Balanced recipes/breaking down items

[Stranzua]

1. When breaking down certain objects like clothing, for example, a pair of gloves will 10 take minutes for 1 piece of cloth while a hoodie will take 30 minutes for 1 piece of cloth. Considering that the hoodie is much larger and takes 3x as long as the gloves, why are the yields the same? This is just one example. 

2. If we look at the Lily's pancake recipe, it takes acorn grounds, peaches, syrup, oil, and maybe something else. I forget. If 4 acorns are 320 calories, peaches are 500 calories, and regular pancakes are 625 calories, Lily's pancakes are only 1250 calories. This means that you are probably better off just eating the acorns and the peaches on their own, and then just making regular pancakes. On top of that, you need a hammer and a skillet. You need fuel. You need water. You need to cook 4 acorns. You need to make the acorn grounds. You need to prep it and you need to cook it.

None of these things are a major issue but might need a little tweak here and there.

Maybe the hoodie can give you 2 pieces of cloth.

Maybe Lily's pancakes only need s half a can of peaches.

Maybe bannock's calories should be buffed a little bit. (I will never make bannock. I would rather cook pancakes or just save the ingredients)

Or, maybe prepping can be done without needing a fire burning.      

[cuttlefish]

I agree with everything, I think bannock is fine though. It's a basic recipe, a last resort. It's useful to help you keep going for just a bit when you don't have anything else.

[Stranzua]

8 hours ago, cuttlefish said:

I agree with everything, I think bannock is fine though. It's a basic recipe, a last resort. It's useful to help you keep going for just a bit when you don't have anything else.

Bannock just never seemed worth it. It takes some prep time, a half hour to cook, and isn't it like only 300 calories? Isn't the acorn bannock like 425 calories?  

Maybe some of these recipes can have a buff that slows the rate of calorie drain for a few hours. I guess that's another option.  

[cuttlefish]

2 hours ago, Stranzua said:

Bannock just never seemed worth it. It takes some prep time, a half hour to cook, and isn't it like only 300 calories? Isn't the acorn bannock like 425 calories?  

Maybe some of these recipes can have a buff that slows the rate of calorie drain for a few hours. I guess that's another option.  

Maybe I just got really unlucky with loot, but bannock carried my current Interloper run up until day 10. Until I got to PV flour was all I had.

[Stranzua]

On 1/16/2024 at 4:05 AM, cuttlefish said:

I agree with everything, I think bannock is fine though. It's a basic recipe, a last resort. It's useful to help you keep going for just a bit when you don't have anything else.

Bannock never seemed worth it, but do you get 3 pieces like the pies? 

[Stranzua]

There are a couple other things I've noticed. 

1. The Prepper's pie takes acorn grounds. Please add at least some oak trees to regions that don't have any. For example, Pleasant Valley.

2. The Thompson's Stew needs canned corn and from I can tell, canned corn is only found in the bunkers linked to the tales. Please add more corn to the game. 

[Leeanda]

39 minutes ago, Stranzua said:

There are a couple other things I've noticed. 

1. The Prepper's pie takes acorn grounds. Please add at least some oak trees to regions that don't have any. For example, Pleasant Valley.

2. The Thompson's Stew needs canned corn and from I can tell, canned corn is only found in the bunkers linked to the tales. Please add more corn to the game. 

I have found corn in zoc I think.. 

[Semple Fi]

5 hours ago, Stranzua said:

There are a couple other things I've noticed. 

1. The Prepper's pie takes acorn grounds. Please add at least some oak trees to regions that don't have any. For example, Pleasant Valley.

2. The Thompson's Stew needs canned corn and from I can tell, canned corn is only found in the bunkers linked to the tales. Please add more corn to the game. 

I believe that is by design. Makes it harder to achieve completion on those particular recipes.  Requires planning and load management.  

Also, I haven’t confirmed it, but it seems that cooking the recipes completes cooking experience faster to get to level 5. 

Thirdly, I thought the intent of the devs was to give an extra play metric to give the game more depth, rather than following caloric yield.  
 

Fourthly 😂, there is ALWAYS waste when preparing food.  Perhaps those accounts for the calorie discrepancy?

 

@Leeanda I believe you are correct. I think I found two cans in the camp kitchen. 

Edited January 25 by Semple Fi
Spell

[Stranzua]

There is another thread about breaking acorns with more tools and I mention how I'm always missing something with these recipes. It's funny but painful. I just searched Coastal Highway and didn't find a single pot or a skillet, and usually there are several. Now I'm in Pleasant Valley with no acorns or corn. Lol. The struggle is real. 

[odizzido]

I think the only reason there is waste when making food in our daily lives is that we have huge amounts of it and no reason to double the effort to get that last little bit. If you were at risk of dying of hunger you likely would put in the effort to not waste anything. I would at least.

 

edit-----------

Also if the finished product offers no benefit or negative benefit at the cost of effort, it's a waste of time unless you personally enjoy feeding your character lilly's pancakes. Maybe they make a pleasing sound or are relaxing or whatever. Gameplay wise though you're putting effort into hurting yourself which isn't great.

Edited January 26 by odizzido

[hozz1235]

I made a post some time ago on Frontier cooking recipes.  It seems the most common reason FOR making the items was the weight reduction of the finished product.

As for socks n' hoodies cloth - I'm guessing it's just a gameplay balance decision.

Edited January 26 by hozz1235

[Leeanda]

I made all the recipes once each just to try them out....   I did save lily's pancakes for my 500th day as a celebration though.... 

I never let Astrid get hungry enough to eat a whole meal so I avoided most of the buffs and debuffs ...   No headaches or overburdened whilst still being well fed..

[cuttlefish]

On 1/26/2024 at 2:56 PM, hozz1235 said:

 It seems the most common reason FOR making the items was the weight reduction of the finished product.

 

Is it? In my experience with the recipes, they decayed so fast that they didn't seem worthy to take into long trips.

[hozz1235]

16 hours ago, cuttlefish said:

Is it? In my experience with the recipes, they decayed so fast that they didn't seem worthy to take into long trips.

 

[Stranzua]

I finally found a few more recipes and here are my thoughts:

1. Thomson's Family Stew: The same calories as the venison stew but is way more expensive to make. The venison stew needs 3 ingredients while Thomson's stew needs 6. Out of those 6 you need 1 can of corn, 4 carrots, and 2 potatoes, and corn seems to be one of the rarest ingredients in the game. In my opinion, this needs a calorie increase or it needs to be cheaper to make. Grade: C

2. Cambridge Porridge: This honestly sounds like the cheapest/most efficient recipe in the game. You get 1250 calories and all you need to make it is 1 can of peaches, 4 rose hips, a dash of maple syrup, water, and a little bit of oats. Plus, it's fast to cook. Grade: A++

3. Breyerhouse Pie: Gives you 2125 calories and that is massive. If you eat .5 kg of deer, rabbit, and ptarmigan meat you will get close to a 1000 calories. Cooking this pie certainly makes the most of its ingredients. Grade: A++

4. Coastal Fish Cakes: I have found this several times but never made it because out of all the fish in the game it needs trout. In my current 250+ day stalker playthrough, I'm not sure if I ever caught a single trout. If it's only found in certain areas, then that's something I'm going to have to experiment with in the future. Grade: ???

5.  Prepper's Pie: This pie gives you 1125 calories, heals 25% of your health, and it's probably one of the cheapest recipes to make. Needs acorn grounds, 4 mushrooms, 2 burdock root, and a tiny bit of water, oil, and salt. Grade: A++