New wilderness harvest idea: Natural Syrup

[Cyclone35]

This idea was something I was thinking about to add additional foraging to the game. Still a work in progress so just hear me out. We are well aware that maple trees can be tapped to collect sweet sap and then boiled to create maple syrup. What if this was a sort of mechanic in the game. You would find a maple tree and attach a tapper to it, you can place a pot or recycled can below the tapper then harvest the sap from the tree. This would take time, so lets say you can come back later to check how much sap you collected. Afterwards you can use a campfire to boil the sap in order to create maple syrup. This would yield the same amount of calories as a normal bottle of maple syrup. The pros to this method is that it yields a large quantity of calories to consume, the cons is that its takes time to do compared to harvesting cat tails and acorns.

[Kranium]

Tapping for syrup only works during the seasonal change, not in the depths of winter. You need nights below freezing and days above 5C at least. That's what makes the sap flow. May as well try to tap a 2x4 haha But it is a game so hey, could be a neat mechanic anyway. Keep in mind that in order to make syrup you need to reduce the sap dramatically. IIRC it's around 10:1, but it's been ages since I've done it. A friend's grandfather had a maple sugar shack, and it would take most of the day to simmer the sap down.

[UTC-10]

Checked online and the ratio appears to be 40:1.  40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. 

5 gallons of sap would boil down to 16 ounces (0.5 quart) of syrup.   Seems the boiling takes about 1 hour per gallon of sap so the aforementioned 5 gallons would take about 5 hours to boil down to half a quart of syrup.  Assuming the numbers I found were correct.  

Then we'd just need 🥞 

[Willy Pete]

On 4/25/2023 at 3:50 PM, UTC-10 said:

Then we'd just need 🥞 

Acorn grounds could be turned into acorn pancakes, right?

[Willy Pete]

I was thinking about this earlier, as far as gameplay would go you'd probably have to craft or find some sort of tap that you could then stick into maple trees.

Each maple tree would give enough sap to make one item of syrup which would require a few hours in a cooking vessel to simmer down.

[UTC-10]

I won't complain if it happened but I think in real life the temperature has to fluctuate a bit more (such as above freezing) for periods of time to get sap to flow.  

I don't think that as it now exists in the game that acorns would be a viable continuing food source or a good source for acorn coffee.  There is just not enough of them.  Although the oak trees have been denuded of leaves, though it should not be possible (being winter), acorns patches under the oak tree should regenerate (more acorns fall off the tree, like one patch every 30 days or so).  

I have brewed acorn coffee and am struck by how little the acorn coffee does - a fatigue boost for 30 minutes - for the scarcity of the acorns and the effort to process them and produce the acorn coffee grounds.  Perhaps it should do a little bit more or maybe be a bit more available.  

 

[Willy Pete]

8 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

a fatigue boost for 30 minutes

I'm not even getting that, maybe my game is just messed up

[UTC-10]

At least that's what the game seemed to say to me when I checked "what changed" on the Status screen.  I really couldn't tell whether it made any difference at all.  Maybe time and experience will make any difference a bit more noticeable assuming I have enough acorn coffee to expend at one time.  

 

[SlippedGear]

Not sure about in the game, but irl, acorn coffee has zero caffeine so all it would do is add hydration and calories. It shouldn't really give a fatigue boost. But according to the wiki: Drinking a Cup of Acorn Coffee will help to reduce fatigue usage. "Fatigue reduced" lasts 30 minutes and while in effect, the player's fatigue is immediately restored by 5%, and the fatigue loss rate is reduced by 25%. Sprinting will also use 25% less energy. Fatigue Reduced does not affect the fatigue loss rate when climbing ropes.

Edited May 3, 2023 by SlippedGear