Coal Torches are luminaires providing open fire that can be placed into the world to spend light. They can be placed on floors, walls or ceilings to illuminate areas and will look a little different depending to how they have been placed.
Coal Torches are significantly brighter than Moss Torches that can be made from a starting crafting recipe. However it's much easier for beginners to craft Moss Torches from any kind of Wood and Moss (like from Ashenwood-trees) for a while, even though they illuminate less blocks than Coal Torches, so you don't necessarily need to search for a lot of Coal early on in Creativerse (different from Minecraft). Better save some of the Coal that you will obtain early in the game for the much needed Stone Mining Cells.
Coal Torches can be rotated in all directions by holding r (as the default key) and moving the left mouse button. When rotated individually, the torches will keep their original look that has been defined by where they have been placed first.
The chosen rotation angle can be "locked" by typing "r" as usual, but when more torches of the stack are being placed with this predefined rotation, they will change their look depending on the rotated angle.
In areas that are lit this way, neither Treasure Chests nor Creatures will spawn.
You can craft Coal Torches in your Crafting Menu (default key "q") after unlocking the according crafting recipe by
- obtaining Coal - extracted from Coal Nodes by using Extractors on them in Mountains, on Hillsides made of Stone or from the Fossil layer underground, obtained from Wood Treasure Chests spawning on the surface at night or from other Treasure Chests, or from Keepas of any kind
- and either crafting or finding Moss Torches made from Moss (from Ashenwood trees or Weepwood trees) and any kind of Wood (except for corrupted wood) or Logs. They can also be found in Stone Treasure Chests spawning on blocks of the Fossil layer, or can rarely be obtained from Keepas
To craft 4 Coal Torches at a time you'll need:
- 1x Coal extracted from Coal Nodes in Mountains or on the Fossil layer underground by using any kind of Extractor, or found in many types of Treasure Chests or obtained from Keepas
- 1 Wood Rod made of any kind of Wood (except for corrupted wood) or Log in a Processor
Crafting/taking a Coal Torch is one of the requirements of the crafting recipes for the the Campfire, the Fire Pit and the Wood Burning Lamp (which is even brighter than the Coal Torch and can be turned on/off as well as wired up with activation devices).
Coal Torches can also often be found in Obsidian Treasure Chests (spawning on Stalactite layer rocks, like on Siltstone or Stalactite) and Iron Treasure Chests spawning on Lava layer rocks like Hardened Lava and Igneous Rock).
Coal Torches can occasionally be obtained from Silver Keepas or Golden Keepas too, either as a loot when killing them, or as a pet-harvest after taming and feeding them.
Like all other torches in Creativerse, Coal torches too will infinitely burn and never go out after having been placed. They cannot be switched off nor wired to activation devices.
Just like other torches, Coal Torches will not hinder player characters nor Creatures to walk over or stand in the exact same space that the torches "take up". That's why you can use torches to create air bubbles under water that will help your player character to survive under water. However neither solid blocks nor liquids can take up the same space as these torches.
You can place a number of Coal Torches (and any objects with open fire) next to each other into cold environments and stand on one of them to make the cold meter go down and such keep your player character from taking cold damage, since the torches emit heat.
Attention! As with all sources of open fire, please take care when putting Coal Torches next to, on or especially directly under flammable blocks or plants.
Within hot environments that make a heat meter show up, like Oceans, Jungles or the Lava layer, but also in much cooler Swamplands, flammable blocks like Shredded Leaves (easiest), many types of crafted wooden blocks like Wood Walls, Yellow and Red Carpets and Thatched Walls (easily), natural tree Leaves (rather easily), but also natural Wood blocks that trees consist of, Shrubs and the like can start to burn when open fire is placed next to them or especially below them. Corrupted Wood and Corrupted Leaves are flammable too, but not easily ignitible.
Also please note that Coal Torches emit heat as well, so placing several torches or other heat sources next to each other might raise the chances to set flammable blocks on fire. Heating up an area by placing hot rocks like Hardened Lava can make flammable blocks catch fire more easily as well. Liquid Tar is the one substance that will even start to burn when exposed to fire in cold environments or packed in blocks of Ice or Snow.
The flames are then able to spread to other nearby inflammable blocks, even across gaps of 1-2 blocks, and such can burn down a forest or a whole wooden building in the worst case.
To extinguish fire and stop it from spreading, it is possible to claim areas and make sure that the option "fire enabled" is disabled. Currently fire will not spread on player claims as the default setting, but this option can be toggled by the owners of the claims. It is also possible now to disable the spreading of fire for a whole world by the owner of the gameworld in the world options ("edit world").
You can put Coal Torches safely on display on Wall Shelves or Placemats, where the torches will be displayed in a smaller size and will not light up nor heat up their surrounding.