Nutrition tuning

[Alex_Crazy]

Good day everyone,

First I would like to say how much I love The Long Dark and would like for the developers to see this as constructive criticism.

Few things I would like to address here:

1. Fish weight/cal. – We all agree nutrition in the game is of the most importance, however it seems the devs need to hire a nutritional consultant or Nutrition 101 course would be sufficient. It’s very simple carbs/protein = 4cal/gm; fat=9cal/gm; alcohol (where is it btw?) = 7cal/gm.

The fish I caught was 1200 gm 87% condition with less than 300 cal cooked! The math does not add up. Either reduce the weight of the fish or increase energy stored. I would suggest both, since the whole day worth fishing barely pays for itself energy wise. And then good luck carrying all the dead weight to your base camp.

Fish should be gutted, cleaned and filleted with knife or hatchet, this way weight/calorie ratio would increase and be more portable. Yes?

Fishing should have a skill, since if you are surviving post 40 days the scrap metal could be harder and harder to find. Each successful catch increases skill which decreases chance of the line breaking, maybe bigger fish being caught. Yes?

Scraps and guts from the fish could get used somehow or not I don’t care 

2. There is certainly a lot of good food in the game. Where is all the junk food with insane amount of sodium like potato chips etc? IRL this would be the best apocalypse survival food.

Also, canned food, have u seen the sodium content of that crap? Yes, need to be more thirsty. Drinking 0.67L per 12 hours should not be enough for a normal human. 3-4L/day is the norm. Increased sodium content for most foods in game should make it more realistic.

3. Energy drinks, brewed coffee, tea, caffeine pills etc. Game can use some of the temporary energy boost. At the expense of hydration and calorie expenditure of course.

Making a third option of “brewing” at the campfire could make all this boiled water go an extra mile.

4. Not sure if this is something by design, accident or my lack of knowledge. Once you lose the sleeping bag – you screwed. Is there a way to make/find one? If not – there should be. All the rabbit pelts have to be good for something. Even if it takes 20 of them to make a sleeping bag 

I hope you consider my suggestions to make the game even more realistic. I have enjoyed your work tremendously so far. Thank you for your effort.

Alex

[Subversion]

Good day everyone,

First I would like to say how much I love The Long Dark and would like for the developers to see this as constructive criticism.

Few things I would like to address here:

1. Fish weight/cal. – We all agree nutrition in the game is of the most importance, however it seems the devs need to hire a nutritional consultant or Nutrition 101 course would be sufficient. It’s very simple carbs/protein = 4cal/gm; fat=9cal/gm; alcohol (where is it btw?) = 7cal/gm.

The fish I caught was 1200 gm 87% condition with less than 300 cal cooked! The math does not add up. Either reduce the weight of the fish or increase energy stored. I would suggest both, since the whole day worth fishing barely pays for itself energy wise. And then good luck carrying all the dead weight to your base camp.

Fish should be gutted, cleaned and filleted with knife or hatchet, this way weight/calorie ratio would increase and be more portable. Yes?

Fishing should have a skill, since if you are surviving post 40 days the scrap metal could be harder and harder to find. Each successful catch increases skill which decreases chance of the line breaking, maybe bigger fish being caught. Yes?

Scraps and guts from the fish could get used somehow or not I don’t care 

I completely agree, the calorie/weight ratio of fish is terrible when compared with other meat in the game. It should be changed to at least be as good in this regard as wolf meat, if not better. If it takes gutting the fish first to achieve such a calorie/weight ratio, so be it. It would be nice if you could carry enough fish with you to survive for a couple days without becoming ridiculously encumbered.

[FoneBoneJay]

Good day everyone,

First I would like to say how much I love The Long Dark and would like for the developers to see this as constructive criticism.

Few things I would like to address here:

1. Fish weight/cal. – We all agree nutrition in the game is of the most importance, however it seems the devs need to hire a nutritional consultant or Nutrition 101 course would be sufficient. It’s very simple carbs/protein = 4cal/gm; fat=9cal/gm; alcohol (where is it btw?) = 7cal/gm.

The fish I caught was 1200 gm 87% condition with less than 300 cal cooked! The math does not add up. Either reduce the weight of the fish or increase energy stored. I would suggest both, since the whole day worth fishing barely pays for itself energy wise. And then good luck carrying all the dead weight to your base camp.

Fish should be gutted, cleaned and filleted with knife or hatchet, this way weight/calorie ratio would increase and be more portable. Yes?

Fishing should have a skill, since if you are surviving post 40 days the scrap metal could be harder and harder to find. Each successful catch increases skill which decreases chance of the line breaking, maybe bigger fish being caught. Yes?

Scraps and guts from the fish could get used somehow or not I don’t care 

2. There is certainly a lot of good food in the game. Where is all the junk food with insane amount of sodium like potato chips etc? IRL this would be the best apocalypse survival food.

Also, canned food, have u seen the sodium content of that crap? Yes, need to be more thirsty. Drinking 0.67L per 12 hours should not be enough for a normal human. 3-4L/day is the norm. Increased sodium content for most foods in game should make it more realistic.

3. Energy drinks, brewed coffee, tea, caffeine pills etc. Game can use some of the temporary energy boost. At the expense of hydration and calorie expenditure of course.

Making a third option of “brewing” at the campfire could make all this boiled water go an extra mile.

4. Not sure if this is something by design, accident or my lack of knowledge. Once you lose the sleeping bag – you screwed. Is there a way to make/find one? If not – there should be. All the rabbit pelts have to be good for something. Even if it takes 20 of them to make a sleeping bag 

I hope you consider my suggestions to make the game even more realistic. I have enjoyed your work tremendously so far. Thank you for your effort.

Alex

Hey Alex have you ever cleaned a fish?

About how much would you say by weight was recoverable as food when raw and cleaned up? Then when you cook any food, you do realize that you are mainly ridding the food of water when you do that which is why you have to drink in addition to just eating.

I think the best fish I ever cleaned probably got about 50% of the weight of the fish as raw cuts and I was being extremely liberal with the cutting. Once cooked it probably weighs about 2/3 of that so that is how you arrive at a lower calorie rate based on the weight. Make sense?

[ErickRedfieldh]

Agree and disagree with you, FoneBone. I agree on all your statements about cleaning a fish and how much you'll actually get that way.

I disagree in that if you're starving, you're probably going to eat the whole fish minus the bones and inedible organs. At that point you've more like 70 to 80% of the fish rather than 50% after cleaning. Skin, eyes, liver, roe sack if applicable, skin....all edible. And then, you can throw the leftovers in a pot with water and make stock, getting probably another 5 to 10% out of that fish.

All these percentiles are arbitrary by the way. But yea.....

[FoneBoneJay]

maybe

[Alex_Crazy]

Ok lets settle the argument, here is a screenshot of an in-game cooked fish. 2620 gramms with 785 cal.

Here is nutritional data on salmon cooked on fire.

If we calculate this properly, it is evident the true nutritional value of the fish is 3909 cal.

Now, let’s say after the fish was cleaned and cooked the skin (which I love to eat), head and the bones were not removed. Let’s throw away 20% of this fish. Which would be pretty wasteful, especially considering the situation of our survivor. We are still left with 3127 cal. Which is over 4 times more than what is in the game. All I am asking is make it more real by reducing the size of the fish or increasing the calories. The original post is pretty self-explanatory and, I think addresses some issues that might come up. I know its long, but please read it if you feel like commenting.

Thanks in advance.

Alex

[Subversion]

Ok lets settle the argument, here is a screenshot of an in-game cooked fish. 2620 gramms with 785 cal.

Here is nutritional data on salmon cooked on fire.

If we calculate this properly, it is evident the true nutritional value of the fish is 3909 cal.

Now, let’s say after the fish was cleaned and cooked the skin (which I love to eat), head and the bones were not removed. Let’s throw away 20% of this fish. Which would be pretty wasteful, especially considering the situation of our survivor. We are still left with 3127 cal. Which is over 4 times more than what is in the game. All I am asking is make it more real by reducing the size of the fish or increasing the calories. The original post is pretty self-explanatory and, I think addresses some issues that might come up. I know its long, but please read it if you feel like commenting.

Thanks in advance.

Alex

Agreed, honestly I don't really care if cleaning the fish loses 50% of the weight, if the calorie count is more realistic. Though 20 or 30% seems more reasonable to me.

On a different note, I almost never bother with cooking fish in the game, I've eaten tons of raw fish and I've never had food poisoning. Is that normal? I know there's nothing in fish descriptions about needing to cook it to be safe, but I was just curious if that was intended, or if I'm just lucky.

[elloco999]

With the last update you can't get food poisoning from food that has a condition of 75% or higher. If that applies to raw food as well, that could explain why you haven't gotten food poisoning from eating raw fish.

[EternityTide]

You are less likely to get food poisoning from fish in general than if you eat terrestrial or avian animals, that's why the japanese love sushi so much, it's easy to prepare, and plentiful.

[TheIncredibleHibby]

I thought it said next to that particular line that the 75% food poisoning cutoff did not include raw meat, so you've still got a chance of making yourself sick regardless of the meat's condition.

On a side note, my character has ended up having to eat several pounds of raw meat in a few desperate circumstances, and never got food poisoning. Counting myself lucky

[elloco999]

...* Food with Condition over 75% will never cause Food Poisoning (excludes Raw Meat and Fish)...

You're right, raw meat and fish can give you food poisoning even when at 75% condition or more. But what EternityTide said makes sense. Maybe the chance of getting food poisoning from raw fish is just very low.

[TheIncredibleHibby]

I agree 100% with that suggestion, plus it would be a helluvalot more satisfying to be able to eat the raw fish with lowered chance of food poisoning. I mean, cooking it up takes so many calories away, which is especially disappointing when you nab yourself a big 1100+ calorie Coho Salmon, just to end up with ~800 calorie safe cooked meat. The only problem is that it would have to be scarfed down even faster, unless outdoor preservation of raw meats was introduced. And iirc, I've seen you or someone else confirm that the devs are planning on adding that in?

[Alex_Crazy]

I like your idea of some sort of outdoor refrigeration. Hard to imagine the meat rotting in the house, while it is -23C outside. Still, I think fishing and other nutrition needs serious tuning, as well as crafting and energy as discussed. I hope these issues going to be addressed before official release.

[spaniella]

I find it terribly frustrating not to be able to use all the cattails used as 'set dressing'; I know in the real world they are edible and also used for all sorts of things (weaving baskets, tinder, fluffy stuffing). I would even go after those little blades of grass if I were in the situation myself.

[EternityTide]

You should never eat grass, even if you are starving. Grass is mainly made up of cellulose, which is indigestible to humans (our gut is not long enough, nor is it the right design to break down cellulose) only ruminants can do this.

you are also likely to open up micro-abrasions in your throat lining, which potentially could get infected.

For humans, there is barely any calorific value in grass, as you cannot break the long chain cellulose down into glucose.

[csq1]

My suggestion about the whole fishing problem:

Have fish be much more difficult to catch, and supply a much greater amount of calories....

It would make sense to me if an entire day's worth of fishing resulted in 0, 1, or 2 fish... and that 1 fish might feed you for a day.

There also might be some strategy of finding the best "fishing hole"...

[EternityTide]

Also, fishing traps need to be implemented

[Renegade30]

Isn't eating raw fish in wild areas mostly okay? For this game I suppose it depends on how long ago the celestial event that caused these conditions was. The water could still be contaminated enough to give the fish a large ammount of parasites and infections

[eberg]

I just starved to death doing nothing but fishing, sleeping, and foraging for wood. Trout are barely worth catching, they have so few calories.

[Evolution13]

Fun and disgusting fact: People stranded at sea have been able to survive and stay healthy by eating the parts of the fish we'd normally throw away. Eyes, guts, etc. They often contain nutrients that the flesh doesn't. When you start to starve there's a part of your brain (I forget what it's called) That will kick in and make you a more adventurous eater. This can also be seen in pregnant women and people with pica who get unusual cravings from pickles and ice-cream to outright eating dirt.

While we're on the subject of nutrition it would be cool if you needed to find a balance of foods to stay healthy. Surviving on candy bars and soda should cause you to get sick more easily and possibly lower your maximum condition until your diet improves.

[KouichiMei]

First of all, I haven't read all the replies above, so excuse me if I say thing that have already been said.

What bugs me the most is the calorie amount of drinks, 100 calories for tea, 250 calories for any soda, that's just absurd. Tea shouldn't have any calories (if any, 5 at max) and soda's should range from 100 to 150 or something.

Because the way it's now, tea gives the same amount of energie as a smaller piece of venison?!

[Subversion]

First of all, I haven't read all the replies above, so excuse me if I say thing that have already been said.

What bugs me the most is the calorie amount of drinks, 100 calories for tea, 250 calories for any soda, that's just absurd. Tea shouldn't have any calories (if any, 5 at max) and soda's should range from 100 to 150 or something.

Because the way it's now, tea gives the same amount of energie as a smaller piece of venison?!

I'll agree on the tea, there shouldn't be many calories there. As for the soda, it depends on the sugar content. The one I'm currently looking at is 170, so while 250 may be on the high end, it's not totally out of bounds.

[FoneBoneJay]

The difference between 12oz and 20oz, the cans are 20 ounces, gives the devs a break man. Lol

Does it say 12 ounces on your can of soda in the game?