suggestion Utilising Fridges

[EternityTide]

Currently, fridges and freezers act as just another run of the mill container, no real advantages. Because they aren't useful, players tend to use outdoor containers, or even leave meat out in the open.

There are three issues with this: 

• Not all locations allow for secure storage, and so attraction of, and theft by bears and wolves is a real concern
• During blizzards, wolf-swarm season and the bear patrol, your food becomes inaccessible, or at least extremely risky to retrieve.
• Leaving multiple meat models on the snow increases the calculations your machine has to make on loading an environment. Performance issues and even crashes arise, especially if the map has many burnt out campfires on it (or you have a ridiculous surplus of meat)

Many historians have speculated that the Romans used caves or cellars, packed with ice and snow, in order to keep perishables cool, as well as storing ice for a variety of other uses as well.

Ice houses were still in use in many countries, up until as recent as the 1950s, as a means of storing perishable food.

Therefore, I suggest that we be able to harvest and store ice or snow in fridges and freezers (which are heavily insulated to reduce heat absorption from the outside).The icy contents will keep fridge/freezer's contents below zero for extended periods of time. This reduces the decay rate of food stored in the fridge/freezer to what it would be outside, but without the same risks.

Ice stored in a fridge/freezer will slowly decay and reduce in weight until completely melted. This makes fridge/ freezers a potential source of non potable water. The UI will indicate, upon opening the fridge/freezer, the internal temperature. Standing with the door open (the inventory transfer UI) increases the rate of ice decay and warms up the interior slightly.

 

[Wastelander]

17 minutes ago, EternityTide said:

Many historians have speculated that the Romans used caves or cellars, packed with ice and snow, in order to keep perishables cool, as well as storing ice for a variety of other uses as well.

 

The most widespread use was slush-ice. Seriously, they mixed it with fruit and/or wine (because Romans sure liked to get hammered) and straight up ate the stuff. I don't know about food preservation, but it'd make sense historically.

As for the actual topic, yeah, it'd make sense - freezers are made to insulate, so ice and snow would go a long way in them. It is said that even when your power is out, your freezer can keep stuff frozen for three days, so imagine the mileage you get out of putting fresh ice in there on the regular. Overall, I like it!