Fire! Fire! Fire! Huhuhuhuh. Fire! Fire!

Boba Phat · September 13, 2016, 08:07:35 AM

Every time there's a storm in a temperate zone, the entire world catches fire. Besides having to play the game in a burnt-out wasteland, there's the practical problem that it turns my i7 with 16 gigs of fast ram into a 5 fps slideshow. Is there anything I can tweak or any mods which will keep the whole planet from catching fire whenever lightning strikes?

SpaceDorf · September 13, 2016, 09:50:20 AM

There is one with a fire extinguishing mortar ... no other idea

Trblz42 · September 13, 2016, 12:55:33 PM

In Debug mode you can also change weather to Rain to extinguish the fire.

Ruckus · September 13, 2016, 01:00:35 PM

Quote from: Boba Phat on September 13, 2016, 08:07:35 AM
Every time there's a storm in a temperate zone, the entire world catches fire. Besides having to play the game in a burnt-out wasteland, there's the practical problem that it turns my i7 with 16 gigs of fast ram into a 5 fps slideshow. Is there anything I can tweak or any mods which will keep the whole planet from catching fire whenever lightning strikes?

Upgrade your GPU? It's not your CPU/RAM that's the problem.

Though having said that, I have a GTX 1080 and I see heavy frame rate drops when there's lots of fire. It doesn't seem like Unity is optimized for the fire effects in rimworld.

sadpickle · September 13, 2016, 04:42:05 PM

I have a GTX970 and an overclocked i7 and I also get serious lag with big fires. I don't mind it so much because in a couple years pretty much any map is a wasteland, and fires are much smaller. It's a little disappointing to see how easily this happens. There's a number of ways to strip vegetation, and no way to reintroduce it beyond grow zones. And I'm fairly certain there's no way to grow grass, most infuriatingly.

It's be nifty if the game could recognize which tiles had a fire, and regrow grass and trees in those regions after a short delay. Not all seeds are destroyed in a fire and the resulting landscape it very fertile. It's silly for a map to be completely devoid of grass except around the borders.

Shurp · September 13, 2016, 07:53:32 PM

It's helpful to play on a map that has more rainfall so that rains put out the fires.

And don't forget that you can send your colonists out to stomp out fires. Just zone the fires "home" zones. Clear the designation when you're done.

delheit · September 14, 2016, 09:05:50 PM

I do find it a bit ridiculous that it's basically an expectation that any map will lose most of its tree's why isn't the whole rimworld a wasteland if this is how it's weather works, lol.

I have however found that for me a better strategy to fight fires is to mark every plant about three tiles or so away from a fire, about three tiles thick to be cut and then place all my colonists on number 1 priority on cutting plants. Sometimes I will try to work around tree's to speed it up. At this point if the colonists don't need to eat and are not marked for bedtime I can usually get them to very quickly cut a ton of grass and bushes and make the fire burn it's self out. Also I look for ways to use the terrain to make the task easier like rocky zones, water or already bare areas.

Key thing to remember, if a patch of grass is on fire you can beat it out OR you can mark that tile to be cut and tell a colonist who refuses to fight fires to cut the grass right out from under the fire. The little flame will be left behind but with no grass under it to feed it and make it bigger.

ShadowTani · September 15, 2016, 12:01:11 AM

It's not that fires is devastating on the landscape that is the realism problem, because forest and grass fires can be just that bad in the real world. The problem lies with that the landscape doesn't get a significant bonus to regrowth afterwards.

Maybe we get an update down the road with fertilizers, then that could tackle this issue. x3

Scotty · September 15, 2016, 04:00:16 AM

I don't want to set the world onnn fiiireee

Iv never noticed any frame rate drops with fire on normal speed. I do a little if i speed it up though

Shurp · September 15, 2016, 07:03:14 AM

The problem is that everything burns like it's made of kindling. In the real world wet trees just don't burn. Even grass needs some help unless it's been a week since it rained. Vegetation needs a wetness factor that the fire has to dry out before it catches fire. Most fires extinguish themselves long before rain comes.

Serenity · September 15, 2016, 07:22:08 AM

In reality nature regrows pretty fast after a forest fire. Especially things like grass and shrubs. There are even trees with cones that are held together by resin that usually only melts at fire-temperature.

NPCs reacting better to fire would also be nice. I had a whole group of visitors burn to death because their path took them through a spreading bush fire and they never ran away or just recalculated.

SpaceDorf · September 15, 2016, 10:03:58 AM

yes, visitors are strange creatures

It would be really great when they could help out with fires in the homezone.
The defend themselves on their own allready, and I think no colony has yet denied a visitor medical help after that. So with a little help with those situations would go a long way, build community bonds
and most of all closes big logic hole.

After trading with me and looting my food supplies it's the least those guys could do