How Vital is the Magnifying Glass?

[Metanoia]

I'm not sure how most other people feel about finding or not finding magnifying glasses, but to me it's the gateway to a 300+ day run, like if you're planning to survive for any extended length of time it's basically needed because you'll eventually run out of matches.

Do most of you feel that not finding a Magnifying glass is a death sentence?

Would some of you like to see some other way to start a fire, but make it require certain materials or more time/resources/other tools?

[Metanoia]

Personally, I think I'd like to see something like a spindle-starter for a fire, and just make it require something like 1 cloth and reclaimed wood/arrow shafts/branches?

It'd have a vastly reduced chance of starting a fire, but more then enough durability to make it viable, Possibly like 25-50 uses with no recoverable items.

The Success chance could start at like 2-5%, Something like 10-15% Maximum chance with level 5 firestarting, and fuel can only make it improve by like 10% at most, and make it time-consuming to do, maybe like 20-30 minutes per attempt.

Possibly even make it require a certain amount of tinder to even attempt that sort of fire-starting method, maybe like 3-4 tinder bundles to make 1 attempt.

[Captain Dan]

In Interloper, perhaps - but I find in Stalker, that there are way too many matches. You can reach 300 days and still have hundreds of them left if plan your fires properly, just boil lots of water at a time, you can soon have a few hundred liters saved up.

I guess cooking meat could be a problem long term, but again, I've reached day 300 and never really had a problem, just save up my harvested meat and cook it in batches, then store outside.

I see where you're coming from, but I wouldn't say it's a death sentence.

[cratereus]

Forget extended survival. I only had my starting matches for my current run. I *had* to use the magnifying glass until I went out of the starting area and into the mystery lake zone. Now I've got 60 matches, which should last a good long time. I don't have the patience for a 300+ day run, but I think I might actually visit this run from time to time to get my 100 and 200 day badges just for the hell of it.

I wouldn't mind having a more difficult way to start fires that required more of a tradeoff but wasn't quite so limiting as the magnifying glass. Then again, I think I could live with it for a while as long as I could set up a decent base.

[Metanoia]

Originally posted by Captain Dan:

In Interloper, perhaps - but I find in Stalker, that there are way too many matches. You can reach 300 days and still have hundreds of them left if plan your fires properly, just boil lots of water at a time, you can soon have a few hundred liters saved up.

I guess cooking meat could be a problem long term, but again, I've reached day 300 and never really had a problem, just save up my harvested meat and cook it in batches, then store outside.

I see where you're coming from, but I wouldn't say it's a death sentence.

It's just that if you don't manage to find one that your run has a hard limit on how long you can live.

Technically if you've got the magnifying glass you can live forever because you can start infinate fires, once you run out of matches without one though, you're dead.

Idk, I'd just like another fire-starting method implemented that wouldn't totally make matches irrelevant, but would give you more options, albeit costly and time-consuming ones.

[cratereus]

Makes me think of the scene from Castaway. "I... have made FIRE!"

[JiffyPopKids]

I've NEVER used it. imo wood matches are best untill you run out of them. and by that time, you'll have level 5 firestarting.

Edit:

Aparantaly I posted this twice... o.O

[ajb1978]

The only time I seriously used the mag lens was when pursuing the Fire Master feat. Although after a while I got frustrated having to plan around the weather, and deliberately ruined my run by using up my matches.

The way I figure it, every run ends some time. Better to go out with a purpose.