16 Game days in the new cooking update

[Sito]

I love it! Thanks Hinterland! This is a big game changer.

First change: Gotta find those pots! My first run I found 3 pots in my coastal house in CH and put 2 pots on the fireplace and cooked a dead deer and boiled some water at the same time. I thought this was so wonderful. Multitasking! Love it! But I didn't like my custom settings so I abandoned this run and started a new one with some tweaks.

Second change and a big surprise: In my new run in CH, same house, only one pot. I looked everywhere in CH. only one pot. What a big difference! each piece of meat takes 1:15h to cook. It takes a whole day to cook a deer and 100+ sticks! so to get my food I need to plan so carefully. Spend a day to get sticks (weather permitting), stalk a deer next day and hopefully get it early and start cooking. Cook deer for whole day. Wake next day and eat some deer. Go collect more sticks. Spend next day boiling water. (fortunately can read a book at the same time, or repair some cloths if you are careful and watch the time). next day do some exploring. Next day collect sticks. next day.... boil water... more sticks....

Feed my stick collecting OCD: I used to collect sticks just for something to do. I had so many sticks in my cabin that the load time to exit was 2+ minutes. Now my OCD is finally satisfied   The need for sticks is endless. I pick sticks on every venture just so I can have enough to cook that deer when I finally bag one. Everywhere I go I plan my trip so that on the return journey I can grab as many sticks as Mac can carry. All exploring now includes picking sticks on the return journey.

Now what to do with that moose? if cooking a deer takes a whole day, what on earth to do with the moose? Here is my take on it. Shoot at moose. Not instakill. Get stomped. Broken ribs. Shoot again until he is dead. Quarter him and drag one bag back to cabin to harvest. Start cooking if there is time. eat. sleep. drink. Run out of water. Go collect sticks. Boil water. Get another moose quarter. Run out of time. Sleep. Cook Moose. Eat. Drink, Sleep. Harvest another moose quarter. Collect sticks. Cook. Sleep. Need more water. Boil water. Collect sticks. ….. and so on until moose meat is only 13%. eat moose, get food poisoning.

Regardless, this new mechanic has made the game so much more challenging! Now I have to plan every activity much more carefully. I enjoy so much!

Side note on multitasking while cooking: don't drink (alcoholic in real life) while trying to cook and boil water at the same time. It cant be done. Meat gets ruined. *sips on whiskey*

 

[Meat]

1 hour ago, Sito said:

...what on earth to do with the moose? Here is my take on it. Shoot at moose. Not instakill. Get stomped. Broken ribs. Shoot again until he is dead. Quarter him and drag one bag back to cabin to harvest. Start cooking if there is time. eat. sleep. drink. Run out of water. Go collect sticks. Boil water. Get another moose quarter...

Ummm. I don't think this is a very good way to kill a moose. I'm not as experienced at this game as so many others but I've been able to down many moose without ever getting stomped. Besides dragging bags of moose meat around with broken ribs is probably not as easy as you're making it sound.

[Sito]

yeah well moose is off topic but once you get your first moose stomping you will see. Pray that he does not come back and do you a second time when you manage to get up.

Back to cooking: now after many more game days I find that the new cooking mechanic has completely changed my gameplay for the better. There is a better sense of desperation to complete a task. Gotta run to get sticks. Run to score a deer. Cook it. Manage your fatigue and sleep. Repair clothes or craft. Do all over the next day and try to fit some exploring in as well. Of course the blizzards will wreak all your well laid plans and leave you starving.

No more sitting in my cabin passing time with 20L of water on the floor and 30Kg of meat outside on the snow.