Refil torches with dry grass

[Bertazz0]

I'm on the early game for a long while, my house got many torches, when they burn out i have to manually break and replace each one of them. I think it would be a good small qol addition to be able to refill burned out torches with dry grass to  turn them into regular unlit ones.
This could even open doors for you to refill torches with other materials to  increase it's duration and light level if you apply fat, resin or something similar to it.

[Professor Dragon]

In the meantime, use this: https://mods.vintagestory.at/relighttorches

I've done my time creating torches. This just makes things easier in a good way.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I think it's supposed to show that the wood of the torch is burning up. This is to be expected. I think the reason they burn up is to push you towards other light sources, like oil lamps and lanterns.

[Vexxvididu]

Before making enough torch holders for my base, I'd obsessively take them down and put them back up every day to never let them burn up. ....which gets a bit tedious in addition to not being realistic.  I agree ideally you'd feed grass into them.

[LadyWYT]

Or perhaps instead of refilling with bits of grass, have some sort of pitch or resin-coated torch that burns longer. More expensive, but better for early lighting if you don't yet have the resources to invest in lanterns.

[Heart_Afire]

Hmm...if the current Grass Torch burns for 48 hours with a light level of 14, then perhaps a small tiered system:

Standard Torch, 48 Hours, 14 LL
Tallow Torch (Add fat to the crafting grid with the grass): 96 Hours, 12 or 10 LL...reflecting fat's longer burning time but lesser light output
Resin Torch (Stick, Grass, Resin): 72 Hours, 15 LL
Pitch Torch (Stick, Grass, Pitch...which would likely need to be made in a cooking pot): 72 Hours, 15 LL,  Waterproof to rain (Not to immersion)
 

[MKMoose]

My take is that all or almost all lighting should be expendable even while kept in containers, though this change would probably only be suitable for Wilderness Survival and Homo Sapiens. Actual pre-industrial households and towns tended to be extremely dark at night, with work and social life generally limited to daylight.

Rushlights and oil lamps (actual oil lamps using vegetable or seed oils, especially olive oil; what we have currently is more of a fat lamp) would then proabbly have to be added as cheap light sources accessible in the early to mid game, though they could serve as a perfectly fine addition on their own as well.

 

On 11/27/2025 at 12:17 AM, Bertazz0 said:

I think it would be a good small qol addition to be able to refill burned out torches with dry grass to  turn them into regular unlit ones.

Anything that reduces unnecessary UI interaction is a win in my book, though it may be more natural if this required a stick and grass (since when the torch burns out the fire consumes a lot of the stick as well), at which point we end up with a way to craft a torch on the ground, kind of like the current campfires. Place a stick on a wall or stick it into the ground (which by itself could serve other decorative or functional purposes), and then place grass or other materials on that stick to complete a torch. Regardless of specifics of implementation, I do like this idea.

 

On 11/27/2025 at 2:32 AM, LadyWYT said:

Or perhaps instead of refilling with bits of grass, have some sort of pitch or resin-coated torch that burns longer. More expensive, but better for early lighting if you don't yet have the resources to invest in lanterns.

1 hour ago, Heart_Afire said:

Hmm...if the current Grass Torch burns for 48 hours with a light level of 14, then perhaps a small tiered system:

Standard Torch, 48 Hours, 14 LL
Tallow Torch (Add fat to the crafting grid with the grass): 96 Hours, 12 or 10 LL...reflecting fat's longer burning time but lesser light output
Resin Torch (Stick, Grass, Resin): 72 Hours, 15 LL
Pitch Torch (Stick, Grass, Pitch...which would likely need to be made in a cooking pot): 72 Hours, 15 LL,  Waterproof to rain (Not to immersion)
 

Torches that use resin or other stuff would have to still be very cheap or much better than the regular torch to be worth it, at which point it might be simpler to just default to oil lamps. It's not easy to beat something that only takes sticks and grass to keep replacing, while also remaining competitive with a piece of fat in a bowl that lasts forever.

That said, generally a greater variety of lighting and reduced reliance on beeswax candles (which historically were a luxury) would arguably benefit the game greatly, with the one caveat that a new player shouldn't have to choose between multiple different but very similar items. I think it might be fine to limit ourselves to just one new type of torch which could be made interchangeably with resin, wax, and maybe something new as well (tar, bitumen, etc.). Some additional variety or flexibility may come with with substituting grass (which can currently be replaced with cattails and papyrus already) with twine or other materials like burlap. And that might come with renaming the current torch to a crude torch.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 hours ago, Heart_Afire said:

Hmm...if the current Grass Torch burns for 48 hours with a light level of 14, then perhaps a small tiered system:

Standard Torch, 48 Hours, 14 LL
Tallow Torch (Add fat to the crafting grid with the grass): 96 Hours, 12 or 10 LL...reflecting fat's longer burning time but lesser light output
Resin Torch (Stick, Grass, Resin): 72 Hours, 15 LL
Pitch Torch (Stick, Grass, Pitch...which would likely need to be made in a cooking pot): 72 Hours, 15 LL,  Waterproof to rain (Not to immersion)
 

You say that like I haven't crafted an oil lamp or lantern and thought, "BOY I SURE HOPE ANEGO DOESN'T CHANGE THESE SO I HAVE TO REFUEL THEM....."

What I want to see is coal gas lamps so that the coke ovens are useful for more than just making coal coke. Add to your list:

Coal Gas Lamp, powered by coal gas stored in a gasometer (literally a barrel inverted over a pool of water): Infinite burn time provided there is a source of gas. Can use iron pipes to transfer the gas as needed, crafted using iron plates and nails (which would act as rivets).

And since you're already crafting iron pressure vessels... steam boiler anyone?

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Coal Gas Lamp, powered by coal gas stored in a gasometer (literally a barrel inverted over a pool of water): Infinite burn time provided there is a source of gas. Can use iron pipes to transfer the gas as needed, crafted using iron plates and nails (which would act as rivets).

And since you're already crafting iron pressure vessels... steam boiler anyone?

This does already exist in the game, we just aren't allowed to build our own version...yet.

[Professor Dragon]

Or instead of going down our Earth tech path of steam, electricity and nuclear, we could continue further down the Vintage Story path of Jonas tech for everyday use.

Although . . . look how well that turned out last time . . .