Topic: Light my shingle  (Read 4814 times)


Sami

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« on: May 31, 2024, 12:35:32 PM »
A new light source is coming up as we'll be adding shingles to the game.
A shingle, or päre (in finnish), is a thin oblong piece of (pine) wood which were burned to produce light, and to make baskets as well. As a light source you may think them as all wooden candle of a sort.

It may feel like a just one small item for an adventurer in the dark cabin, but the required and atmospheric additions will make producing and using shingles a rather significant feature. Traditionally shingles were burnt in a shingle holder which is a stand that keeps the shingle in a good angle for proper lighting and burning. It may be that they were also sometimes just inserted between the logs in the wall - but one had to be understandably cautious without a proper holder.
      I don't know yet if a shingle holder will be required in the game but the idea is that you could leave a burning shingle in place eg. inside your cabin. And moreover, as the shingles don't burn very long we would want to feature automatic "replace a shingle" mechanism where a new shingle eg. from a pile next the burning one, would be lighted automatically if the character is beside the burning shingle when it fades out. This way you could light a shingle, put a pile of new ones beside it, and not need to worry about replacing the burning shingle in time even if the task you were doing would take a long time.

Here's an image of a shingle in a simple single holder.


More shingle news will be posted when the things have proceeded further. And in the background the transition to pausable crafting continues. Oddities with the pausable mechanics have been pleasantly scarce in the latest release so we're on good roll with it.

These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.84.2
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Khripunoff

« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2024, 03:02:48 PM »
This is going to be an excellent addition. In some remote villages in Russia shingles were used as an indoor light source until XX century. Also, a widespread practice was to put a tub of water beneath the burning shingle to extinguish the falling embers, this also very slightly increased the illumination as the water in the tub reflected the light. I wonder if this was also a custom in Finland. If this is the case, it could be nice to implement this in-game, like a tiny increase of illumination, and lowering chances of accidental house fire (if/when it gets implemented) when using a water tub.
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Sami

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« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2024, 05:43:24 PM »
In some remote villages in Russia shingles were used as an indoor light source until XX century. Also, a widespread practice was to put a tub of water beneath the burning shingle to extinguish the falling embers, this also very slightly increased the illumination as the water in the tub reflected the light. I wonder if this was also a custom in Finland. If this is the case, it could be nice to implement this in-game, like a tiny increase of illumination, and lowering chances of accidental house fire (if/when it gets implemented) when using a water tub.

Yes, it seems the customs with shingles were pretty similar here in Finland as well. Shingles were used still at the end 19th century. And water tubs were also used for fire safety, but I haven't came across mentions of their illumination increase. That's quite an interesting aspect to it! However, there were also shingle holders that could take multiple shingles so that was also one way to increase light power. In the game this could be done by setting multiple shingles next to each others. Well, we'll see where it goes with shingles. They truly do open up possibilities for many additional features.
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Fineland

« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2024, 04:12:29 PM »
For a second I thought you were going to add roof shingles to the game. Do you know where I can find any additional information on this topic? All of my searches have come up blank with disambiguation.

JP_Finn

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« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2024, 07:08:46 PM »
Shingles in roofing were lot later than iron-age /migration period in North. First record is from 1830. Article in Finnish: pärekatto