blaze on a tile so a two wide gap stops any fire from spreading.

This has caused me to wonder: do strong winds cause sparks to hop for longer distances in the game?  Your statement suggests that they don't, but it would be extremely realistic if they did (as the Fire Weather Warning in my real-world area today because of high winds and low humidity aptly demonstrates).  Similarly, I'd think that plant seeds would travel longer distances during periods of strong winds.  I think it would be pretty cool if these mechanics were reflected in the game.

Heck, maybe there could even be a "windstorm" type of weather event where high winds could actually knock down and destroy lightly-built walls and exposed structures (with varying percentages of likelihood based upon their construction materials).

I don't think wind is actually 'something' that is in the game, at least, not in the sense that fire is. There's sound effects and wind turbine results, sure. But I'm not sure that wind is an entity in the game that can actually interact with other aspects in the game world. At least, not yet. It would be great to have such a mechanic at a later date, though. I even mentioned in a thread a small way back about having varying amounts of wind in relation to biomes and elevation, something that could have a greater impact on the practicality of wind turbines as a dominant power source. There are already heat waves and cold snaps. It would be neat to see other weather events added, such as hail storms, dust storms, flooding, heck, even tornadoes or earthquakes!

[Dave-In-Texas]

I like the fact it generally takes longer for fire to trigger rain/snow.   it should be a challenge after all.

[Mikhail Reign]

If it's in grass don't fight the fire directly - make mineral earth fire lines (cut the grass it's burning towards and rob it of fuel). Colonists cut grass much faster then the fight fires (especially if you have a decent amount of colonists on plant cutting duties) you can very easily box in a fire and then just let it burn out.

To be honest, this strategy hadn't occured to me at all.. rather brilliant.

I'm a volunteer member of our local fire brigade. That one of the main ways to fight a bushfire - get out in front of it, and make a break in its fuel. Once the fire gets to your break it burns its self out (as long as you don't get a wind change). Thats actually pretty much how I handle every fire in this game. I also build massive colonies completely out of wood, and I've never had a problem with fire.

You can accomplish the exact same thing by ringing your base with a x2 wide flooring of any type by I prefer to make it hands on.

Also, speaking to the frame rate loss with fires - pretty big gripe on my end too. I've got a decently chunky machine that should be move then capable of handling it, yet every now and again I notice that everything is kinda stuttering and I'm like 'hmm, whats going on?' *zooms out* 'oh. fire'

[REMworlder]

Fire should definitely be a challenge; I think framerate is one of the main things that makes it aggravating for most users. Thankfully fire optimization is a recurring update (like in today's changelog entry).

That said, fire isn't often a problem for me. I use fireproof materials most of the time and have firefighting set to 1 for every colonist. If rooms get so hot that things start spontaneously combusting, I set no roof zones so the heat can escape. Worse case scenario, rain or snow appears and removes the fire for me after awhile.

[Dave-In-Texas]

I like the fact it generally takes longer for fire to trigger rain/snow.   it should be a challenge after all.

of course now  i'm finding that rain doesn't put large fires out.. lol.  version 10e;  not posting a bug report because i'm not running vanilla.. 

edit:  decided to test if it happens in a vanilla game and it does, so i posted a bug report.

[ascdren]

Fire not being put out in 10e fixed. Redownload for 10f (now with less petrol rain)