Smoker/Ability to preserve meat

[EnvironmentalChoice]

The addition of a smoker would allow for more variation when it comes to getting calories and food strategy. This mechanic would be more difficult than simply "cooking" the meat and would require somewhat of a strategy to be effective. 

The smoker itself would be a craftable item (similar to the snow shelter) and would require ~20 sticks + 3 deer hide. It would be crafted at a workbench and uses the same placing mechanics as a snare. It would be fairly heavy (~5kg) so that survivors would be discouraged from traveling long distances with it. The smoker would have similar mechanics to a stove, having 4 slots and a fire menu. In order to operate the smoker you would need to start a fire, let it burn to embers, then add the right amount of tinder to keep the smoke going. Meat would not be permitted inside the smoker until smoke is blowing. The smoker would consume around 5 pieces of tinder per hour. The smoker would take 2 hours to complete the process no matter the amount of meat inside and would need to be "on" for 2 hours without interruption. Unlike cooking meat, interruption would result in it becoming ruined instead of still being raw. Over-smoking would not burn or ruin the meat. 

It may sound like an easy way to preserve meat so far, but let's consider how the yield amount would be affected by smoking. Much like the 50% decrease in yield from a quarter to steaks, smoked meat would yield only 50% of the weight of raw meat. This means that at full capacity (four 1kg steaks), the smoker would yield 2kg of smoked meat. *As an example, in order to get 12kg of smoked meat in one day you would need 40 tinder plugs (20 sticks), 24kg of meat and visits to the smoker every 2 hours over the course of 8 hours to switch out the meat.* This would discourage the farming of large animals/smoked meat due to the number of resources required. It would be more efficient to smoke the remaining meat from a kill as an alternative to dry goods (and to save your extra meat from going bad!) once they're gone in higher difficulties. One or two rounds of smoking would yield 2-4kg of smoked meat, and would be the most time and resource efficient method. 

 

-Extra Info-

- Smoked meat would maintain the same caloric density as a cooked steak of any variety. This means the same amount of calories in half the weight.

- Intestinal parasites are still a risk until level 5 cooking. 

- Smoked meat would deteriorate in condition by 5% per day with no food poisoning risk. Once the condition reaches zero, it is considered ruined and inedible even with level 5 cooking.

- Smoked meat would increase the scent indicator at the same rate as cooked meat (2.5kg=1 scent indicator). 

- The smoker would attract predators the same way butchering a corpse does. The attraction would remain for 24 hours after the most recent use. 

 

NOTE:

These stats would be altered at the developers discretion as I am no expert in balancing the pros and cons of gear.

[odizzido]

Personally I would just freeze all my meat which would preserve it without the effort of smoking.

I like the idea of smoking/drying meat to reduce weight at the cost of time and resources for travel preparation though.

[EnvironmentalChoice]

6 hours ago, odizzido said:

Personally I would just freeze all my meat which would preserve it without the effort of smoking.

I like the idea of smoking/drying meat to reduce weight at the cost of time and resources for travel preparation though.

Thats pretty much why I want it haha I'm sick of never being able to travel on stalker. It would be awesome from climbing the summit up at TWM

[Stinky socks]

10 hours ago, odizzido said:

I would just freeze all my meat

Well, it is froze! It's very cold outside, much colder to be honest than a regular freezer! No idea why meat goes bad super fast. I can understand if you stash your meat inside, but out in the yard? I don't know..