i know i have a survival-oriented game styling, in fact i like vintage story but i dislike it cause it is not like rising world for its beauty and atmosphere. howerve
1) yes, cause you are forced to build a survival shelter with wood until you find enogh iron in boulder (this is also point 3...good to know that maybe i can change it, i'll look into it)
2) it's more than fuel time, it's point of fusion. In vintage story every fuel has his fusion point, i just need one actually for every metal, and coal or charcoal should be necessary to smelt. Something that turns wood in charcoal should be great, but i think this is pretty easy to make a station that do that, if i can access the code
In my opinion (that's survival-like as i said), it's very easy to add more survival with few things