[v.332] Stored meat indoors decaying rather quickly since patch

[ehevutov]

Anyone else noticing stored meat decaying indoors in containers very quickly now? Working as intended?

 

estimated decay rates pre-patch

• 2%/day for cooked meat
• 10%/day for raw meat

 

estimated decay rates post-patch

• 10%/day for cooked meat
• 20%/day for raw meat

 

Before the .332 patch, it was significantly lower when I stored food in TWM Mountaineer's Hut. I killed a bear post-patch, harvested the meat, and stored the meat in various containers of PV Farmhouse.

I was recently told on Reddit that temperature might also factor into storage. If this is true, then what I'm seeing might just be the difference between the two shelters. I'm not sure though and would like some confirmation.

[Vhalkyrie]

I suddenly had a lot of unexpectedly decayed food on Desolation Point.  I'm confused on what the new storage rate is intended to be.  I'm interested in the answer to this as well.

[Dinhammer]

It appears there's been an about-face regarding where meat should be stored.  Anywhere indoors now seems to be a no-no.  Depositing all meat outside the door is now preferable.  If there's an outdoor container nearby, even better. 

It does make me wonder what the advantage of all that indoor storage is now (apart from organization.) 

Anybody care to suggest new homesteads with lots of outdoor storage?  We can't all live in the ML fishing huts.

[Pillock]

Shouldn't raw meat keep longer than cooked meat, really?

I mean, that's how it works in reality. By cooking meat, you are causing it to partially degrade so that you can digest it more easily - that's the whole point of cooking.

Hands up who cooks all the meat they buy from the supermarket as soon as they get it home? Now, hands up who puts raw meat into the deep freeze, because it keeps longer like that? Or have I been doing it wrong my entire life?

[Drifter Man]

I can't confirm with 100% certainty at the moment (away from my gaming PC) but I think I observed unusually rapid degradation of stored cooked meat in an indoor container, too. I will come back with numbers later.

[Drifter Man]

Decay rates in v.332 for meat stored in indoor containers (lockers in the Upper Dam), after 11 in-game hours:

• cooked meat (rabbit, venison, wolf): 4-5%
• raw meat (rabbit, venison): 13%

Other types of food (candy bar, pork and beans, soda), clothes and hides did not degrade appreciably over those 11 hours. But the rates for meat are way above their pre-v.321 levels. I don't think this could possibly be an intentional change.

[selfless]

Meat decay rates have been altered intentionally.

The new model has meat decaying faster indoors and slower outdoors.  So head outside and use nature's freezer.

One official response included here:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/discussions/0/357284767241564753/

[Dinhammer]

I did confirm that outdoor storage does seem to slow decay.  Outdoor storage *in containers* is optimal.  This is frustrating, since outdoors is not where the containers are.

[Drifter Man]

1 hour ago, selfless said:

Meat decay rates have been altered intentionally.

Thanks for the clarification. I guessed that if the originally slow decay rate were a bug since v.321, it would have been noticed long ago and not suddenly removed without warning. Some people away from their bases were hit quite hard. Anyway, we have to adapt. Rules change

[KD7BCH]

This is another awesome change! Exactly as it should be. Meat outside the dangerzeon 40-140 doesn't spoil which is why steaks in the freezer are still good after 3 months. Hamnburger keeps for months more this way. 

[Dinhammer]

6 minutes ago, KD7BCH said:

This is another awesome change! Exactly as it should be.

If we could move containers outdoors or craft new ones, I would completely agree with you.  Dumping it all on the grounds just seems so... unceremonious.  And unsanitary. 

Plus, I like to select the piece of meat that needs to be eaten first by its condition.  With no container, I have to pick every piece up instead of seeing the list I would get if opening a container.  Then I have to drop them all again.  Every time.

[lupineways]

I can also confirm meat stored outdoors decays more slowly. I noticed the faster indoor container rate of decay so decided to test outdoors. I did an quick test over the time period of maybe half a day or so and noted cooked deer meat went down 6 or 7 % while the meat I laid on the ground outdoors only decayed about 1%.

I think this new system makes more sense, especially for meat. Does anyone know if there is anything that decays more slowly in indoor containers with recent decay changes? Maybe clothing?

Storage is still nice for item organization in any case. 

I also support more outdoor storage options with this change.

[Vhalkyrie]

1 hour ago, Dinhammer said:

If we could move containers outdoors or craft new ones, I would completely agree with you.  Dumping it all on the grounds just seems so... unceremonious.  And unsanitary. 

Plus, I like to select the piece of meat that needs to be eaten first by its condition.  With no container, I have to pick every piece up instead of seeing the list I would get if opening a container.  Then I have to drop them all again.  Every time.

100% agreed.  Totally cool with outdoor refrigeration, except that my plastic container seems to be glued to the interior.  

[cekivi]

After reading Patrick's comment on the Steam forums I moved this to Alpha Playtest Feedback. I too think it's great that we can finally freeze meat outside. Personally, I don't think we need to be able to craft homemade containers. I don't think of the Long Dark as a crafting or base building game. Instead, I'm hoping that the beautiful new exteriors teased in the April 4th update video (the Dam was gorgeous!) will just have a locker or a similar container near most indoor locations

[Vhalkyrie]

My hope is that they'll add bear canisters for outdoor food storage.  We had to use them when overnight camping in the PacNW.  They aren't huge, so you wouldn't be able to store unlimited food.  It would be cool if leaving meat out in the open would attract 'visitors', so you would need a few of these.

https://www.rei.com/c/bear-resistant-food-containers?r=c&ir=category%3Abear-resistant-food-containers&page=1&gclid=CJHJ1dPWucwCFUZbhgodHCYNMg&s_kwcid=s4Zg4Av18_dc%7Cpcrid%7C71493350285%7Cpkw%7Cbear+canisters%7Cpmt%7Ce%7Cgoogle%7Cmain%7CNB

[Pillock]

Intuitively, 10-15% degradation per day for cooked meat stored indoors would seem fine to me; maybe 5-10% for raw meat. Freezing meat in outdoor locations ought to be somewhere around 1% degradation per day? That would be quite close to reality, so players (especially new ones) could use their common sense about this, rather than relying on having to learn fictitious game mechanics.

It'd be nice if they added a 'frozen' status to harvested meat (like you get for carcasses), so you'd have to thaw it out before cooking or else have it take significantly longer to cook. And I really don't understand why cooked meat lasts longer than raw - it's completely arse-about-face.

Also agree that having food stored outdoors attracting wildlife would be a great addition. I've observed bears being drawn towards carcasses and stopping for a munch, so the basics of that mechanic is already there - maybe the detection range could be extended, as well as being applied to harvested meat and to wolves as well. Imagine stepping out of your chosen base in the morning to find the place swarming with wolves, sniffing around your food containers, or devouring the stuff you'd left in the open! I'd be straight back inside to fetch the rifle.

[KD7BCH]

5 hours ago, Dinhammer said:

If we could move containers outdoors or craft new ones, I would completely agree with you.  Dumping it all on the grounds just seems so... unceremonious.  And unsanitary. 

Plus, I like to select the piece of meat that needs to be eaten first by its condition.  With no container, I have to pick every piece up instead of seeing the list I would get if opening a container.  Then I have to drop them all again.  Every time.

Well you could maybe keep them in a line of oldest to newest that way you are sure you are always consuming the oldest piece. This is called FIFO in the food industry and is a standard inventory practices. First in First out, prevents spoilage. Bacteria does not grow aggressively under 40 degrees. So even if it contaminates the food it is unlikely to find enough shelter to survive in order to divide and grow and consume the meat.

You get sick from two things, intoxication and infection. Infection is caused by consuming meat that has millions or tens of millions of bacteria growing on it. Some food such as meat would need to be exposed to 12-24 hours at 40-140 before it became infectable. This is because the hostile bacteria divide every about every 20 minutes. So if you started with 100 bacteria cells, at a rate of division every 20 min in 12 hours you'd have 30 divisions assuming they all survived you'd have 53 billion bacteria cells. But they don't all survive and if you cook it, by heating the meat to 140-160 degrees you kill all the bacteria. 

Intoxification is consuming the meat laced with the waste by-products of the bacteria, ammonia and nitrates etc. If you have 53 billion bacteria eating steak and shitting on it it gets contaminated enough to make you sick pretty rapidly. 

If however the meat never reaches the 40-140 zone where bacteria divide every 20 min, then they don't multiply and they don't consume the meat and create toxic byproducts. Which is why meat kept in the freeze for weeks can be cooked and won't make you sick. 

[Dinhammer]

4 hours ago, cekivi said:

Personally, I don't think we need to be able to craft homemade containers. I don't think of the Long Dark as a crafting or base building game.

I didn't have anything too elaborate in mind.  Maybe just give us a shovel so that we can dig a storage pit/cache, denoted by a little mound of disturbed earth.  Keeps the smell down and animals off.  They seem to have already embraced something similar with the Hatch at Mountaineers.  If the game world gets modified to include fixed placements of lockers near homesteads.... great.  Seems more trouble for the devs, though.

[KD7BCH]

2 minutes ago, Dinhammer said:

I didn't have anything too elaborate in mind.  Maybe just give us a shovel so that we can dig a storage pit/cache, denoted by a little mound of disturbed earth.  Keeps the smell down and animals off.  If the game world gets modified to include fixed placements of lockers near homesteads.... great.  Seems more trouble for the devs, though.

These containers are the corpses all over the place

[Dinhammer]

1 minute ago, KD7BCH said:

These containers are the corpses all over the place

If only I could drag Bob over to my place at Trapper's....

[KD7BCH]

What fun would it be dragging corpses around lol? 

[Dinhammer]

Bob needs the outing.  He has cabin fever.

[Salty Crackers]

His name is Max.

[Dinhammer]

3 hours ago, Salty Crackers said:

His name is Max.

What?  That lying SOB....

Edit:  Oh.  I see what you meant.  Max should be fine, having spent years outdoors.  Bob from the Camp Office, on the other hand, has been begging for some fresh air.  (Truth be told, so have I.  He's getting a little ripe.)

[Wasteland Watcher]

Yea finally it makes sense! I always thought it bizarre that meat spoiled faster in containers outdoors in the frikkin snow. Now fixed!
However, if the ambient temperature of the air in a building is -3 C then it makes no sense for the meat to spoil faster -- unless there is a stove in there that you're using to heat up the place.

I hope in an upcoming patch that buildings that don't have a stove and where the air temp is less than 0 Celsius that we can keep some meat stored there without it rotting so fast.

Now all we need is a patch that makes corpses only give items when they are first searched so we can't use their pockets as "containers."