how to preserve meat best?

[Admin]

Let’s be aware of what language we’re using. Please keep it clean.

[Guest jeffpeng]

On 6/19/2019 at 5:14 PM, ManicManiac said:

Really I think this just boils down to player choice.  Since it's a single player game, if other want to do it that way... what does it mater?

I'm of the mindset, and I know many people here share this, that whatever way I setup the game to be, I will want to play it the best way I can when I do. What that means is while I generally dislike that meat can be stored and used infinitely without repercussions, I will still do it as it is a game mechanic and I would hamper myself if I wouldn't do it.

Another prominent example of this is pulling torches and how it makes the craftable torch ingame worthless. I honestly haven't crafted a torch since ..... 2016? So while I would generally favor having this somewhat balanced, I will keep pulling torches as long as it is the best way to get torches.

Yet another example is that you can miraculously make a campfire appear out of thin air to get rid of wolves. I've done this countless times, and I will keep doing it as it is the most reliable way of escaping a wolved up situation, but I generally dislike that I can even do that since it gives me an easy way out of a situation I would otherwise be forced to avoid with much greater care, preparation and planning.

You could extend this list quite a bit, and generally: I dislike all of those exploit-ish things, but I make use of them where and when I can, and certainly when I have to. This might not apply to everyone, I see that. But it certainly applies to a prominent subset of players of this particular genre: find the best challenge possible, and then beat it any way you can. It's not for people that shy away from challenges, and it's not for people that value fair play over everything else. It's a survivors mindset, I guess.

[ManicManiac]

2 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

I will still do it as it is a game mechanic

...and that is the player choice I've been talking about.  If we really don't like those things we find exploit-ish, all I am saying is that we can just opt not to play that way.  It's all a matter of personal preference.  If a prominent subset of players really want the best challenge possible, then perhaps they should exercise a little restraint when it comes to things they find exploit-ish.  Just because you can do a thing, doesn't you have to... especially if you don't like it.  So again, I don't see a reason to change the game when we can just choose to play the game differently.  It really is just that simple.  If we have a sense of personal responsibility as players then there is no problem.

I realize there are many who don't agree, they seem to want the Hinterland team to prohibit what other creative players found was possible.  I just don't necessarily think that's the right answer.  I still say we let people play however they want; given the world, tools, and mechanics available.

(Addendum: I am only offering my point of view on the ideas that have been put forward, and I offer it for consideration in contrast to those who feel the responsibility for player action is on the developer instead of the player.  I am not interested in getting into an argument about it - I am by no means attacking anyone's point of view...  I just don't happen to agree with the idea, and I mean only to articulate why)

Edited June 27, 2019 by ManicManiac

[UpUpAway95]

On 6/25/2019 at 12:44 PM, FrozenCorpse said:

At first, I had no idea what you were talking about.  Until now, I've always harvested meat using the FL temperature and a casual wildlife threat assessment to determine how much meat I'd take during a particular harvest session.  For low/moderate threat and maybe one arrow of temp loss, I'd do close to an hour and reassess afterwards. Above freezing FLT and minimal threat, I'd do the whole carcass in one go. But now you've got me wondering what the heck this "mincemeat" tactic is...It never occurred to me that I could repeatedly harvest the smallest increment of meat from a carcass as possible and get a tic towards my cooking level for every piece I cooked.  If that's the way it works, that's a great idea!  That way, I can reach lvl 5 much faster.  AFAIC, the only rules that matter in a game-world are "What a player can do, and what a player can't" (especially a survival game intentionally designed with an anti-player bias such as exists in TLD).  Why on fake Earth would I wait until day 75 to have cooking level 5 if I can get there by day 25 by cooking smaller portions?  Makes no sense.  The devs COULD make it so XP was based on weight and not individual portions, but they haven't.  That makes it my fault for not thinking it through in the beginning and realizing how to best advance through the skill.  It's moments like these prove to me that I really don't possess the intelligent buttocks that everyone always insist I have.

Now, about these points I can get for punching myself in the dick... What are they good for?  How do I redeem them in the game?  I don't even know where to check to see how many points I may already have... Can I get 100 points if I just keep wailing on my crotch?  What key is that anyway?  I checked in the keybinds and I don't see dickpunch in there... maybe that Jick fellow was a dev on a different game where you CAN punch yourself in the dick??  Man, I wonder what game that is... sounds like a lot of fun.

WHAM! "Oof!" ding-ding! +10!
WHAM! "Oof!" ding-ding! +10!
WHAM! "Oof!" ding-ding! +10!

I wonder if I could increase my rifle skill by shooting myself in the foot.. or archery by shooting an arrow straight up and catching it in the knee!  Now you really got me thinking!

Certainly, go ahead and use it/abuse it while it's there... and leave me then to recook ruined meat to get it's condition back (especially since I don't stockpile it anyways so I don't actually have to do a lot of recooking... in my 500-day run, I think I recooked about 10 pieces of ruined meat in total)... and I don't mincemeat.  I still feel the cooking Level Up occurs too quickly... or maybe it's that the mending and fishing ones are too much of a long slog.  Hinterland can decide that for themselves, IMO.

[Doc Feral]

On 6/19/2019 at 1:16 PM, UpUpAway95 said:

I'm of the opinion that they should do something with the cooking skill level-up to negate the "mincemeating" just to level behavior.  Cooking skill could be changed to be based on total weight of items cooked rather than the number of times you cook anything... and that total weight could be set at a much higher amount... making getting to Level 5 cooking as difficult as it is to get to Level 5 in other skills that generally take a lot longer (like fishing or mending).

Fishing and mending take much time to level up because they're less used. You don't mend clothes every day, while you may light fires, harvest and cook meat several times. Ranged weapons's success depend largely on the player's skill, which tend to be high in a gamers' world. Fishing is a bit unlucky because it relies on... well, luck. You gain experience by catching fishes, which is a random chance and it's modified by your level. So when you're incompetent you have a hard (and loooong) time leveling up, and as you improve you gain experience faster.

On the other hand, mincemeating wolf meat means you can't eat it.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Doc Feral

[UpUpAway95]

4 hours ago, Doc Feral said:

Fishing and mending take much time to level up because they're less used. You don't mend clothes every day, while you may light fires, harvest and cook meat several times. Ranged weapons's success depend largely on the player's skill, which tend to be high in a gamers' world. Fishing is a bit unlucky because it relies on... well, luck. You gain experience by catching fishes, which is a random chance and it's modified by your level. So when you're incompetent you have a hard (and loooong) time leveling up, and as you improve you gain experience faster.

On the other hand, mincemeating wolf meat means you can't eat it.

Well, mending you can do any time a clothing item or your bedroll falls below 100% condition (which, in  the early game is at least once a day).  You could mend all the clothing you find before ripping it up for cloth as well and level up faster that way, if you wanted to use the ample amount of cloth we have in the game and make enough fishing tackle for the purpose of exploiting it.  The difference is that people aren't generally inclined to try to exploit that mechanic because the reward - more chance of success and slower degradation of clothing - isn't perceived as being as worth it as the double whammy of leveling up harvesting and cooking faster with the same exploit.

 

The fishing skill up is actually dependent on the total weight of the fish you catch (which means you can level up faster at Coastal Highway because the fish are larger there).  If they changed the harvesting and cooking mechanics to be based on weight (rather than number of pieces for cooking and the number of times you enter the harvest menu for harvesting), they would be more in line with the fishing one based on principle alone.  They could perhaps consider allowing us ot harvest meat in 2 kg chunks... which would allow people to eat more (by weight) of the predator meats they kill without increasing their risk of getting parasites (as a trade off benefit)

Edited June 27, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[UpUpAway95]

16 hours ago, FrozenCorpse said:

Wait... hold on a sec... you can RECOOK ruined meat in this game?!  Wow!  I just assumed once meat was cooked, the game wouldn't let me put it back on the cooking surface... All these tips and tricks people keep giving me, I.. I don't know what to say... [wipes tear]  Thanks a million!

Be picky... obviously meant.."cook ruined meet."  It's six of one, half dozen of another really.  If you don't cook that moose or bear when you kill it, you can leave it frozen in the snow until you come back much later in the game and cook it to get it to 50% condition.  It ensures that it can be edible whenever you want to eat it, but you are forfeiting the cooking skill up it would give you early in the game by cooking the whole lot of it.  It's much less of an exploit than the mincemeating one in that there is a benefit and a negative.  Mincemeating currently just gives the players two different benefits in one exploit.

Edited June 27, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[Guest jeffpeng]

On 6/27/2019 at 12:24 AM, ManicManiac said:

...and that is the player choice I've been talking about.  If we really don't like those things we find exploit-ish, all I am saying is that we can just opt not to play that way.  It's all a matter of personal preference.  If a prominent subset of players really want the best challenge possible, then perhaps they should exercise a little restraint when it comes to things they find exploit-ish.  Just because you can do a thing, doesn't you have to... especially if you don't like it.  So again, I don't see a reason to change the game when we can just choose to play the game differently.  It really is just that simple.  If we have a sense of personal responsibility as players then there is no problem.

I realize there are many who don't agree, they seem to want the Hinterland team to prohibit what other creative players found was possible.  I just don't necessarily think that's the right answer.  I still say we let people play however they want; given the world, tools, and mechanics available.

(Addendum: I am only offering my point of view on the ideas that have been put forward, and I offer it for consideration in contrast to those who feel the responsibility for player action is on the developer instead of the player.  I am not interested in getting into an argument about it - I am by no means attacking anyone's point of view...  I just don't happen to agree with the idea, and I mean only to articulate why)

I get your point, and I will agree to most of it, but it also shows you didn't really get mine - which is probably due to having to think like that already to understand. It has nothing to do with restraint or reponsibility or the lack thereof. Try to think about it this way: If it was possible in the game to jump off any cliff without dying, one could say: "Well that's fine, just delete your save after you do this, then there's no harm in it". Or if you actually could prolong fires indefinitely by pulling torches, recycling them and feeding them back into the fire. Or if ducking after having drawn the bow would prevent damage to the arrow. Maybe you come up with more great ideas. All of this would need fixing, because among serious players all of this would become a neccessity eventually to keep up with others and subsequently making the game both more complicated and easier - if that makes any sense.

But, like i led intot his, I feel like I can probably not convey this idea to people that don't already think/feel that way. So ... yeah. *shrugs* 

 

[ManicManiac]

16 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Try to think about it this way:
If it was possible in the game to jump off any cliff without dying...
...if you actually could prolong fires indefinitely by pulling torches, recycling them and feeding them back into the fire.
....if ducking after having drawn the bow would prevent damage to the arrow.

All of this would need fixing, because among serious players all of this would become a necessity eventually to keep up with others and subsequently making the game both more complicated and easier - if that makes any sense.

I understand your point, I truly do, and of course it is very valid.

There is an important difference between an exploit and creative play... but that line gets blurry depending on what's involved.  The ones you mentioned are all about aspects of individual mechanics either that don't make rational sense or don't seem to work as intended.  The one I was referencing are two separate systems (harvesting & cooking) that are being used complementary to one another (which can fall into the category of exploitive too, depending on your point of view).

It just seems to me that in the case of cooking, it does make a certain amount of sense to be able to practice cooking very much in the way you can practice fire starting (in small measured attempts).  Since it also reasonable to be able to shave off smaller sized chunks of meat from a carcass as you harvest it, I don't see anything wrong with being able to cook those smaller pieces of meat.  The fire doesn't care how large or small a piece of meat is.  Since both aspects of the two mechanics make a certain amount of sense to be able to do in this scenario, I just don't really see that as being an exploit per se.  That fine line will have to be considered by the Hinterland team...  I trust them to fix what they feel is broken, and to leave in what they feel is fair play.

Again, this is just me offering a differing point of view.  I understand where you are coming from, but I don't know that we will see eye to eye on it (not in this particular case).  I do agree that those other things you mention (that are clearly not intended, or don't make any rational sense - and are thusly broken) should of course be fixed.  My comment on player choice was meant to be in the context of the specific example of harvesting/cooking (what other have called "mincemeating"), it was not meant to suggest that the Hinterland should not address things they consider to be broken.

 

Now what was mentioned about being able to leave meat on a cooking slot and it never decaying at all?  That seems like an aspect that is definitely broken.  It both does not seem to work as intended, nor does it make rational sense that it would be a perfectly preserved piece of meat that will never fall victim to entropy.  That one does seem cheaty to me.   

Edited June 29, 2019 by ManicManiac

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

Now what was mentioned about being able to leave meat on a cooking slot and it never decaying at all?  That seems like an aspect that is definitely broken.  It both does not seem to work as intended, nor does it make rational sense that it would be a perfectly preserved piece of meat that will never fall victim to entropy.  That one does seem cheaty to me.   

Sorry, I disagree that cooking low condition frozen foods and getting a improvement in their condition as a result is "cheaty."  It's more akin to reality than anything.  Cooking  improves the taste and safety of most foods.  You may want to read this page from the USDA on how freezing affects foods:

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/safe-food-handling/freezing-and-food-safety/CT_Index

This quote comes from that page:  "Because freezing keeps food safe almost indefinitely, recommended storage times are for quality only. Refer to the freezer storage chart at the end of this document, which lists optimum freezing times for best quality."  That chart indicates that you can keep raw steaks frozen for 4 to 12 months.  A full year, 365 days as a recommended storage time.

Therefore, raw steaks lying in the frozen wastes of Great Bear Island absolutely should not even remotely reach a "ruined" (i.e. totally unsafe to eat state) ever. They should be perfectly safe to cook and eat for sure for up to 365 in game days.

That same chart recommends that raw ground beef be kept for only 3 to 4 months and cooked meat should be kept for only 2 to 3 months.  Therefore, the game should degrade mincemeated and cooked meat very rapidly in comparison to raw 1 kg steaks.

Edited June 29, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[ManicManiac]

21 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Sorry, I disagree

That's cool  

21 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I disagree that cooking low condition frozen foods and getting a improvement in their condition as a result is "cheaty." 

That's not what I was talking about  ...  If you read earlier in the thread, there was talk of the player being able to leave food on the cooking slot (after the fire burned out) and food left there would never decay so long as it wasn't touched.  That is what I was talking about.

The specific quote I was referencing is:

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 8:26 PM, Doc Feral said:

The process of cooking meat or fish is considered finished only when you pick the steak up (proof is that, as you may have noticed, that's the moment when you get the experience points). So if you don't touch the meat left on the cooking slots of an extinguished fire it won't decay because it's "out of play".

Some may call it an exploit, but since it occupies a whole cooking surface and the advantage is so insignificant I like to pretend I've smoked it and left it on the rack.

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by ManicManiac

[UpUpAway95]

26 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

That's cool  

That's not what I was talking about  ...  If you read earlier in the thread, there was talk of the player being able to leave food on the cooking slot (after the fire burned out) and food left there would never decay so long as it wasn't touched.  That is what I was talking about.

The specific quote I was referencing is:

 

OK, let's approach the whole issue from the other side of the coin... I don't think you can argue that "mincemeating" is a mechanic that's working as intended since there is no actual option to harvest a carcass in 0.1 kg increments.  The player has to manipulate the interface to use whatever number is behind the decimal as the "base" for the size of slabs they take.  The interface is set up to carve 1 kg steaks with 1 smaller steak only (to handle the amount after the decimal point).  It is an exploit of a mechanic that has a "loophole" in it.  It's not as intended.

[ManicManiac]

@UpUpAway95,
And if that isn't intended, then I'm sure the Hinterland team will change it.  I was just saying it's reasonable to be able to do that, since if I were carving up meat... I would be able to cut off whatever size I wanted to.   

We don't agree on the point so we may as well just leave it right here.  Your opinion is yours and my opinion is mine, and it doesn't seem like we are going to see eye to eye on this particular point... and that's fine.  I'm not interested in arguing about it.   

Edited June 29, 2019 by ManicManiac

[Guest jeffpeng]

41 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I disagree that cooking low condition frozen foods and getting a improvement in their condition as a result is "cheaty."

Actually it's one of the particular mechanics mentioned I don't have a problem with. In fact I have a problem with how high degradation times are in general. Canned soup? Sardines? Peanut butter? Will probably last forever, especially if stored near or below 0. But the exploit with leaving half cooked meat on a campfire should be fixed either way. It's an unintuitive and clearly not intended behavior.

41 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

That same chart recommends that raw ground beef be kept for only 3 to 4 months and cooked meat should be kept for only 2 to 3 months.  Therefore, the game should degrade mincemeated and cooked meat very rapidly in comparison to raw 1 kg steaks.

Please.

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

It just seems to me that in the case of cooking, it does make a certain amount of sense to be able to practice cooking very much in the way you can practice fire starting

It makes no sense whatsoever. And I don't even want to try and reason with this on a "real world" level. But it's horrible from a gameplay perspective. It's unintuitive, and since TLD doesn't do (much) handholding you will have to discover by yourself (or read up on it) that you become a miraculously better cook and butcher if you just slice your meat real thin and cook it in tiny stipes of joy - but spend no additional time doing so. And it's also terrible for a developer because you either balance against that - which makes the game unreasonably hard for people unaware of this clear unintentional mechanic - or you leave it as it is, which makes leveling those skills trivial, even on Interloper, if you know how to.

In my very much humble opinion harvesting, cooking, mending and also fishing should be hard-tied to the amount of time you spend doing it, calculated from the base time requirement without tool modifiers. I don't see how this doesn't solve pretty much all problems attached to these skills, and also finally gives good incentives to use those tools.

And finally actually responding to the OP:

On 6/18/2019 at 1:00 PM, cranny said:

I'm playing on voyager  mode and have decided to call paradise meadows farm (in milton)  home. It's been quite a journey since i first spawned! I started  in broken railroad, found a revolver, looted the map, went through forlorn muskeg to Mystery lake, looted that map, and decided i wanted to settle down somewhere. So, i went back through forlorn muskeg and made it to the farm in milton. all in 7 in game days!

anywho, i have begun to hunt deer and rabbits, and want to stockpile huge amounts of venison and bunny meat. Currently i just have the meat sitting in the snow, but it has only been a few hours since i harvested the meat and they are already 'Gamey'. Is there a better way?

I used to live in that farm a lot before I discovered the joys of cave dwelling. I used the rack behind the house to neatly line up my meat. And yeah, cooking it even in 0% state will yield good 50% meat.

[ManicManiac]

3 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

It makes no sense whatsoever. And I don't even want to try and reason with this on a "real world" level. But it's horrible from a gameplay perspective.

Alright, we don't agree and that's okay
I'm not interested in arguing with anyone about it.

Like I mentioned before, if the Hinterland team feels it's broken I'm sure they will change it.  If they feel it's fair play, I'm sure they will leave it as is.  I'm fine with it either way, because if I don't like that aspect I can just choose not to do it.

 

[UpUpAway95]

8 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

Actually it's one of the particular mechanics mentioned I don't have a problem with. In fact I have a problem with how high degradation times are in general. Canned soup? Sardines? Peanut butter? Will probably last forever, especially if stored near or below 0. But the exploit with leaving half cooked meat on a campfire should be fixed either way. It's an unintuitive and clearly not intended behavior.

Please.

It makes no sense whatsoever. And I don't even want to try and reason with this on a "real world" level. But it's horrible from a gameplay perspective. It's unintuitive, and since TLD doesn't do (much) handholding you will have to discover by yourself (or read up on it) that you become a miraculously better cook and butcher if you just slice your meat real thin and cook it in tiny stipes of joy - but spend no additional time doing so. And it's also terrible for a developer because you either balance against that - which makes the game unreasonably hard for people unaware of this clear unintentional mechanic - or you leave it as it is, which makes leveling those skills trivial, even on Interloper, if you know how to.

In my very much humble opinion harvesting, cooking, mending and also fishing should be hard-tied to the amount of time you spend doing it, calculated from the base time requirement without tool modifiers. I don't see how this doesn't solve pretty much all problems attached to these skills, and also finally gives good incentives to use those tools.

And finally actually responding to the OP:

I used to live in that farm a lot before I discovered the joys of cave dwelling. I used the rack behind the house to neatly line up my meat. And yeah, cooking it even in 0% state will yield good 50% meat.

I think by weight is better.  If they use time spent "calculated from the base time requirement without tool modifiers" you're throwing in an unneeded adjustment.   Every food item has a weight assigned to it that's the same for all players and never changes for that item.  If a player bags a 10 kg deer and cooks it, they would get the same skill benefit by weight for both the harvesting of it or for the cooking of it regardless of how many pieces  they carved it into.  Carcass harvesting could also give credit for harvesting the hide and or each gut regardless of whether they are harvested in one entrance of the interface or several.

[Guest jeffpeng]

28 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

Alright, we don't agree and that's okay
I'm not interested in arguing with anyone about it.

Like I mentioned before, if the Hinterland team feels it's broken I'm sure they will change it.  If they feel it's fair play, I'm sure they will leave it as is.  I'm fine with it either way, because if I don't like that aspect I can just choose not to do it.

The kindest thing that I can say about a response such as this is that I think you should consider a career in politics.

23 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I think by weight is better.  If they use time spent "calculated from the base time requirement without tool modifiers" you're throwing in an unneeded adjustment.   Every food item has a weight assigned to it that's the same for all players and never changes for that item.  If a player bags a 10 kg deer and cooks it, they would get the same skill benefit by weight for both the harvesting of it or for the cooking of it regardless of how many pieces  they carved it into.  Carcass harvesting could also give credit for harvesting the hide and or each gut regardless of whether they are harvested in one entrance of the interface or several.

I see how that would make it more intuitive for anything that handles meat. Time works better as a general approach for everything that has a timelapse attached, especially fishing, which really can be a pain to level up on interloper as the earlier levels are unreasonably hard. But I see your point, and would still prefer it to the current state of things.

[ManicManiac]

3 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

The kindest thing that I can say about a response such as this is that I think you should consider a career in politics.

@jeffpeng
I'm not really interested in politics either...  I appreciate your kind sentiment though.  

[Ape88]

On 6/18/2019 at 4:00 AM, cranny said:

A̷̧̹͕͔̥̍̋͆͒͊̐̈́̂̀̕͜Ȳ̴̬̙̹͇̈̿͘̚Ọ̴̧̬͓̪͉̩͋̀̈̀̏͘̚
 

 

I'm playing on voyager  mode and have decided to call paradise meadows farm (in milton)  home. It's been quite a journey since i first spawned! I started  in broken railroad, found a revolver, looted the map, went through forlorn muskeg to Mystery lake, looted that map, and decided i wanted to settle down somewhere. So, i went back through forlorn muskeg and made it to the farm in milton. all in 7 in game days!

anywho, i have begun to hunt deer and rabbits, and want to stockpile huge amounts of venison and bunny meat. Currently i just have the meat sitting in the snow, but it has only been a few hours since i harvested the meat and they are already 'Gamey'. Is there a better way?

You can still cook ruined meat and eat it. However huge stockpiles seem like a good idea for a short time.