sleep in half hour increments or introduce rest

[Balthasar250]

while cooking a nap is often needed, however, a full hour isn't always necessary. a quick nap or rest is something that could solve this problem of resting longer than it takes to burn food/ boil away water.

resting could simply halt using up being awake the benefit being you are not recovering wakefulness however you are not using it either. at the benefit of advancing a half hour.

[UpUpAway95]

I believe it's fine as it is, for the following reasons:

1) At Level 1 cooking, most 1.0 kg meat cuts take an hour or a little longer to cook and a 0.5 tin of snow takes 40 minutes to melt and boil.  This means that an hour nap is easily possible to do without burning these items.  As a person levels up, these items take less time to cook, but also take more time to burn after becoming fully cooked.

2) Tins of food and teas that are already made can be set beside the fire rather than placed upon it to reheat and they will not burn away.  This means that it's possible to take an hour nap while these items are reheating even though they take much less than an hour to do so.

3) Also, passing time (which can be canceled at any increment) consumes fatigue at a slower rate than other activities; so while it doesn't stop the consumption of fatigue completely, it does slow it down.  If Hinterland feels it necessary to stop or slow fatigue consumption even more, I think it would be easier to just adjust the amount of fatigue consumed by passing time.

4) How quickly the character becomes fatigued is also already an adjustable setting in the custom menu.

Edited January 31, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Balthasar250]

7 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

  As a person levels up, these items take less time to cook, but also take more time to burn after becoming fully cooked.

marathon cooking session means you either waste cooking time/fuel and can't rest at all.

[UpUpAway95]

10 minutes ago, Balthasar250 said:

marathon cooking session means you either waste cooking time/fuel and can't rest at all.

Yes, you waste a little fuel, but sticks are infinitely available in the game.  Right now, saving the game requires the expenditure of 1 hour of time (either by sleeping or by passing time for a full hour and not canceling it).  I don't think Hinterland is going to want to mess with that mechanic as long as they don't offer manual saving in the game.  If they do eventually allow manual saves (and i hope they do), then perhaps they will also allow us to cancel sleep whenever in the same way we can now cancel passing time as opposed to introducing 1/2-hour increments as a new mechanic.  Allowing the cancelling of sleep would also be in line with the  current fishing mechanic, which is currently 1-hour increments that can be cancelled at any time.

Of course, they may decide to not change anything because 'tricking" people into sleeping through a weather change that causes them to freeze their way into the long dark is just one of the ways this game tries actively to kill the player.

[Balthasar250]

28 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Of course, they may decide to not change anything because 'tricking" people into sleeping through a weather change that causes them to freeze their way into the long dark is just one of the ways this game tries actively to kill the player.

well, that, and there's not enough coffee per tin.

[AdamvR]

1 hour ago, Balthasar250 said:

marathon cooking session means you either waste cooking time/fuel and can't rest at all.

I do see the point in general, but I've made my peace with the current mechanic using the following approach:
for cooking larger amounts of food/water at a time (especially after fishing) i usually light more fires next to each other (about 3 or 4), and it keeps me occupied adding-removing items as soon as they get ready. This way i rarely need to wait (and thereby "waste time"), or need to advance time for more than a couple mins game-time (if really needing to pass a few mins, I rather do some sharpening/or crafting birch-bark, or tinder for trace-marking, etc).
i see some advantages with this:
- I get ready quicker so can go for longer sleep afterwards, that is more rewarding in refilling fatigue, than a combination of small 1 (or half) hour naps
- lighting more fires helps level up the firestarting skill (without spending full days doing only that ==> i would go crazy)
- you also save some fuel, even compared to the half hour naps
 

1 hour ago, UpUpAway95 said:

2) Tins of food and teas that are already made can be set beside the fire rather than placed upon it to reheat and they will not burn away.  This means that it's possible to take an hour nap while these items are reheating even though they take much less than an hour to do so.

I've heard about cooking "next" to the fire (not only on the 2 large spots), but when tried it it did not seem to be working for me, so assumed that it must have been something in an earlier version which is no longer there; but maybe I just did something wrong.
Is this still a thing? If so, can you suggest how to make that work?
(e.g. what can you cook like that, where exactly do you place it, does it take longer, is there a difference between fires/stoves ?)
thanks in advance!

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by AdamvR

[UpUpAway95]

3 hours ago, AdamvR said:

I've heard about cooking "next" to the fire (not only on the 2 large spots), but when tried it it did not seem to be working for me, so assumed that it must have been something in an earlier version which is no longer there; but maybe I just did something wrong.
Is this still a thing? If so, can you suggest how to make that work?
(e.g. what can you cook like that, where exactly do you place it, does it take longer, is there a difference between fires/stoves ?)
thanks in advance!

 

Teas and coffee have to already be "cooked" (ie. already in a cup)... Then, setting them next to the first reheats them without them ever boiling dry.  Canned goods can be heated in their oriiginal tins next to the first and, bonus, the tin will open without the need to smash it or use a can opener, knife, or hatchet.  The distance from the fire to place the item is relatively close, but you can tell when it displays a  "warming" message and gives a time that it will become ready (i.e. hot).  I've been able to warm teas and heat canned goods by most stoves just by setting them on the ground in front of the stove or on the counter right next to the stove (e.g. Grey Mother's house).  For campfires, just set them in the snow around the outside of the stone ring (Atheenon does this all the time, so you can get the idea from any of his Youtube videos or from his Twitch streams).

[AdamvR]

thanks!

[peteloud]

I find that cooking most pieces of meat takes between half and hour and an hour.  I wish I could use that time, or half an hour of it, for reading.

[UpUpAway95]

47 minutes ago, peteloud said:

I find that cooking most pieces of meat takes between half and hour and an hour.  I wish I could use that time, or half an hour of it, for reading.

I carve my meat into 1 kg steaks.   At Level 1 cooking, 1 kg of venison takes 57 minutes to cook.  Wolf, Moose, and Bear all take a little longer than an hour.  The only 1 kg meat that takes around half an hour to cook is rabbit.  Of course, people who carve their meats into smaller sizes to get to Level 5 cooking faster will find they take less time to cook, but I look at it as the price they pay for using that exploit to level faster.  For me, taking  a 1-hour nap or reading a chapter of a book is not a problem at all... and I haven't burnt anything in a long time either.

[peteloud]

5 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I carve my meat into 1 kg steaks.   At Level 1 cooking, 1 kg of venison takes 57 minutes to cook.  Wolf, Moose, and Bear all take a little longer than an hour.  The only 1 kg meat that takes around half an hour to cook is rabbit.  Of course, people who carve their meats into smaller sizes to get to Level 5 cooking faster will find they take less time to cook, but I look at it as the price they pay for using that exploit to level faster.  For me, taking  a 1-hour nap or reading a chapter of a book is not a problem at all... and I haven't burnt anything in a long time either.

A few points that you mention have me puzzled.

Level 1 cooking is such a small part of the game that I had not even noticed that most meat takes over an hour to cook.  For almost all of my playing I have level 5 cooking. I did not know that you could carve your meat into anything other than 1Kg steaks. You have me wondering if I have been blind to something that is very obvious.   I couldn't be bothered using a exploit to gain a level faster.  I'd rather play the game straight and face the challenges head-on.  If I had an hour's reading or sleeping while cooking 1Kg of venison I might not burn the meat but I'd waste a lot of valuable cooking time.

[AdamvR]

47 minutes ago, peteloud said:

I did not know that you could carve your meat into anything other than 1Kg steaks. You have me wondering if I have been blind to something that is very obvious.

while selecting what you harvest (bowels, skins or meat), you can select the meat in half kg increments. If you only select half kilo at once, it will only carve out that much. if you select more, then it will make 1 kg pieces. To do even smaller ones, you can select the whole thing first (click all the way by every 0,5 kg) thus selecting 5,1 kg in total, and then step back in again in half kilo steps until you reach the last remaining 0.1 kg. once you carve that out separately, the next time it would default to that amount again.

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, peteloud said:

A few points that you mention have me puzzled.

Level 1 cooking is such a small part of the game that I had not even noticed that most meat takes over an hour to cook.  For almost all of my playing I have level 5 cooking. I did not know that you could carve your meat into anything other than 1Kg steaks. You have me wondering if I have been blind to something that is very obvious.   I couldn't be bothered using a exploit to gain a level faster.  I'd rather play the game straight and face the challenges head-on.  If I had an hour's reading or sleeping while cooking 1Kg of venison I might not burn the meat but I'd waste a lot of valuable cooking time.

Well, at Level 5 cooking then (I just tested it):  Bear Meat 1 kg takes 57 minutes to cook;  Moose Meat 1 kg also takes 57 minutes to cook; Wolf Meat 1 kg takes 48 minutes to cook; and Venison 1 kg takes 40 minutes to cook.  So, unless adding coal to the fire reduces the cooking time quite a bit, they all take closer to the 1-hour mark than the 1/2-hour mark.  The time until something burns is also extended  you level up, so even the rabbit 1 kg steak that you cook should not burn if you take a 1--hour nap.  Snow in a tin can (0.5 kg) does take 24 minutes to boil at Level 5, but will have a couple of minutes left on it before it boils dry when you wake from your 1-hour nap.

Yes, you are "wasting" some fuel, but also keep in mind that as you level firestarting, you gain burn time on that fuel even before considering air temperature... so it all likely balances out... and, again, sticks, branches, and even the smaller limbs are infinitely available because they respawn.  Cooking time isn't all that valuable if your character is so tired they're loosing health while cooking.  While 1-hour naps won't recover that health, taking 1-hour naps before you get into the red can prevent you from losing that health in the first place.  Reading is also a choice you make.  The books provide only additional Level-Up points towards specific skills.  If you're reading a cooking book at Level 4 when what you're cooking will get you to Level 5 anyways, you're probably wasting your time.  As someone famous once said... I'ts all relative.

Thankfully, someone else has explained the exploit.  I don't use it myself but I have seen Atheenon and other Youtubers use it.  Some of them feel that, because Hinterland hasn't fixed it in all these years, it isn't an exploit at all.  I would say it isn't at 0.5 kg is legit because we can select it at the start; but I feel that the backtracking to get the steaks down to 0.1 kg is an exploit.  Even thought 0.5 kg steaks are legit IMO, I don't use them since I like knowing that each steak I have has at least 800 cal (at Level 1 cooking) and more when I level up.  They all look the same in my inventory and I don't like getting caught thinking I have enough on me to feed me for the day only to discover that I'm carrying around a couple 0.1 kg meat cubes instead.

Edited February 1, 2021 by UpUpAway95