Food spoilage

[panda_gamer87]

A considerable number of crafting materials and cooking ingredients have been introduced with the various content updates. The player can cook actual recipes, making it easier to sustain the character. However, in regard to meat and fish specifically, the food spoilage rate is too high. With that in mind, I have some suggestions for counteracting food spoilage.

If you kill a large animal like a moose or deer, even if you start harvesting meat from the carcass immediately, you'll get gamey meet within 2 hours and moldy meat within 4 - 5 hours. This seems a bit strange, considering the temperature is always below freezing. The cold temps have no effects on food spoilage. I believe the following 2 mechanics should be introduced: salted meat and cold storage. Salt is an ingredient introduced in a previous patch. Salt has long been used as a food preservation agent. It makes sense that if you have freshly harvested meat and fish, if you apply salt, you can decrease spoilage significantly. Also, if the player is able to craft a small icehouse, they can create a short - term cold storage container to place their meat and fish and reduce food spoilage. 

Also, if an animal is killed, but the carcass can't be located for several hours or even a day, defrosting the carcass and harvesting the meat shouldn't be yielding moldy and rancid meat. Not only did the severe temps cause the carcass to freeze quickly (should be in excellent condition), even after partial defrosting, the food spoilage rate is already quite high. But since this is a survival game, the mechanics aren't meant to be realistic. Thus, I'd at least like to see some preservation mechanics introduced.

[Cr41g]

your best recourse is to leave meat OUTDOORS where it is actually cold and it will last literally 10X longer...the rate of decay is much less than having it indoors and even when spoiled meat can be cooked back up to 50% and edible....

but I definitely think salted meat is a great idea and I believe i have expressed that previously......

Edited November 28 by Cr41g

[grindtime]

10 hours ago, panda_gamer87 said:

A considerable number of crafting materials and cooking ingredients have been introduced with the various content updates. The player can cook actual recipes, making it easier to sustain the character. However, in regard to meat and fish specifically, the food spoilage rate is too high. With that in mind, I have some suggestions for counteracting food spoilage.

If you kill a large animal like a moose or deer, even if you start harvesting meat from the carcass immediately, you'll get gamey meet within 2 hours and moldy meat within 4 - 5 hours. This seems a bit strange, considering the temperature is always below freezing. The cold temps have no effects on food spoilage. I believe the following 2 mechanics should be introduced: salted meat and cold storage. Salt is an ingredient introduced in a previous patch. Salt has long been used as a food preservation agent. It makes sense that if you have freshly harvested meat and fish, if you apply salt, you can decrease spoilage significantly. Also, if the player is able to craft a small icehouse, they can create a short - term cold storage container to place their meat and fish and reduce food spoilage. 

Also, if an animal is killed, but the carcass can't be located for several hours or even a day, defrosting the carcass and harvesting the meat shouldn't be yielding moldy and rancid meat. Not only did the severe temps cause the carcass to freeze quickly (should be in excellent condition), even after partial defrosting, the food spoilage rate is already quite high. But since this is a survival game, the mechanics aren't meant to be realistic. Thus, I'd at least like to see some preservation mechanics introduced.

The spoilage mechanics do feel a bit unrealistic. Salt preservation would be a killer addition - works historically and would totally make sense in a survival game. The icehouse idea is smart too. Devs could take a page from traditional wilderness survival techniques. +1 for suggesting mechanics that feel true to the game's environment.

[mfuegemann]

I would love, if the calorie content of the food would reduce according to its condition. And then meat with a condition of 0% vanishing even outside of containers.
The vanishing should not apply to other food that may be used as cooking ingredients, as they are limited already.
So no more piles of rotten meat to feast on, once You reached cooking level 5.

[SafeAgain]

I would be okay with spoilage being a bigger problem if we could actually preserve food.

[Veskaida]

On 11/28/2024 at 12:11 PM, panda_gamer87 said:

A considerable number of crafting materials and cooking ingredients have been introduced with the various content updates. The player can cook actual recipes, making it easier to sustain the character. However, in regard to meat and fish specifically, the food spoilage rate is too high. With that in mind, I have some suggestions for counteracting food spoilage.

If you kill a large animal like a moose or deer, even if you start harvesting meat from the carcass immediately, you'll get gamey meet within 2 hours and moldy meat within 4 - 5 hours. This seems a bit strange, considering the temperature is always below freezing. The cold temps have no effects on food spoilage. I believe the following 2 mechanics should be introduced: salted meat and cold storage. Salt is an ingredient introduced in a previous patch. Salt has long been used as a food preservation agent. It makes sense that if you have freshly harvested meat and fish, if you apply salt, you can decrease spoilage significantly. Also, if the player is able to craft a small icehouse, they can create a short - term cold storage container to place their meat and fish and reduce food spoilage. 

Also, if an animal is killed, but the carcass can't be located for several hours or even a day, defrosting the carcass and harvesting the meat shouldn't be yielding moldy and rancid meat. Not only did the severe temps cause the carcass to freeze quickly (should be in excellent condition), even after partial defrosting, the food spoilage rate is already quite high. But since this is a survival game, the mechanics aren't meant to be realistic. Thus, I'd at least like to see some preservation mechanics introduced.

An emphasis of TLD has been on fun/interesting gameplay and not realism for many, many years. Yes, TLD is more realistic than fantastical, but it always seems to bend a knee whenever gameplay is brought up. The mechanic you're discussing is TLD's carcass decay system, where carcasses lose condition over time until all their products dissapear (pre-generated carcasses don't start decaying till the survivor touches them). I suspect this is for gameplay balance reasons, otherwise it would be pretty easy to litter the map with frozen carcasses that could lead to balance/FPS issues.

I do agree with the general sentiment of this post though. Like in Misery Mode, I think TLD is much more engaging when it forces the player to eat higher condition food and engage with the Food Poisoning system, but the main flaw to this is how broken Cooking Skill 5 is (makes you immune to food poisoning from non-raw food). I like the addition of Jerky, Harvestable/Tradeable Salt, and the Salt Box, but without a change to the Cooking Skill I'm afraid it will forever remain a novelty.

[panda_gamer87]

On 12/4/2024 at 1:37 AM, Veskaida said:

An emphasis of TLD has been on fun/interesting gameplay and not realism for many, many years. Yes, TLD is more realistic than fantastical, but it always seems to bend a knee whenever gameplay is brought up. The mechanic you're discussing is TLD's carcass decay system, where carcasses lose condition over time until all their products dissapear (pre-generated carcasses don't start decaying till the survivor touches them). I suspect this is for gameplay balance reasons, otherwise it would be pretty easy to litter the map with frozen carcasses that could lead to balance/FPS issues.

I do agree with the general sentiment of this post though. Like in Misery Mode, I think TLD is much more engaging when it forces the player to eat higher condition food and engage with the Food Poisoning system, but the main flaw to this is how broken Cooking Skill 5 is (makes you immune to food poisoning from non-raw food). I like the addition of Jerky, Harvestable/Tradeable Salt, and the Salt Box, but without a change to the Cooking Skill I'm afraid it will forever remain a novelty.

Yes, I also think the cooking skill 5 is broken. However, I've seen the character get food poisoning from eating cooked meat with 80% condition. Some re - balancing is in order. If I'm not mistaken, in addition to mushrooms, burdock root tea can be used to treat food poisoning. Both items can be preserved for quite a long time, so if you just save them up, food poisoning won't be a big issue.  

I did notice after reading the release notes for part six of the tale of the far territory. that there is a new item called the meat curing box. So, let's see how that goes.

Edited 7 hours ago by panda_gamer87

[Veskaida]

5 hours ago, panda_gamer87 said:

Yes, I also think the cooking skill 5 is broken. However, I've seen the character get food poisoning from eating cooked meat with 80% condition. Some re - balancing is in order. If I'm not mistaken, in addition to mushrooms, burdock root tea can be used to treat food poisoning. Both items can be preserved for quite a long time, so if you just save them up, food poisoning won't be a big issue.  

I did notice after reading the release notes for part six of the tale of the far territory. that there is a new item called the meat curing box. So, let's see how that goes.

Yes, Reishi, Burdoc and "Antibiotics" can all treat Food Poisoning. You can also simply untreat it and it will cure with time (12-24 hours), far as I'm aware this is the only Affliction in TLD like this; though if you don't treat it, it won't kill you (in of itself) but it will tank your Condition down to 15% (and quickly drain it back below 15% if you e.g. use a stim, TFT cooking recipe, etc).

IMO a Misery-style change making cooked meat below 75%, 50% and 25% increasingly risky to eat would be great. Was a little surprised to see the addition of all these new Salt spawns, harvesting mechanics, and the Meat Curing Box and 'not' have a change to Cooking Skill 5. It's a pretty fun/interesting system (seem a gorillion comments about adding such a system for YEARS too), but I'm not sure many players will actually craft it with the state of cooking atm.