Old fuel, old food, old medicine

Almost nothing has been made in five years. Everything you find on a shelf or in a tank is as old as the world, and some of it shows it. Hover an item, or right-click it and choose Inspect, to see how it has aged.

Fuel

Gasoline goes stale in a few months and turns to varnish in under two years, so what you siphon from wrecks is five years old and reads Stale fuel. A car on stale fuel still runs, just badly: it pulls a little weaker, hesitates now and then when you press on, and once in a while dies at a crawl or idling. It always starts again with the key. Diesel, and the jet fuel in a downed aircraft, age far more slowly: five years on they're old but they still burn. Some cans were sealed and treated when somebody put them away, and those still read old but sound.

• Fuel mixes in the tank. Topping up stale fuel with fresh makes the whole tank better.
• A bottle of Fuel Stabilizer treats a jerry can, or about five gallons in a tank. It can't make varnish fresh again, but it cleans it up enough to run much better. Use it next to a car to treat its tank, or anywhere to treat the stalest can you carry. One bottle per batch: a second does nothing.
• Fresh fuel comes from traders, faction depots and the fuel still. Haven's trader keeps a few bottles of stabilizer, and now and then a fresh can.

Batteries

After five years almost every battery nobody looked after is flat. A car battery you find that isn't dead was kept charged by somebody and has drifted down since: it holds somewhere between a sixth and a half. Most will start a car, and driving charges it. Jumper cables work from a running car nose to nose, or from a charged car battery you carry. A Battery Bank at your base or a camp solar panel charges flat ones.

Cans and jars

Cans outlast the end of the world, even five years of it. Some are dented, which is fine. A few are bulging, fruit and tomato most often: the lid is domed with gas, and that means something is growing inside. You can see it on the shelf and in your pockets, and eating one asks you first. Don't. If you do, it barely feeds you and it will probably make you ill.

Medicine

Scavenged medicine has a date on it. All of it is years past that date now, but medicine loses strength slowly and never all of it: most pills are still about ninety percent as strong, and injections and liquids about eighty-five. The item says how strong it is, and so does the treatment when you use it. Antibiotics are harder to find than they were and worth more. Fresh medicine comes from the clinic, crafting and the traders.

Nothing a trader, the clinic or a still hands you has aged. Only what you scavenge has.