Animal Personhood / vegetarianism is confusing

Started by ExampleHat, July 25, 2021, 10:39:41 AM

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ExampleHat

While I love the inclusion of Animal Personhood as a belief, it feels a bit confusing and not properly tested.

Part 1: What counts as "meat" to trigger the debuff from the precept?

I currently have 3 crashlanders with the belief Animal Personhood and Meat Eating set to abhorrent. For playtesting I started with milk and unfert. eggs.
When they drink milk / eat a meal cooked with milk, they don't get the "ate meat" debuff.
When they eat unfert. chicken eggs (either raw or in a meal), they do get the "I ate meat debuff"

The game clearly states in the description: Eating meat is evil. Not Eating any animal product is evil. Also, the game clearly puts meat and other animal products in different categories in cooking, namely: Meat, Vegetarian, Animal products.

Since eggs are listed as animal products and not meat, they should not give the "I ate meat debuff". On the other hand, since milk eating /drinking doesn't give the debuff, this might just be a bug.

So either the description of Meat eating - precept is wrong or the eating of eggs is bugged.

For Part 2 I assume that eggs are bugged and milk and eggs are ok to eat for believers in the "no meat" precept.

Part 2: Vegetarian or vegan meals

In real life, vegetarian usually means ovo-lacto-vegetarian (so no meat but milk and eggs are ok) and vegan means no animal products at all. The actual book definition of vegetarian rather matches with vegan ("just plants"), but in common language vegetarian = milk and eggs are allowed, vegan = no animal stuff at all.

In the cooking bill section of the game you now have the option to cook vegetarian meals, which is fine, but it goes by the mentioned book definition, so only plant or mushrooms are allowed. While technically correct, this is a little confusing since most people would assume vegetarian = milk and eggs are allowed.

This alone is not an issue, but it gets confusing for whom the vegetarian meals are meant for. If the Animal Personhood believers are allowed to eat milk and eggs (as the description of the precepts imply), then why have an extra option in the cooking bill for meals without animal products at all? For whom is this extra plants-only bill in the stove, if the Animal Personhood believers are cool with milk and eggs? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a meal option just without meat, if the meal restriction is just about the meat?

Sorry for the long text. tl/dr:


1. Either the description of the meat eating precept is wrong or the outplay in the game is buggy. Eggs are not meat but give the "I ate meat" debuff.

2. The option for "vegetarian" meals is confusing, because what it us doing does not match with what the meal eating precept is about. It disallows meat and animal products, but the precept only forbids meat, so why not allow milk and eggs?

Did anyone of you who played around with this have a different experience? Am I just missing something? This issue kind of ruined my vegetarian colony that wanted to rely on eggs.

To be clear: I am fine with whatever way it is designed, I just would like it to be consistent.

zgrssd

Generally everything that is shown under Food -> Raw Food -> Meat should count as meat. But for this, Human meat (and possibly insect) might be excempt as well.
If it counts unfertilized eggs, that is propably a bug - it was propably meant to refer the fertilized ones. I would report it as a bug, plain and simple.

However it is also possible Vic mixed up Vegetarian and Vegan. It is a exceedingly common mistake.
Vegan is Vegetarian, that aditionally avoids animal products.

ExampleHat

Thanks for the reply!

Then I will wait for the next patch to see if the egg thingy gets fixed (already filed it as a bug).

To be clear: Animal Personhood in its current state means vegetarianism, so milk and eggs are okay. Then I would suggest that the vegetarian meals in the stove resemble this, as for now the vegetarian meals in the stove are unnecessarily vegan, which doesn't fit to any dietary needs in the game.

zgrssd

Quote from: ExampleHat on July 25, 2021, 03:50:34 PM
Thanks for the reply!

Then I will wait for the next patch to see if the egg thingy gets fixed (already filed it as a bug).

To be clear: Animal Personhood in its current state means vegetarianism, so milk and eggs are okay. Then I would suggest that the vegetarian meals in the stove resemble this, as for now the vegetarian meals in the stove are unnecessarily vegan, which doesn't fit to any dietary needs in the game.
I am not sure if Tynan wanted to go Vegan or Vegetarian.
He might have done the common mixup.
Or flip-flopped between both options during development.

In either way I reported it as a bug, as there is at least one in the meals - and propably all over that meme:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=54818.0

ExampleHat

Yeah, I just saw your bug report myself and wanted to thank you, that is very well put and explained!