If you take out and warm up all the drinks, then put them back in, it stays warm for longer.

Originally posted by cattivision:

If you take out and warm up all the drinks, then put them back in, it stays warm for longer.

I guess that makes sense, I love how detailed this game is but it didn’t occur to me it was actually that detailed with drink heating mechanics.

Your environment changes the amount of time it keeps drinks hot for. Inside is 3 hours while outside is only 1.

Originally posted by rush_247:

Your environment changes the amount of time it keeps drinks hot for. Inside is 3 hours while outside is only 1.

What is the value of just having it out of the flask then, if you know? Because that doesn’t seem that far off from having a warm drink outside of the flask, I swore I had cups stay warm for at least an in-game equivalent of an hour if not more.

I find the flasks pretty pointless to use. They make for interesting decor, though.

My insulated flask holds heat for ~36 hours and it causes me immeasurable anger when I'm trying to use this joke of an item in Long Dark

I don’t deal with -40C weather IRL or anything, but food thermos and insulated bottles can keep stuff warm and sometimes even hard to eat/drink hot all day, even in near freezing/just below freezing weather.

3hours indoors and 1 hour outdoors — should honestly be like 12-24 hours indoors and 6-8 hours outdoors or something like that imo.


The concept was cool and I used it for a bit, but I just put it on the table in game and just carrying my drink by itself — saves .2kg and the drink seemingly stays as hot as long as in the thermos if just made, otherwise cold it is I guess.

Ok I just double checked on the wiki, I don't know where I got my info from before but I was off by quite a bit. It says 400 mins (6 hours) indoors and 200 (3 hours) outdoors. Maybe there's a bug.

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Insulated_Flask

I think you have to have it on you. But you can't reheat it that way, which is a little weird.

Originally posted by rush_247:

I think you have to have it on you. But you can't reheat it that way, which is a little weird.

I imagine it would damage the flask or something if you heat it directly. You’re not supposed to microwave them (IRL), put them on stove, etc. You’re either supposed to put the hot liquid in it and let it retain the liquid’s heat already, or like put hot water in it first then pour it out and then put the hot liquid in, but never have room temp./cold liquid and heat it inside.

I imagine as well it wouldn’t be very effective either trying to heat liquids in a thermos starting cold. Usually insulated flasks and stuff are for both keeping hot stuff hot and keeping cold stuff cold — not that keeping stuff cold though isn’t usually a problem in The Long Dark. But because of that, I imagine it would require a lot of time to heat up something in a thermos even if it was safe to do, because if the liquid in it is cold, it will stay cold much longer than if it wasn’t in the thermos subjected to heat.
Essentially, an insulated flask will keep stuff hot for many hours in the winter, but put some ice in it with cold liquid, it can keep stuff cold for hours in the summer as well. Even longer depending on the type, put enough ice in an insulated flask and it’ll still have a little ice left literally 24-48 hours later if they’re good enough. So you can imagine how poorly it probably would heat if you don’t take the liquid out.

Originally posted by kamikazi21358:

Originally posted by rush_247:

I think you have to have it on you. But you can't reheat it that way, which is a little weird.

I imagine it would damage the flask or something if you heat it directly. You’re not supposed to microwave them (IRL), put them on stove, etc. You’re either supposed to put the hot liquid in it and let it retain the liquid’s heat already, or like put hot water in it first then pour it out and then put the hot liquid in, but never have room temp./cold liquid and heat it inside.

I imagine as well it wouldn’t be very effective either trying to heat liquids in a thermos starting cold. Usually insulated flasks and stuff are for both keeping hot stuff hot and keeping cold stuff cold — not that keeping stuff cold though isn’t usually a problem in The Long Dark. But because of that, I imagine it would require a lot of time to heat up something in a thermos even if it was safe to do, because if the liquid in it is cold, it will stay cold much longer than if it wasn’t in the thermos subjected to heat.
Essentially, an insulated flask will keep stuff hot for many hours in the winter, but put some ice in it with cold liquid, it can keep stuff cold for hours in the summer as well. Even longer depending on the type, put enough ice in an insulated flask and it’ll still have a little ice left literally 24-48 hours later if they’re good enough. So you can imagine how poorly it probably would heat if you don’t take the liquid out.

very sensible answer

Originally posted by kamikazi21358:

Originally posted by rush_247:

Your environment changes the amount of time it keeps drinks hot for. Inside is 3 hours while outside is only 1.

What is the value of just having it out of the flask then, if you know? Because that doesn’t seem that far off from having a warm drink outside of the flask, I swore I had cups stay warm for at least an in-game equivalent of an hour if not more.

In my view zero... if I need fast heat up from sudden cold or smth, chance I will ahev heat drink ready is very low anyway. It helps sort out inventory of drinks a bit, but imho not worthy to carry such extra weight all the time.

I was so happy when I finally found the thermos, filled it with hot coffee and poked around for a bit, took a short nap and woke up to a thermos filled with ...eh... cold coffee, lol 😁. Threw it behind a ridge and moved on.

On a serious note, I would've liked for it to be a tiny bit more useful. I do understand, it can save your life in certain situations... but the time-window could have been longer. Not really complaining though, I just don't need it as it is now.

A few tips about using the Insulated Flask:

• You cannot heat up fluids inside an Insulated Flask, fluids must be outside the flask and placed on the ground (e.g. near a Campfire) or on a fire's Cooking Spots to warm.
  
• Once an item is warm, you can move it into an Insulated Flask in your inventory.
  
• An Insulated Flask can hold up to 0.8L of contents, but cannot store different types at the same time (e.g. Coffee and Tea).
  
• Once a Flask has contents, you can drop it on the ground near a lit fire and it's contents will stay warm and not burn as long as the fire is lit. This is very useful if e.g. you want to warm up a bunch of teas and then sleep by a campfire, with your teas ready to go when you wake up.
  
• Flasks are quite useful on harder game modes (Interloper, Misery) for the "Warming Up" benefit, giving you a small boost to "Feels Like" temperature for 1 hour, and also restoring some of your Warmth Meter.
  
• The longer a warmed drink/soup is away from a lit fire, the less Warmth/Warming Up Bonus it will give, until eventually it becomes "Cold" again.
  
• I'd recommend carrying at least 1 Insulated Flask with you at all times, but additional ones aren't particularly useful.
  
• There are many varieties/colors of Insulated Flasks. Functionally they are all the same, but they just look different.

It's only useful in Interloper/Misery and particularly in "As the dead sleep" challenge, where it can be a life saver. Otherwise it's not worth carrying it with you.