Flint and Steel

Flint and Steel is a tool used to place Fire in Indev, Infdev, Alpha, and Beta. It must be crafted from 1 flint and 1 iron ingot in this pattern:

Flint and steel places fire like a block when right-clicked. Fire can only be placed on top of fully solid and opaque blocks, or on the sides of flammable blocks.

A flint and steel has limited uses, but it is not a block-breaking tool and so does not lose durability from being used to hit things. If an incorrect placement is tried, it still counts as a use of the tool.

Uses
Flint and steel places fire which behaves just like any other fire. Particular ways in which this is useful are:
 * Creating portals.
 * Lighting mobs on fire. This method deals damage more slowly and is less effective than using a sword, and one must click on a block below the mob rather than on the mob itself, rendering it a difficult way to kill. This was, at a time, the only way to directly damage mobs in Survival Multiplayer.
 * Quick disposal of items, which can be accomplished by dropping the items and then lighting the block under them on fire.
 * Removing floating leaves or trees. However, this may accidentally start a forest fire as fire can jump across gaps.
 * Temporary illumination for a few seconds as the fire burns, or permanent illumination in the Nether (as Netherrack burns forever). In the Overworld, lighting trees and being careful to stop spreading fire will make the light last a significant amount of time longer.
 * When a pig is killed via fire it drops a Cooked Porkchop, carrying a Flint and Steel around allows a player to save their coal.
 * Quickly clearing areas. If one has the resources to build already and wants to get rid of many trees in an area without doing it manually, setting fires on the logs will burn the trees in an efficient, yet dangerous manner. This must be done on the logs, as leaves usually burn without spreading the fire.

Trivia

 * In early versions of Indev, the player started with a flint and steel in their inventory. Flint and steel was also found as loot from killing mobs.
 * In the start of Survival Multiplayer, furnaces did not work. There was a mod that turned flint and steel into a "lighter" that lit the furnace and made it work.
 * In the early days of Minecraft development, Notch released videos showing smelting with a flint and steel in single player shown, but this was removed somewhere after the game was around Infdev.

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