Players Should Be Able to add fuel while cooking / boiling

[Mikeloeven]

Major gripe about this game is the cooking mechanism that requires all fuel to be in the fire before initiating cooking or boiling. while it is nice how the time fast forwards the fact that the operation fails if you underestimate the fuel requirements is a fatal flaw in the games design. During a cooking operation you should have the ability to pause the timer and add more wood to the fire or even perform the operation in real time allowing you to walk away from the fire to perform other tasks while cooking. generally speaking a fire doesn't need to be constantly monitored to do something as simple as boiling water as per the old adage a watched pot never boils and given the time required to cook meat a good 20 minutes or so the player should have the choice to cook in real time and multitask

[Xantar]

If you asked me, they should making cooking like curing. Put food on open flame and watch the % going up, and if it still on the fire after 100%, chance of being burn increases.

Of course, most people probably gets bored while watching their meal getting cook. Adding a "wait" system is also nice. It's like "take a nap" in.... ummm can't remember what game it was. Basically, don't wait around for shit to happens, automatically fast forwards 30 min and recovered some fatigue.

Keep a fire running while you're snoozing and not abusing the flames for something else seem unrealistic. I would smoke jerky while snoozing away, or purifying water.

[Mikeloeven]

Lets not even begin to mention how the fuel sources in the game lack realistic burn times let alone banking the coals in a wood stove to restart the fire in the morning without needing to waste matches

[akodo1]

I was surprised how the stove seemed to give no edge in starting fires, or how long the fire burned, or how long it was in 'ember' status.

Maybe I am missing something when I cook. Once I cook I have to close out of the fire menu and open my gear menu (choose food sub-section or medicine sub-section) and then find the thing I cooked. From the fire menu, is there a way to eat what you just cooked?

If not, there should be.

[Hotzn]

Major gripe about this game is the cooking mechanism that requires all fuel to be in the fire before initiating cooking or boiling. while it is nice how the time fast forwards the fact that the operation fails if you underestimate the fuel requirements is a fatal flaw in the games design. During a cooking operation you should have the ability to pause the timer and add more wood to the fire or even perform the operation in real time allowing you to walk away from the fire to perform other tasks while cooking. generally speaking a fire doesn't need to be constantly monitored to do something as simple as boiling water as per the old adage a watched pot never boils and given the time required to cook meat a good 20 minutes or so the player should have the choice to cook in real time and multitask

There is no "fatal flaw" in the game design and no need for changes here just because a few players forgot to put enough wood on the fire. It does not take much effort to know the cooking/melting/boiling times of everything - do some simple math, put enough wood on and you're good.

[SwissArmy]

Cooking and boiling shouldn't impede you from doing anything else during the time. Any activity that doesn't require your full attention shouldn't impede you doing something else.

[Vagos]

Cooking menu still needs a major redesign,

We should be able to eat, drink, cook, add fuel without leaving the menu.

We should be able to multicook pieces of meat instead of clicking each one separately.

We should be able to distinguish the hot foods from the icon.

etc etc

[druffzilla]

I don't think the cooking mechanic as it is now is bad, but the alternative option to put something onto the top of the stove and wait for it to cook would be cool, as a downside the food could burn after a while, if you don't pay attention, and lose more calories...

[akodo1]

Cooking and boiling shouldn't impede you from doing anything else during the time. Any activity that doesn't require your full attention shouldn't impede you doing something else.

I've mentioned this before.

Think about actually melting snow. Snow is 10x the volume of water (it can be packed though). When you melt snow into 1 liter of water, you are not gathering 10 liters of snow in a giant bucket and putting in on the fire and coming back in 10 minutes. You are scooping up 1 liter of snow into something, melting it, pouring 0.1 liter into your jug, and repeating 10 times. You'd also want to see right when the snow melts to pour it out and get fresh snow (to let it warm up too much cuts down how much snow you manage to melt in X amount of time) That constant -melt-pour-fetch more-melt-pour means you can't do a lot more that just melt snow. Add in doing this indoors where you have to run to the door, scoop snow, and run back...

There might be a few tasks you could do while watching, but not many.

[Best_Leopard]

I agree that it would make sense to be able to add fuel to the fire while you're boiling water or cooking something. I'm not saying it's hard to just add enough fuel at the beginning once you've figured out how long things take, but it's one of those mechanics that could be improved.

Even if cooking, boiling, or melting snow takes your full attention for the time you're doing it (and I'm fine with that), it makes complete sense that if you're sitting there cooking your meat or watching your pot of water and notice that the fire is getting low, you could add some wood to it, right?

[akodo1]

absolutely, adding wood while cooking/melting should be possible.

But then again, if I set myself a 3 hour deer butchering task, I shouldn't keep on going and freeze to death either. I should have the sense to stop half way through.

[Hesha]

absolutely, adding wood while cooking/melting should be possible.

But then again, if I set myself a 3 hour deer butchering task, I shouldn't keep on going and freeze to death either. I should have the sense to stop half way through.

You can. Not sure if you cancel harvesting by clicking or by pressing ESC, but it definitely works. Downside is that you will end up with two fractional meat portions (let's say you harvest 5kg off a wolf, when you abort the harvesting you might end up with 2.7 kg in your backpack and 2.3 kg left on the wolf, which will cost you 20min additional cooking time).

[akodo1]

I was not clear.

The toon should have enough sense to not keep on going unto death even if me the controller stupidly choose to type in 'fish for 8 hours'.

Should have an automatic 'abort task if player condition drops below X'

Not really critical though. We proably all die that way once and then learn.

[Hesha]

I would be against to much of control being taken away from the player. What if I WANT to fish down to 2% and then sleep on my bedroll in the fishing hut? I think that being able to see the change in condition AND being able to cancel the action is enough. Of course we should be able to cancel all actions... except for those where we don't have any control, e.g. sleeping.