Food Overhaul Suggestions

Started by digitCruncher, August 24, 2014, 03:35:03 PM

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digitCruncher

tl;dr:

* Make all raw foods rot after 6-ish days
* Make all meals (including survival meals) non-perishable
* Make a Nutrient Paste Dispenser a workshop, which gains cooking skill, produces (non-perishable) nutrient paste, and requires no cooking skill to use.
* Increase the 'Ate Lavish Meal' skill bonus. (I suggest from +10 to +20), to offset the massive preparation time, and food wastage
Either:
* Reduce the cooking skill gain by 20% [boring]
Or:
* Increase the skill requirements for simple/fine/lavish meals from 3/7/12 to 5/10/15 [as it requires real skill to make a tasty meal that will never perish]

Hi all. Just finished my first completed game (rescued two of the starting 3, although one had severe brain damage from a poorly sutured arrow-in-the-brain injury, and 8 other interlopers) After playing, I have a few suggestions on how to improve food. All of these are reasonably simple changes (I think), and many might even be moddable!

So the largest change I am suggesting, and what is core to this overhaul, is swapping what food rots, and what food is preserved. Currently, raw food is inexplicably preserved, but as soon as you cook it, it suddenly starts to decay! I propose we make recently harvested and butchered food rot after 6-7 days (disappearing forever, as rotted food currently does), but make all meals last forever (as they have been properly preserved, and sealed). The only food that should not swap its 'rottability' are packaged survival meals, which should remain preserved.

This has serious implications for gameplay. The first change would have to involve nutrient paste dispensers (NPDs), as currently you stock them full of non-perishable potatoes, and eat nutrient paste when your cooks are incapacitated. However, since potatoes are now perishable, people would constantly be moving 3-5 potatoes to the hopper as the potatoes slowly rot. Thus, I suggest that the NPD becomes a workshop, that aspiring cooks can make nutrient paste meals from, that are non-perishable, but still have the mood penalty for eating. Using the NPD will also improve the cooking skill.

Since cooks will now be *constantly* trying to work, if possible, to reduce wastage from rotting, we no longer need to the stove on and off in order to ensure none of the meals rot away. This is great from a gameplay perspective, but also means that cooking will be easier to level up. The 'simple' solution is just to decrease the skill-gain from cooking by a flat percentage, but that is no fun. Instead, why don't we increase the skill requirements for unlocking better meals from 3/7/12 to 5/10/15, which means that unlocking better foods requires a developed food industry? Making lavish meals would mean that your cooks are constantly supplied with fresh produce, and the colony is well-ordered enough to ensure specialized people can do things.

The last thing I noticed is that lavish meals are *completely useless*. They take about three times as long to make, require twice the resources, and the only upside is a pathetic +5 morale bonus over fine meals. Sure, this morale bonus lasts a long time, but it really isn't worth it! Lavish meals are not just better 'fine meals', and I understand that. It should be exceedingly difficult to feed your colony only lavish meals, and the slow, wasteful method of producing them makes sense. However, the morale bonus is not worth it, and should be buffed in order to make lavish meals better than fine meals in some situations.

So community ... what do you think about these proposed changes?

MajorFordson

Would certainly need refrigeration for that, but I agree that raw food should rot.

Since Tynan is't sure about getting "chests" into the game, why not simply have a powered item, like fridge coils, to put in a small room which then preserves/cools items in the same room? Then the food can sit on the floor, as normal.

I do think the paste dispenser needs more good sides (doesn't count as cannibalism when human meat is put in) and regular meals also need to be improved, such as making colonists happy by meeting certain dietary requirements. (vegetarian)