Generators are key aspects to survival and hideout management in Darkwood, turning on one will turn on some lamps. Functional Generators can be found in every hideout and some other locations.

Generators require Gasoline as fuel to operate. Those that have Gasoline in them can be turned on, chiefly to allow the player to turn on any lamps originally located in the building to see better and to be shielded from Shadows during nights. Once the Generator runs out of fuel, all lamps will immediately go out.

Generators can be refilled by equipping a tank of Gasoline in the hotbar, holding the right mouse button, and then holding the left mouse button over the Generator when prompted with a refill icon. A bar will appear on the lower screen, indicating how full the Generator is through 5 "chunks", each chunk corresponds to roughly 80 fuel units of Gasoline. Using one full tank of gasoline will refill approximately 2.6 chunks of the Generator, requiring approx. 2 full tanks for it to be completely refilled from an empty state. Starting the Generator at 20:00 and shutting it off at 8:00 (i.e. the whole night) will consume approx. 1 chunk of fuel.

Gasoline consumption is halted during the Time Freeze. It is important to remember that the Generator will continue to run until it is empty, so the player should remember to turn off the Generator before leaving their hideout in the morning, otherwise approx. 2 chunks of fuel may be wasted.

Generators consume Gasoline at a constant rate, even if all lamps are turned off. There is no way to save or conserve Gasoline when a Generator is turned on, and both lamps should be kept on to receive full security.

Note

• Despite what many people think, light may not attract the attention of the enemies^[1].
• In the Swamp, despite Gasoline being hard to come by, due to the rate at which Generators consume Gasoline and the fact that surviving a night gives the player 250 Reputation with The Three, as long as one can manage to survive a single night, this allows the player to receive a steady supply of Gasoline.
• The Table Saw uses a separate fuel source. They do not share tanks and must both be refilled and used separately.

Trivia

• In the early Alphas, the developers planned to implement a talking Generator. This can be seen on one of the pre-Alpha trailers. The idea was that the Generator would begin talking after a certain amount of Essence was injected, but its ideas for implementation were too vague, and it didn't make it into the actual game.
• Also in the pre-Alpha trailers, there are references to a creature that "likes to drink gasoline." This would probably mean that fueled Generators would attract it, but the idea was later merged into other creatures.
• Prior to Alpha 1.2, players could quickly turn Generators on and off, creating an effect jokingly referred to by the game developers as "disco with the Generator."
• It is possible to not use the Generator for the first few nights in the Dry Meadow Hideout, because most night events that occur in this hideout are relatively harmless. After leveling up, however, Shadows will start attacking frequently at night, if there are no light sources in the hideout. Managing the Generator at night becomes much more crucial.

References