Improvements for the new cooking system

[Reahs]

I like the new cooking system but I would like to propose a few improvements like adding a cooked % on meat so that if you cook meat for 1 hour and the fire went out and you needed 1 hour and 10 mins for it to get cooked you would get a piece of meat cooked 90% instead of a 100% raw piece of meat and this would increase the calories with the cooked % 0 (raw) to 100% (cooked) from xxx calories to xxx (0% to 100% extra calories gained from cooking) and same goes for food poisoning but with a +XX% chance of food poisoning no matter the cooked% while below 100%. So meat cooked 99% will still have a chance of at least XX% to give you food poisoning.

I would also like to see the need of flipping the meat halfway through because cooking only one side is really weird.

New cooking options would be nice too like boiling meat instead of frying it (add new food? rice or pasta?)

Maybe add chocolate drink mix which can some calories and reduces fatigue a little

[nicko]

I agree with a percentage of some sorts added to cooking items. I was recently cooking a deer steak, it had like a couple minutes to go, my fire died and it said it was back to 100% Raw meat I think not, it would of nearly been well done!

I think the cooking and boiling of water times need to be tweaked a lot they seem a bit long, hour half to melt some snow? and a steak hey you can cook one in 10 minutes if you have a hot stove! atm it seems to take well over 1 hour? who fries a steak for over one hour?  Now I Know it's only a game but surely things like this can be tweaked to be bit more realistic? Let's see what the devs can do?

 

 

[TerribleSurvivor]

I think that this is a relict from the previous version where you indeed needed to cook your meat the "all-or-nothing"-ish way. It obviously does not make sense at all with the new cooking mechanic especially since it now requires you more time than the original base 20 minutes to cook a piece of meat. I wouldnt allow to separate the raw from the cooked meat though because most of the times the raw part is in the center of the chunk (wouldnt make sense). Instead i would handle it like the this:

• Always obtain cooked meat with a cooking-progress parameter (like 90% done)
• The more a piece of meat is done the lower the chance of getting food poisoning
• To avoid 75% increase of risk for intestinal parasites that you get from raw meat the cooked meat still must be 100% done
• Maybe Overcooked meat loses calories value based on how long you overcooked it (e.g. 3 minutes overdone of 30 minutes maximum means 10% less calories. But lets take that with a good grain of salt)

The other suggestions seem fine!

[Reahs]

I think the heat source temperature should affect water melting times so 1C fire takes a 300C fire will melt snow much faster

[TerribleSurvivor]

1 minute ago, Reahs said:

I think the heat source temperature should affect water melting times so 1C fire takes a 300C fire will melt snow much faster

Fires actually have pretty much the same heat. The temperature bonus you are talking about is the warmth the fire can provide for your body. The stone/cooker/firebarrel/etc. you are cooking on might actually be a lot hotter!

[Reahs]

But don't a small fire with little fuel output less heat than a larger fire with more burning fuel?

 

[TerribleSurvivor]

Well lets not get too deep into that now. TLD is a semi-realistic game thus i am fine with this "flaw". Also you will barely cook or melt any high quantities of meat/edibles/snow with a 1° flame. Most of the cases it is at least 5° if not more.

[nicko]

I notice the more fuel you add to any fire it gets hotter, what I am unsure if this effects the melting boiling and cooking times? maybe the dev can tell us? Thought it would make sense the hotter the fire the quicker those things happen.

[TerribleSurvivor]

2 minutes ago, nicko said:

I notice the more fuel you add to any fire it gets hotter, what I am unsure if this effects the melting boiling and cooking times? maybe the dev can tell us? Thought it would make sense the hotter the fire the quicker those things happen.

Yes but i think that this game should keep these things fairly simple. As an example, if heat of the fire played a role for cooking and boiling then i would expect that a too hot fire burns the outer layers of a chunk of meat while the inner layers remain raw. It´s been kept simple since the beginning of TLD and it´s probably for the better to keep it simple for now and probably the future too.

[nicko]

9 minutes ago, TerribleSurvivor said:

Yes but i think that this game should keep these things fairly simple. As an example, if heat of the fire played a role for cooking and boiling then i would expect that a too hot fire burns the outer layers of a chunk of meat while the inner layers remain raw. It´s been kept simple since the beginning of TLD and it´s probably for the better to keep it simple for now and probably the future too.

Maybe but it seems unrealistic at it is ATM. Surely if you stoke up a fire as it does now it does get a lot hotter, so then a steak or boiling water should take a lot less time? Maybe it does?  but I don't see that ATM I have not tested the new cooking mechanic enough maybe to see the benifits of a hot fire. will see i guess. and yes if you have a flaming hot grill it will burn in no time. so it should. if you dont watch it to bad your food is charcoal thats how i would like it.

 

[Ice Hole]

I f we can warm a cup of tea beside the fire then allow melting snow in the same way.  Place can beside fire and fill with snow.  Time for melting snow by warming would be longer the positive is this frees up a cooking space.

Placing cans on smaller stones and larger pots on larger stones.  This would allow more cooking space.

The cooking pot should be able to cook 2 litres of whatever.  For example cook four cups of coffee or four cans of soup.

[Euphemism]

I fully agree with the partially cooked meat. It should not revert to raw. It should have a lowered chance of food poisoning. It should take less time to cook again later.

I also agree with a comment from another thread that smaller pieces of meat should take less time to cook.

I also feel a hotter fire should cook/melt/boil quicker. To avoid a granular simulation... perhaps every 5 or 10 degrees C has an effect.

Additionally, being next to a hot fire for hours should dehydrate you. Long, overnight fires can get extremely hot. An ambient temperature of 40 C is not uncommon with those long fires. Hours in that, you are basically sweating all night.

Lastly, I would like to see a way to cure meat or make jerky. Perhaps one could harvest salt from the coastal regions (salt water to boil away until the salt remains) to use in curing the meat. Or the player could use a knife to slice the meat thinly and dry it inside. Could craft a 'curing rack'. The rack could also be used with the hides and gut, lowering their curing time by some percentage. Jerky would take some days to be ready to eat, but it would liberate the player from having to start fires to make meat safe. I think the tradeoff between cooking and eating it immediately but using a match vs. curing and having it later but not using a match is a wonderful strategic decision.