I have been spending entirely too much time trying to finish up the Firewood Tracker part of it. This is the app that will be free to everybody to use, its actually multiple tools and more. The selection of wood species for btu values, weights etc has grown to almost 600, wild. Note that, the app will be gated, meaning invite only, the only way you get in is being invited by myself or another member. An attempt to keep out the ragebaiters, AI stuff, etc etc. Here is a video of its current state, hope you guys like it There is still some stuff to add and some polish, things like being able to "@Chippy BTU and weight of white oak at 17% MC" and it will get dropped in chat. Fun!
I took what was supposed to be a basic chat system and built it into quite a firewood based game, sidetracked in a good way, I think. The game is called Embertide. It combines two of my passions, firewood and space weather / the sun into a cozy-doomsday firewood survival game. Some cool things about the game, at least I think so: - It uses historical weather data for the gameplay. Right now I am playing a season which uses weather from 1972 to 1975 in the Yukon (Yellowknife). - Space weather is real pulled from NOAA and it feeds into the endgame scenario where the big one hits, a Carrington level flare and CME which fries the worlds powergrids and another catastrophe resulting in a deepfreeze (did you hoard enough wood in the years leading up to it to survive?). It will notify ingame when there is real geomagnetic storming, you could use it as a way to see when there might be auroras should you be so inclined. - The firewood data is real and comes from the database I have been building. Wood species available are those found in areas where you would find people using wood heat, I have them grouped like boreale, temperate, cold temperate, tropical, sub-tropical, etc. Given as the season is in Yellowknife (sub-arctic) Boreal and Cold-Temperate groups are available. When you forage the wood it is green, high MC, it dries over time, splitting and stacking helps it dry faster. BTU is dynamic and changes with the MC like real wood. Green wood causes faster creosote buildup and if you burn too much and do not keep an eye on things you can get a chimney fire and be penalized. You can insulate (chink) your cabin to reduce heatloss and it doubles as a type of fire protection, for when the big one comes. Embers are a type of currency rewarded for certain actions in the game. You can upgrade your foraging with a chainsaw and splitter, which require fuel. Heart is your morale. If you have a woodstove added in your profile of the firewood tracker it will automatically use that, this of course affects how many BTU you get out of your firewood. Beauty and brisk air is good for the mind: You can create a settlement which people can join, members can contribute to the communal woodpile. This acts as an insurance for members, If a cold snap hits and they do not have enough wood they can burn some from the communal pile. You can also !rally them and help them out if you see their hearth is going to go cold (bad). When the game hits phase 2 and the lights go out is when things get tough. Gas is no longer available you run out, due to another catastrophe temps drop far below usual, this is where the hoarding of the 4 years (months) comes into play. I still have some work and some polish to do but the tracker and game are getting pretty close to where I can start inviting people. I have really had a blast with the building of the game. Oh yeah and occasionally traders roll through with some exotic woods, it is wild just how dense and the BTUs of some of those exotics!
It is good enough to let those of you interested in to start using it. You can create and send invites to people from inside your dashboard as well if you like. Let me know if you find any bugs, have a suggestion for a feature, fix, wood species to add, etc. If you use an invite code please let us know which one so I can remove it from the list and save people have to retry codes. Use invite code here to make an account >> Firewood Tracker Invite Codes: 6CA0NRHC4HX29SGZ 8PXK8WKMSBTZ1KVY DE5TSZ51C5DPVCT2 VR8C4DY1V9PPKKPF HMYNFT194ZD3X768 One thing currently missing is BTU tables, they are coming soon.
btu tables are done, if you guys want to get a peek at the app before joining you can do so here: https://firewoodtracker.com/firewood-tracker-demo.mp4?v2
So now that the client facing side is pretty well polished I start again on the firewood seller part of it, if interested you can see a little tour here: Firewood seller tools — a visual tour
