Storing Meat

[DenverDad]

Hi all! In my current game I ran into a situation where I ended up with an abundance of meat all at once completely by chance. My question is... what is the best way to make it last as long as possible? If I set the meat outside where it is colder will it last longer than if I store it inside in a metal box? I'd like to assume yes but wondered if anyone can verify this up front.

[Jeremy JPOW Powell]

Hey, So all containers atm are set to halve the decay rate of an item. All items have different decay rates, so some stuff decays faster than others. Raw meat for example decays faster than if it is cooked. Leaving an item outside it will decay at that items set decay rate. Place it in a container it will half it.

Jeremy

[DenverDad]

Thanks Jeremy!

[thinair]

Only one tip is, if you harvest it at high percentage... let say 70-95%, let the raw meat decay until 49-50%, then cook it... it will become 99-100%.

[bikegramps]

Does a filing cabinet qualify as a container?

[Jeremy JPOW Powell]

Yes, anything you loot from and can place stuff back into, is a container.

Jeremy

[Burning Bridges]

Thanks Jeremy for the clarification.

What about temperature? I noticed corpses on the ground are extremely affected by temperature, fires, or being inside buildings (Fluffy)

[Jeremy JPOW Powell]

Temp does not affect any corpses or items. they all have set decay rates as well. Once meat,hide, and gut reach 0% you cannot harvest from the animal anymore and it should disappear after a while.

Jeremy

[elloco999]

I think Burning Bridges is referring to the decay of the meat on an animal that just died. And yes, temp has a huge effect on them. The decay is pretty high when the corpse isn't frozen (higher than in any container I think) and slows down as it freezes. Fully frozen the meat hardly decays (on voyageur anyway). But when you thaw it using a fire, the decaying speeds up again.

Fluffy, being inside the dam, doesn't freeze as fast as a wolf would when killed outside. This means the decaying will slow down much slower, resulting in the meat decaying much further before the corpse is fully frozen (if it ever freezes). So if you want to get fluffy's meat, harvest him asap.

[Burning Bridges]

Yes, I have seen Fluffy decompose completely within 2 days, but that's of course a different class of object compared to containers. I was not sure if containers were using the same calculations as corpses, Jeremey says no.

[AmericanSteel]

Hey, So all containers atm are set to halve the decay rate of an item. All items have different decay rates, so some stuff decays faster than others. Raw meat for example decays faster than if it is cooked. Leaving an item outside it will decay at that items set decay rate. Place it in a container it will half it.

Jeremy

Jeremy,

Is there anyway you could add "ice" to a container? Like a freezer. Since the freezer is insulated it should keep the items from reaching room temp longer, essentially an old school icebox. Making something an icebox or a cooler (by adding ice) should allow us to slow the decay rate even further (anywhere from half again to almost nil). Using ice would result in not having as much room for storage, because we have to fill some of that void with ice to keep things cold. It would also be another time sink for the player, they might not need to hunt as much but they still have to exert energy harvesting ice and hauling it back to camp. So it becomes a balancing act of keeping food longer vs. the cost of losing storage space and harvesting. Also, a player could just stuff snow into cooler, but it would take up even more volume and melt even faster.

That said, not every container could be a cooler or an ice box. Cabinets, drawers and medicine cabinets would be out of the question. However, plastic or metal contains (even some tool boxes) along with fridges/freezers would be fair game.

[Greavette]

I found out the hard way in the early stages. I had an absolute LOAD of meat....but just laying on the floor. One morning I woke up and the whole stash was GONE! ......It was a sad day......

[AmericanSteel]

I found out the hard way in the early stages. I had an absolute LOAD of meat....but just laying on the floor. One morning I woke up and the whole stash was GONE! ......It was a sad day......

It would be cool if they would let us keep 0% meat. It might be good bait for wolves for other animals that might comes down the pipe. I could just imagine setting a large snare for a wolverine, lynx or maybe even a cougar and using the bait to lure the animal in. Something that smelled that bad should leave a good scent plume... until is froze solid.