Future of food preservation. #24145
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I'd recommend not making kitchen furniture a special case. But allowing any non drafty/moldy cupboard to count for storage. Kitchen furniture would still be artistic etc, but functionally it is the same as any other place with doors + storage. But something like a wire basket or a book case would not have the needed effect on food, as there are no closed spaces in them. Indicating this to a player would help. Such as "you put your apple in the clean cupboard" or "you drop your salami in the cool cellar". Would this allow some rotten food in jars/bags/cans to go rotten but not generate pests? As it would be rotten, but still sealed? Whereas unsealed rotten food would? It would add a layer of storage vs protection vs checking. You would need to check for quality of food, but checking for pests is a different dynamic, and the two systems have their own needs and requirements, instead of both being exactly the same. :) |
I would like to point out here that you are using a rather extreme example. Food preservation on ships was extremely hard due to moist, poor humidity, germs and other nasty conditions. Not to consider the difference in knowledge between that of a typical sailor and the survivor today. Simple knowledge of knowing not to sneeze or cough into a barrel of food already made a huge difference. We should not take extremities when looking at rot timers. I'm well aware that this has been discussed endlessly in the other PR. However it feels like the current consensus by some is that we should take rather extreme conditions when thinking about rot timers. Why wouldn't a survivor be capable of storing his food in decent conditions? We shouldnt assume that every nook and crany is automaticly infested with insects, maggots and mice. A well kept car, room or other area is going to be virtually pest free if a survivor bothers to keep it clean. Especially if the moisture is kept low in the area. Which can be done with primitive tools. Examples here are coal, salt and even simple rocks. All of which can reduce the humidity in a room and in such help fight fungus, insects etc. Underground basements for temperature control are an excellent idea. But the use of a clean room with some coals spread out around should be adequate to storm dry products for a longer amount of time. No t to mention when properly packed. A simple plastic container can already be a great aid here. However I feel like the bigger question here is if such additions are worth the trouble. Part of a fun game is fluent gameplay. Are we really going to force the player to think about packaging their food? Is extreme realism really the way to go? Wouldn't it be better to simply assume the player isn't a blatant fool that throws his food in the dirt without even bothering putting a bag on it. Or perhaps a simple approach where leaving some canvas bags or plastic containers on the floor ensures that the player automaticly puts them to use when storing food. To keep things more specific: Small elevated tables (made with construction), crates, cupboards and plastic containers should all help reduce spoilage. The use of salt, charcoal and other moisture absorbers should further help reduce spoilage. Even floor-pasta as you refer to it, should be a possiblity if a room is prepared for that beforehand. lastly I think storage in cars deserves some serious attention. The amount of players that choose a nomadic life in a deathmobile is likely to be higher than the group that chooses a farmers life. Many players may never even bother storing food in a cupboard in some house, as they'll never make one. |
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That seems a good idea and reasonable, that the game is assumed to do the micromanaging. We don't need to simulate drying out or cleaning an area IMO. Beyond the current game items (rote/splatter etc). Adding a "moist" tile would complicate things, along with adding the need for coal or dehumidifying items. It can easily be assumed any non-damaged surface (tile)/container (item) is "clean" and "dry". The floor-pasta seems more a gameplay mechanic choice and one of simplicity. While storing food on the floor is possible (see grain silos), in real life it is rarely done. In addition, a player is more likely to think "floor bad, table good" for storing food, and reflecting that in the code (either requiring cupboards, or relaxing the rules to allow tables) will IMO better reflect the expectations of a player. |
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I agree with the other points. Before we start nerfing rot timers to account for average apocalypse conditions, we need to make sure the player has tools to keep their own food in better-than-average conditions. My suggestion would be to allow containers like boxes, bags, jars, etc. to increase the shelf-life of food and prevent/reduce pest spawns (probably depending on the container - jars and cans are virtually pest-proof but boxes and bags aren't). Realistically this should stack with the "pantry" idea, but I'm not sure if that ends up being too much micromanagement for the player. To support that, we will also need the ability to put food back into the various containers without having a recipe for every single combination. Vacuum-sealing, canning, and jarring should also be expanded to a system that can be used for most kind of foods (maybe with flags to control which items can be preserved with those methods). There's also a need for player-craftable food containers for people who can't find real ones (e.g. wilderness runs). They don't need to be able to match pre-cataclysm containers in effectiveness, but they should be easily crafted (things like wooden boxes). |
ZhilkinSerg
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<Suggestion / Discussion>
This misses the point, cupboards do not protect food from temperature, humidity, or small vermin (in theory they protect from large vermin such as rats).
No one has said they're not capable, but that they need to take measures to make it happen.
We absolutely should, because in reality, in the area in question, they are. Modern homes have a lot of features present to keep out vermin, but if unmaintained, those measures are going to be quickly defeated.
Yes and yes. If you want to maintain a store of permafood, you need to put some thought into it. Likewise were putting a fairly hard cap on the lifespan of pre-cataclysm food that isn't stored properly to push the player to acquire it elsewhere as they transition from short-term scavenging to long term sustainability. Or they can keep scavenging preserved foods nearly indefinitely, there are a lot of options.
How is this semi-magical interaction any more streamlined than building a larder to store your food in?
Please provide sources for these mechanisms being useful. Also I don't even know what you mean about "using salt", are you just scattering handfuls of salt around your food storage area? I'm very sceptical that's going to meaningfully impact humidity levels.
Give it some attention then, propose some craftable food storage areas 5hat can go in a vehicle. Or don't, it's perfectly fine if nomads have more trouble maintaining their food supply. |
How about a fridge?, like those we already have in every single house?, I remember someone mentioning in the forums that there was a mod that allowed the player to unplug fridges (on the construction menu) and that turned them into an item like the mini fridge (but with much more room) Also mobile kitchen units, FOODCO kitchen buddy and on-board chemistry labs should count as proper storage places for food (the same as a pantry) |
That is fair, but this means that some form of extra action has to be taken to reduce this.
Here I have doubts. I see little reason that every single area of a building or car is automaticly going to be infested with vermin or other living organisms that will spoil food quickly. Any chance that you have some sources for that?
Quite simple. Building a larder requires construction, tools and materials. The use of for example plastic containers is a great alternative to this. Conserving food should not be linked to one single method. Even more so, the use of both a larder and proper containers, should be rewarded with less spoilage. After all, vermin will have a somewhat harder time to reach something in a plastic container/larder
This one is harder. Coal and salt have long been used to help reduce humidity and ensure longer lasting food. Amusingly I keep a bag of coals in my fridge right at this moment, as it helps reduce the moisture in there. What kind of sources are you looking for? Research papers are typically much more specific (and not accesible for many due to the pay-to-read structure). However pulling some recommendation on food storage from google feels much less reliable. Regardless: Overall these articles show that coal strongly helps reduce moisture and bacteria production in an area. In addition one can find many sources on the internet with a simple search that show the use of coal (or salt) to reduce moisture in an area.
The existing fridge is an absolutely fine option here. Alternatively a wooden cupboard (12x 2x4?) OR metal cupboard (steel frame) could form good alternatives to storing food in a car. The interresting subject to food storage in cars is that of heat and cold due to the environment. The concept of cars boiling those inside them on a sunny day is not a strange one. However when those cars are running, their airconditioning can keep the inside temperature and humiditiy more than enjoyable. This can and should be utilized in Cataclysm. A simple option to turn on airconditioning would be a good addition here. Currently entering a car in deep winter will offer the player a comfortable temperature (provided the car has no holes in it). However this should not be the case without some proper heating or airconditioning. Adding this option would, much like the car stereo, offer players a choice in reducing the spoilage of their food and perhaps more importantly; their own comfort. Anyway, overall i'm happy that we can enter a discussion on this topic. Even though the system in cataclysm will never be perfect. It's pleasant to know that we can atleast discuss it. Food spoilage is an interesting, if not complex topic, but one well worth discussing. |
Yep. I was only commenting on when/what we choose as a place to store should automatically be considered clean and dry. If we only consider functioning fridges and the proposed player constructed larder, then that's great. I'm merely suggesting that adding damp/dirty tile flags and player interaction is possible (other games such as Rimworld have this and work well!) but can be rather hard for a player to manage. But if it is being implemented, then with the NPC camp PR, would be manageable, as it would be offloading the work to NPCS. But if as a single player, cleaning/drying constantly in game could get tedious. Perhaps clean/dirty etc should be a seperate part of this? As said, we could assume any non-player produced area is "dirty" and thus, if cleaning is added later, would it be too hard to integrate into this mechanic? Is it better to develop with this one, or as a separate system? As an example, rags currently drop clean. Same with clothes in storage (moths/rats/etc would chew at these!). Should we go the full hog with this roadmap, or just concentrate first on the spoilage + storage, then look at dirty vs clean later? PS, family has been doing some old fashioned self jaring/pickling etc from the allotment. The main risk is as you all say, heat and damp for jars to prevent spoilage and rust on the lids. But hanging onions, putting marrow on a table etc is all that's needed if rats cannot get in. It's once the fruit/veg starts to rot (in heat is quick) that the smaller pests get in/on it. [cititaton boya!] https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/garden/729085/Dream-Gardens-Alan-Titchmarsh-vegetables-fruit-fridge-storage-winter And a use for all those newspaper pages found in a survival game! XD |
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I can only repeat myself. Tupperware and other sealable plastic containers are ubiquitous today. No reason they shouldn't be in the future. I'm sorry if this is too easy or too obvious of a solution, but if we're going for realism, let's be fair about it. Vermin are definitely on the rise during the cataclysm, but if a house is still intact and no windows are broken, for example, there's no reason to assume it'll be any more prone to infestation than a house is today. Well, depending on construction. Plants and vines may crack walls or bad plumbing may wear. I do think cupboards etc. are not enough to protect from all vermin. Moths for example have the uncanny ability to get in almost anywhere that's not properly sealed. They can and will ruin rice, flour, sugar and grains. I think in this context, it may be a good idea to have several storage modifiers, like I think the next big thing could be that these cardboard boxes and plastic bags that most food comes in may serve the function of extending shelf life. So if you have a habit of (U)nloading all your food into piles, you save space but spoilage will accelerate. And that sealable plastic boxes could be a thing. |
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Deserted places can still be used to hang/raise food out of reach of larger pests. Then it's down to container control to keep the smaller ones off? As a reference, Chernobyle has a ton of pictures to show what happens when a place is deserted suddenly (no, the radiation does not affect pest numbers ;) ). This is over 30 years, so much longer than most games would ever hit. While it's is a mess, and a lot of potential for vermin, an open space can be treated the same as an open field/forest? That should at least simplify the mechanic. We only need one set of rules, and it would apply to any area. Leaving only the type of furniture (as said, possibly limiting to functioning fridges/larders/food cellars only) as a valid "safe" food storage area. Any survival/forest/camping storage options we add (keeping off the ground, keeping cool, keeping dry, packing in plastic/cans etc) will be the same in abandoned buildings as in a field camping. Would you agree? |
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I have mixed thoughts about the latest change. I'm going to try to break it down. First off, I do not like how quickly the change came - one of the points of #23986 was that food is now considered to be always stored in bad conditions, without allowing the player to actually create good conditions. The old situation wasn't exactly realistic, because food in the houses isn't going to last forever, but it's also not realistic now, because realistically you should be able to put your rice into a sealed container and it will stay like that for a very long time. Essentially, we went from "food is always considered to be stored in good conditions" to "food is always considered to be stored in bad conditions". I think that the ability to protect food from the elements should have been added before lowering the rot timers. Secondly, I believe that any food that can be stored for more than an year shouldn't rot at all. From the gameplay perspective, if the players allows food in their storage to rot away after keeping it for so long, food is probably not an issue for them. It just clutters the menus. From the realism perspective, this idea also has its flaws - for example, all rice in the game takes exactly the same time to start rotting; for the food with short rot timers it's not very noticeable, but food that can be stored for years should have a very large variance in this timer - taking rice for example, if it's dry and contained, it will last for years, but in bad conditions it can become bad a lot faster. I think that a better idea for gradually removing the food from scavenging would be to introduce a scaling chance that some types of food generated on the map wouldn't spawn or would spawn spoiled - e.g. the chance that starts at 0% after an year and goes to 100% after three years, so after an year you start randomly finding spoiled rice, and after three years all rice that you can find is spoiled, but the rice that you already have with you won't go bad - we assume that the player character is keeping it dry. |
What latest change are you referring to? |
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@Kelenius There are some serious misconceptions behind your opinion.
Thats wrong.
I disagree with that. Lot of nonperishables got so long spoil time, as for game's perspective (and You noticed that too), that I don't know why anyone should be hectic about it. With all the posibilities for food producing, you just make this long-lasting perishable food and you'll eat before you ever consider it going bad. Hoarder? Drop them in the basement or in (hopefully soon to be merged) rootcellar and more then double it's life.
Now, this is something that I think is achievable, by manipulating rot time on item spawn (RNG to the rescue). I will add this to the list of ideas, when i sum up the discussion. Also let me restate the basic conception of temperature'e influence - many people think that spoil rate is fixed. It is not - this value represents room temperature standard for decay. Lower the food's temperature and you get longer lasting food. Raise it (hot summer time) and your pizza might not last a day. Pray that @kevingranade won't ask for humidity check for food decay, becouse code-wise its more then possible to do. :) "All glory to the weather daemon." I'ts not a coincidence that PR #23986 was introduced along with #24073, #24057, and (pending) #24083. And even #24149 for that matter. Those are new mechanics for the player to actively seek ways of food preservation. If there is more to be done - here we are to find out. As for realism - aspic (and so many other short lived comestibles) was an immortal food for how much time? I couldn't pass by such na insult for realism. @TechyBen rather then Chernobyl check reports and videos from Fukushima quarantaine zone about time-induced destruction and decay - its more relevant if you think about how much less time has passed there from the event. @Tharn I like the idea about flags for different storage conditions. It's a solid one. For example if you place fresh meat in a container (Tupperware or not) it's not gonna last any longer that a piece left unpacked. You may vacuum seal it, with the same effect. Other food types however need other storage conditions, some even like high humidity for example. Some hate freezing, etc. If the ability to put food in a package (foil, plactic bags, even wrapping ppaer, etc.) will find its way into the game, I'd like to see that happen. Also - rain falling down on food left outside might be directly influencing (penalty) food decay. Just something that might be implemented. @GroeneAppel my not-so-extreme example was RL counter for other extreme examples but on other side of the spectrum, like the immortal food concept that still lives I see in people's minds. I also like to watch Youtube wideos of MRE opening from WW2 or Wietnam Era, but that does not mitigate the fact that even military-grade MRE's have a time stamp on them, and army's stocks are replaced on a schedule. I will say this again and again - no food is immortal, and as I and @kevingranade said multiple times - its all about storing conditions. Extreme examples often include industrial vacuum packaging (canning) of vacuum freeze drying products that removes more water than any household can achieve. Then it is stored in invariable conditions in cold dry places. In such conditions it can achieve extreme out-of-spec duration of edibility lifetime. I do not deny that. But it was not those extremes that were considered, becouse we talk about food that is either made for standard consumption, not for ultra-survival needs, or simply home-made product. Its average food with average life, no extremities, and sources used for determining life-time assume that too. Nor do I deny any present method of making food immortal, like pickling in glass jars, vacuum-drying, etc. Other methods prolong comestibles' life, but not eternaly and that's a good thing. But as mentioned above - storing conditions were not influencing the values set. We may now, at this point, consider how those conditions should be used. This is what this discussion is about and thank you all for participating. I however must remind everyone that it's not for contesting approved ideas, but to find a way to move on with the further development on this matter. |
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Actually, we have irradiated food, right? and we already have atomic coffee machines right?, so why not make a "Portable" food irradiator, a machine that you weld to a vehicle and drains loads of power when active and it just sterilizes all food placed within it (after like two hours or so) increasing their shelf life dramaticly. It could be a rare spawn in groceries or something (factories?) or possible craftable with high mechanics and electronics, using the plutonium batteries or the microreactor CBM as ingredients. |
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@DemAvalon That is a brilliant, fantastic idea, although I'd prefer it was a food factory industrial machinery, as citizens don't walk or drive around withe a portable hi-power x-ray machine. I already have few implementation ideas in my head, including possible radiation based side effects, etc. Definitly a queued PR on my side. Would need food factory json'ized map also. Ideas welcomed. |
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@nexusmrsep I agree Fukushima is also a good example for short term damage and rot. See: I see food on the shelves still, while vac/plastic packed. Almost certainly rotted if not long shelf life foods (it's fish, YUK! 😋 ), but not all torn by larger vermin, or spoilt by smaller (though again, depends on type of packaging and how long, cardboard would start to fall apart, plastic less so). A simple cupboard would keep rats out until they chewed through the wood. Plastic container would keep flies out for a long time. Anything left open on shelves would get infested and overrun very quickly though! I'm just asking, if we consider packed/jar food to be vermin proof? Putting in player constructed long term food storage (currently only fridge and proposed food cellar) to be vermin proof? That seems reasonable, with all other areas being vermin risks. Would packed foods (plastic/jar/can) being much much more vermin proof in the short term? And having different levels of different vermin proof (plastic only fly proof, not rat proof)? [edit] http://archive.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/12/japans_nuclear_exclusion_zone.html Things like the oranges also show it's a "half life" like process, with some going quick, others holding on longer. |
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Also, irradiated food doesn't last forever. It's meant to extend shelf life, but what does that actually mean? I've read reports of shelf life of irradiated shellfish being around 6-7 days, irradiated and vacuum-packed papaya being 60 days. |
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I updated the initial post. |
So (as always) there are two ways to approach that:
I see benefits in both paths. |
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Yeah, I always though irradiated fruit and veg just gets a few extra days? And that the long shelf life in game was a missed update from when rotting/aging got introduced to the game? I cannot find any data on length of spoilage for irradiated foods, just "it helps", or "up to double", and mainly for meat. Already dried/preserved fruit and veg may get longer, but currently dried fruit/veg in game is already long term... However, when I've got irradiated fresh strawberries/salad (could also be UV treated in this country) it only adds a couple of days. So I guess we just need to decide which tech or process is being used. I'm no expert there. @nexusmrsep Hahaha, yep, it's making me want to go there on holiday! Certain foods could not be eaten in bulk by the animals large/small enough to get to them. Such as sugary sweets and rats vs sugary sweets and a pig. However, population explosions of rats/mice would destroy those stores quickly (see Mice Plague in Australian grain silos! :O ). So again, very location or storage dependant. So it would depend on how we wish to simulate/artistically paint New England. Do we say closed grocery stores are rat proof but not cockroach proof? Or do we assume they are all run down and damaged from the first few hours of the fight? |
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I like the more RL approach, so instead of being the ultimate solution its then a excellent tool to aid food preservation, so that when all is combined (proper packaging, proper food storage and irradiation) it makes for food that will last a real long time. I really don't like the Idea of having to go to a specific place and use a finite resource to help food preservation, I'm okay with it having adverse effects like atomic coffee though. |
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For RL approach I need some values, so I've done some research. There is ton of sources about food irradiating (see for yourselves, very illuminating material) , but most of them are useless and not giving any values about shelf life impact or comparisons. Found fome science articles, not many though... Few abstracts:
I do not believe that i will find more, aspecialy for each and every items that had irradiated variant in game, so in my opinion it's safe to assume at least tripling spoil time for irradiated food will be fine. Objections? Thoughts? |
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Personally, I would err on the side of longer spoil times, like 4x. I would also not add this radiation machine. Don't really see the use for it, when 1) better modes of preservation exist, 2) this one should realistically involve plutonium cells and 3) we're shrinking down an industrial complex into a more or less hand-held device. I would rather see more recipes for primitive modes of preservation, such as being able to air-dry fruit. |
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Why not both?, you could have the factory one be safe, reliable and it has no adverse effects on the food, while you could have the "portable" (something you have to weld to a vehicle) be a piece of junk that uses loads of power, leaves radiation behind (like atomic coffee, for example) and could even mutate fruit (add a mutant fruit item that could have all kinds of effects when ingested) but the trade off is that you can put it on your death mobile. Also @Tharn you can already dehydrate fruit (and vegetables and meat) using a smoking rack(it counts as a charcoal smoker for recipes), that is pretty primitive. |
[edit: Electron-beam accelerators utilize an on-off technology, with a common design being similar to that of a cathode ray television.] |
I think that is a great way to go about it, have food factories normally have the normal huge one, but rarely they have the "compact" one, and the description could justify by saying its cutting edge technology, and the factories were getting some to test it out, but then the cataclysm happened, so they never really installed those, so you could have them in a room (something like the final room in labs) that has some kind of challenge even (like having to find the factory manager's ID card or something to get in) so it could feel very rewarding to explore the factories. Although that is probably out of the scope here, sorry. |
@kevingranade Yes, Ray Mears did this with a stone knife. Made some nice "deer chops" and "deer wings" to carry with him (no modern hygiene needed). (5 mins video clip : https://youtu.be/Th6EOlLK0DA?t=34m59s ) This would need training/experience. But after that, it would be a time and weather (rain/heat?) based limiting factor. As I've mentioned before, signposting to players seems fine. If these foods are given lesser lifespans, then "it's dirty" or "it smells bad" (as it currently has) style flavour/lore text matches better than "it's rotten". Though, saying that, even quick rot food systems, may force players into managing eating rotten foods in emergencies (as in real life!). Would be an interesting mechanic if food supply balance in game went in that direction (due to zombie risks, or just supply/demand balance). PS, the idea that a tiny amount of (just) recently spoilt food, having minor/manageable effects, then anything above having very bad effects (as rad builds up in game, but much quicker for food poisoning!) seems an interesting game mechanic. Just feeling queasy, vs the current game mechanic? Perhaps just from eating lots of "old" marked food (so actually adding more risk to the current system). |
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As I brought up before, I actually really like the idea of food poisoning becoming something more like rads mechanically, so there's a lot more nuance to it instead of binary states, and it would allow the buildup across multiple foods. That way you're not just making a stack of sandwiches to carry around with you to eat as they get old, for example, because that's more of a risk. You'd make the good food when you're safe at base, and only enough to feed yourself in the short term. The rest would be aged, dried, converted to jerky, etc. for longer-term storage. |
Real life RVs already have refrigerators and freezers, but I guess those are different from the ones in houses, however, considering we can put tank cannons on our vehicles, I doubt the weight of a house fridge would mean much to the average death mobile, and laser cannons with quantum solar panels I don't think the power draw of a fridge would hamper much. |
I think that with current, new spoilage system, we're getting there naturally, even without new food poisoning - you can only make so many sandwiches or other food before it'll get spoiled before you'll eat it all. |
If you can manage to get a tank type vehicle working, yes a refrigerator isn't going to be much of a challenge, but expect this to get harder to accomplish over time.
Same situation here, power production is currently broken, expect it to be fixed in the future.
That's not how food poisoning works, it's generally not a poison, it's a chance of being infected. Theres no safe amount of risky food you can eat, every time you eat risky food there is a chance of getting sick. |
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I also don't understand how food poisoning can be non-binary. You are either sick or not. Either your stomach and guts digest the food, and fight the bacteria or not. I see it more like a statistical chance based on strain that you force on your immune system. Let say your immune system is at nominal 100 value. If you eat large amount of maggot infested, mold ridden, rotten to the bone meat, it would count as lets say -150 value, so it blasts thru your system like a bacteriological bullet of a highest caliber, giving you no chance but to make world record attempts at projectile vomiting. But if you eat a bite of a slightly off venison that you held on for a day too long, that might be considered at lets say -25. 100 - 25 = 75 % to stay healthy and 25 % to spend the rest of the night in the outhouse. Also, your immune system got worse from chomping down the stinking venison, so if you are brave enough for another bit its a 75 - 25 = 50%. And now it fifty fifty, and you might not like those chances any more. So at the end you get 0-1 system for the illness, and non-binary for the chance of it happening. I'm not 100% sure if current hidden health value would be a good measurement for above, but it sounds as a good lead. |
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One way I could see it being non-binary: Different foods carry different bacteria. They also rot differently. Meat and eggs for example are known to easily become dangerous when they go off; even when fresh, you may need to cook them properly to not risk an illness. Fruits and veggies seldom are that dangerous even after they spoil. The risk here lies more in contamination with animal feces as fertilizer or during processing. Home-grown plants in Cataclysm should have a very low chance of causing food poisoning. Higher if fertilized or if the ground is contaminated by blood, bile, etc. |
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Yeah, don't quote me on hard figures here, but some food poisoning can kill you, others just make you feel queasy, others make you go the loo more often. If it was linked to food portion size, so eating a tiny bit of old food having a small effect vs a whole rotten lasagne (though some chars just would not be able to "force" the eating, till at least "starving" status). |
Actually, it is, for the most part. All food has bacteria and other microbes on it. The reason why food is considered "spoiled" is because it reaches a critical number of bacteria, which has a higher chance to overwhelm your system, but it's not guarenteed. Every time you consume something, your body's doing its duty, fighting off the bacteria. That's why HIV/AIDS is so deadly; it severely weakens the immune system, and you need to be extraordinarily careful of what you eat and how you eat it, so you don't introduce more to your weakened system than it can handle. Same with when you're already sick, your body comes to tolerate less of a range of foods and food qualities. These concepts are already (very) abstractly given in game via the "strong stomach" and "weak stomach" traits as well as "poison resistant", in that you're less likely to vomit (instead of purging the contaminated material, just able to fight it off) and you have a higher tolerance to poisoning, as well. What IS binary is not whether the bacteria are there, but whether they've been successfully fought off. If they haven't, that's mild food poisoning. Your threshold is then weaker to the next bacteria, as they're still trying to fight off the first wave. This makes it easier to get a longer lasting case, or for another strain to set up inside of you as well. It's also not a one-and-done sort of check, but the bacteria constantly multiplying and either they release toxins to inhibit your immune system like campylobacter, where they can survive for weeks at a time before you suffer from the deleterious effects of food poisoning, as they gain critical mass inside your body rather than before ingestion, or things like salmonella, that just directly release toxins into our systems that weaken us by giving us the runs (the body reactively trying to cleanse the infection by flooding it out) and vomiting, losing a lot of nutrients and more importantly fluids which diverts resources from going to fighting the infection, so it's easier for them to multiply. E. coli strains release a verocytotoxin which damages blood cells and can cause irreparable damage to your kidneys, which can itself lead very quickly to death; it's naturally present in every animal's gut flora, too (which is why when making sausages you need to thoroughly clean them, invert them (exposing the inner surface they live on to the elements), scrape off the mucal layers (where most of the bacteria reside) and then salt-cure them to ensure no bacteria remain. Botulism's toxin seeks out nerve cells to infiltrate along a specific receptor path and damage the protein structure needed for the cell to communicate with others, which causes paralysis; if this happens to the heart, or the lungs, or the brain... well, you're dead. That's why botulism is so deadly, by the way. Not because it's hard to fight off, but because the toxins released are so potent that it only takes a little to cause a great effect. It's the toxin that kills you, not an overabundance of botulism. That's also why pressure-cooking and canning hve to be done right, because if you don't, then you don't destroy the spores and they produce more toxin. The toxin itself is rendered inactive by boiling for ten minutes. Long and short of it is this: Modelling all that on different levels depending on what you eat is way too complex. That's why I gave the example of an abstraction to a rad-like value that increases as you consume foods and decays over time (representing your body successfully fighting off the infection of bacteria), but adding an influx of bacteria also means that your body is harder pressed to fight them, and the first symptoms can show up. Some bacterial colonies are so potent that they only need a little to infect you, so they'd have proportionately high 'food poisoning' values. Others would be low grade, but would last for a long time, passively reducing your natural food poisoning decay rate and increasing by small amounts over that long time, and so on and so forth. |
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Another small idea. Assume you have a single stack of food that lasts 3 years. You put a third of it in the fridge, then an hour later you put another third in the fridge, then another hour later another third. You now have 3 stacks. It would be nice if long-lasting foods made spoilage checks more 'lazily' like once every day, so that player processing or very slight handling differences did not result in so many stacks. |
This is the main reason why I think that long-lasting food should be just immortal. |
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#24306 made me thinking if it was ever considered that food nutrition can be based also on carbs/fat/protein composition, with appropriate daily need for each component. It is noticible that many irl hi-cal sweets are in game low nutrition items to offset the lack of C/F/P representation. This would be a fine and reasonable addition IMHO in the food department, even if it would be linked with no-vitamins mod/option by default. |
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I do like it. I recall individual components affecting final result being a suggestion made more than once, not only for food. Certainly it'd be pretty nice in general, though would also require quite some adjustment of qualities depending on ingredients. For food, though, it shouldn't be too hard, just take time. As per #23141 though, first nutrition values of different ingredients should be rebalanced and made more believable. Both when it comes to 'hunger filling' value and actual vitamin/nutrient content as currently the game does pretty badly in this regard - as I've mentioned previously, a diet far more balanced and healthy than how many people live on average, in game still leads to considerable, even crippling deficiencies quite quickly. |
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I like the idea of a protein/fats/carbs system, but it'd have to be handled properly. High carb food is great for energy stores, which would result in pretty quick saturation from high carb sources like potatoes. However, carbs also get digested a lot faster than proteins or fats do, which provide longer-lasting but slower energy gains. This should tie into the stamina system directly, as well, which honestly needs to be made a larger range, so that iit takes a longer to recover to peak stamina, but you can increase your recovery rate in the short term by ingesting more carbs, and over the long-term by ingesting more protein; fats are more of a mid-term, as they are a carbohydrate, but they're a complex one; a triglyceride that needs to go through lipid metabolism. Furthermore, a high-carb diet that doesn't expend most of the excess calories consumed would lead to obesity and general health issues, just as a high-protein diet would lead to constipation, kidney stones, and osteoporosis. We could simulate this imbalance through temporary use of traits that already exist in the game, with the "Languorous" trait http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Languorous for high-carb diets, and high-protein diets could get "Meat Intolerance" http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Meat_Intolerance as their gut acts up and they have issues with digestion.
This really does need to be taken into consideration, though, first and foremost, if the current vitamin system remains. Honestly, though? I'd rather see it abstracted out to the common food groups- grains, meats/legumes, dairy, vegetables (legumes also count here), and fruits. This would also further encourage static bases, and you couldn't just pop vitamins all the time to have a balanced diet. This would give further strength to "deluxe" food items, and encourage people to make the higher-tiered food, as they contain a larger variety of ingredients in any given portion. 55g of dandelion greens, for example, contain all the vitamin A you need in a day, and 32% vitamin C, as well as 10% and 9% respectively of calcium and iron, so it's not like you NEED fruits over vegetables, even to deal with scurvy. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2441/2 It would also deal with the issue where all baseline-edible 'meat' is considered the same item, without the need to add a whole bunch of variants for accuracy, and mean that you can't just subsist on nothing but bread from grains; you have to diversify your meal plan. |
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Kinda sorta chipping in with a new idea regarding preservation. I've read around and supposedly aluminum cans can be used for food preservation. Perhaps they could be used as an alternative to tin ones (with addition of 2, 3 pieces of scrap iron more since they'd probably use some tinkering to fit the role)? During the game aluminum cans keep piling up without having too much of use when they easily could fill the role of other items. Alternatively, ability to slightly tinker with them and some soldering iron/welder could allow turning cans into metal canisters - which then could be used both for food preservation and, added bonus, other improvised things using those small metal canisters. |
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Falls in under the "packaging" category. I have not yet even remotely visualized myself how would it work code-wise, but there certainly are some functions to pack items in containers, so there are some foundations for future PR's in this category. But as of now, I'm working on "field dressing" behind the scenes and will create a PR when it's more or less done. |
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Looking forward to it, @nexusmrsep - I assume you mean to do it as a new feature? |
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Yes, new feature with nothing to do with recipes |
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number 13 is addressed by #28521 |
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also number 8 is partially enabled by #27252 |
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It looks like nuts from nut trees do not expire currently. This is incorrect. They last a while, but they expire because the fat goes rancid. Here's a great resource that you can use for various nuts: http://www.eatbydate.com/proteins/nuts/how-long-do-nuts-last-shelf-life-expiration-date/ Irradiated fruit also currently does not expire, which I assume is just because no one has looked at it yet. I would blanket set irradiated fruit to last 4 weeks longer than normal fruit. This seems to be a reasonable (probably too reasonable) median, but in the grand scheme of CDDA it's still not that long. |
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This tracker issue is now obsolete, as majority of the ideas were done and merged, and even built upon. I may return to carbs/protein/fat idea later. Closing. |
and others
This is a discussion thread for further development of food, food preserving methods and all related things.
I'm making this tread, becouse of recently merged changes, to diagnose if and where there is room for more, and what is the direction it should go. There were some fine ideas scattered among merged PR's some of which were adopted on the go, some need to be done separately or go under discussion.
Sum-up of recent changes:
What I want to achieve is a TODO list of things, that i will sum-up while this discussion will go ahead, be editing this post.
Try to propose:
Try NOT to propose:
Feel free to restate again your previous ideas in that matter here.
Ideas proposed:
Mechanics:
Food irradiator - industrial machinery that sterilizes perishable food converting it into non-perishable (or perishable with longer shelf-life) irradiated food (that already exists in-game). High energy consumption might require a separate generator/reactor (plutonium?). Components/elements: generator/reactor, food tray, control panel, rad-emmiter, rad-scrubber (cleans up secondary radiation) . Possible side-effects, radiation based. Game balance control: energy usage, irradiation factor --> scrubber energy/material consumption.
[ PR Added variability in initial decay of pre-cataclysm food. #24209 MERGED ] Introduce RNG to decay state of food spawned in game originating from before cataclysm to simulate different storage conditions. Some food might be less some more decayed when found. (20% +/- change?)
[ PR [DONE] [CR] Field dressing corpses aka Butchery overhaul #24480 ]Field dressing of hunted game as a method preventing fast meat spoilage, plus corpse's rot should affect meat's rot if it was not field dressed before
[ PR [READY] [CR] Freezer & freeze mechanics overhaul #24228 ] Freezer - a variant of mini-fridge that is designed to keep food under zero degrees Celsius.
possibility to eat food past rotten state and old food with increasing risks, also: degradation of nutrition values and fun of old food
embedding recipe components (ex. carrots) to the resulting product (ex. pickled vegetables (carrots)) for more specific use in further recipes.
possibility of jarred/canned food to spoil, but not linear way, just a rng chance rate (that maybe starts after content's nominal spoil time ends)
Revisit Make Nutrition Great Again #23141
[DONE] [CR] Smoking rack interactions expansion #24307 - Smoking rack interactions expansion, ability to batch smoke/dehydrate food while away form the smoking rack
Add food composition system: CARBS/FAT/PROTEIN and appropriate needs and effects for each.
Migrate comestibles nutrient values to kcal values, made possible by [CR]Add "calories" field to it_comest #14613. Display nutrient values in kcal in game menus.
Recipes:
Pickled eggs - in addition to pickling cucumbers/pickes, veggies and meat, to preserve them2 [[Rdy] Quick fix for garlic cloves decay time #24225] Fix for garlic clove not rotting as it should.
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