Improvement to cooking system

[Snaaty]

Hello,

currently common ingredients like salt, pepper, spices or honey are only used in the actual recipe of the food you’re crafting.
I propose to change that, by adding a category for combestible that can be (a)pplied to other combestibles.

It makes sense, that your freshly cooked cougar meat should taste better if you add a spoonfull of salt to it.
Adding salt and pepper to your woods soup is certain to make it taste better.
Adding sugar, honey or milk to your tea can make it taste better.

Also, another, independent idea, that would also largely benefit from this change is to add a larger variety of sandwhiches (meaning: bread + number of ingredients you like on your bread).
Technically, you should be able to put almost everything on your bread, yet that would require an immense amount of seperate crafting recipes. Also, I am very much considering splitting up the current bread types into: toast, wholegrain toast, white bread, wholegrain bread. (+ the ohter types that are there currently, hardtack and cornbread).

TL;DR:

1. Add a “ingredient” (?) tag to a variety of combestibles so that they may be added to other foodstuffs, potentially increaseing nutrition/quench and/or moral value. (I have in mind: salt, pepper, spices(all kinds that there are), milk, honey) This could allow to spawn much more of the common spices salt and pepper, which actually should be in every household.

2. That system, or a variation from it, can also be used to add more combinations of regular food, especially with bread:
   Mustard and ketchup on your bread, meat on your bread, fruits on your bread, honey, butter, sausages cabbage and nutella on your bread.

3. I propose to change the current “bread” into “white bread” and “wholegrain bread”, and add another bread, that is “toast” and “wholegrain toast”. (Fully aware, that that is not very american, but there are noteable differences between toast, white bread and their whole grain alternatives, that they are worhty of implementation, I believe. )

EDIT: 3. I can implement all by myself, just waiting for a little feedback. The other things I need someone more experienced for. I can do the job of changing all the new .json entries, though.

Also, another idea could be, that if your cooking skill is very low, and let’s say you want to add salt to your meat/soup/sandwhich, there is a chance it will fail and you will use either no salt (you have to retry), or you use too much, with an impact on the morale value of the produced food.

[Khrysanth]

The ability to spice food to affect its morale (and quench, as spices tend to make one thirsty) is a great idea.

A thought, however - breads and toast themselves should be applyable to foods (I generally have bread with my soups & stews, and sometimes with other foods.) This could also help alleviate the infinite sandwich issue, as applying bread to other foods could be thought of as making a sandwich.

As for the different breads not being very “american”, I’m not sure where that came from. Pretty much any grocery store around will have white/wheat and whole grain breads. In the northeast, you’ll also often find Rye in your average grocery store (elsewhere it’s generally found in bakeries or grocery stores with their own bakeries.)

[Snaaty]

great idea.

Thanks!

I am not sure if applying bread to things like soups is really a ver good idea, though. Technically, you are not “merging” them, you are just eating two things that taste well together at the same time. You could (theoreticall eat just the soup and then the bread).
Or maybe it seems a little unusual to me, because I don’t regularly do that.

Could you elaborate what exactly the “infinite sandwhich” issue is?

Well the last time I was in the states (2010) I remembered, that it is rather unusual for americans to eat whole grain bread regularly. In my homecountry many people it it on a daily basis, so I was just trying to be funny.

[KA101]

Having to separately define every type of sandwich as its own recipe is a nontrivial issue, so that might be it.

As for 'Murrican breads, screw that white stuff. Sourdough plz.

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“Snaaty, post:1, topic:7158”]1. Add a “ingredient” (?) tag to a variety of combestibles so that they may be added to other foodstuffs, potentially increaseing nutrition/quench and/or moral value. (I have in mind: salt, pepper, spices(all kinds that there are), milk, honey) This could allow to spawn much more of the common spices salt and pepper, which actually should be in every household.

2. That system, or a variation from it, can also be used to add more combinations of regular food, especially with bread:
   Mustard and ketchup on your bread, meat on your bread, fruits on your bread, honey, butter, sausages cabbage and nutella on your bread.[/quote]
   How does “added to” work? The first thing that comes to mind is that the new ingredients are stashed inside the food, and when you eat them it adds up all the modifiers that have gone into it, which is fine as far as it goes, but how do you keep it from being “more spices/ingredients is always better”? That’s the idea of having recipes, so that you can’t just pile up all the ingredients you have and get good food out of it. There have been a number of proposals in this area, ranging from applying flavor profile tags to various ingredients to having lists of ingredients you can add to each food item. I don’t think any of the proposals has reached a point where it would be reasonable to implement and make sense.

[Catfoodbob]

I think that this could sorta be treated like a gun modifications except its on food, the programmings already there, and it prevents you from adding 100 sniper scopes to your fish sandwich. i think it could actually be kinda simple ish.

[Khrysanth]

So I can take my meat, add on an underbarrel rye bread slice, some seasoned salt mechanism mod, a dill pickle sight mount, and a rail mount rye bread. Sounds good to me.

[KA101]

Mutation: Dagwood

You can add an unlimited amount of mods to base-level food items.

Requires Sleepy.

[kevin.granade]

I think that this could sorta be treated like a gun modifications except its on food, the programmings already there, and it prevents you from adding 100 sniper scopes to your fish sandwich. i think it could actually be kinda simple ish.

Funny you say that, the gun mod system is a complicated mess, and it’s dealing with a much simpler and better defined problem. Simply scaling a system like that up for food would be a nightmare. Basically you’d have to make a number* of categories for ingredients. Then you’d have to put every ingredient item into one or more categories. Then you’d need to add a list of how many of each category of ingredient you can add to each and every food item. Even once that’s done, the system would probably allow totally nonsensical outcomes.
I’m open to listening to ideas, but if your comment includes ‘it’s easy’, you haven’t thought about it hard enough.

*I haven’t the slightest idea how many categories we’re talking about here, but I assume it’s a lot.

[Ulfhedinn]

Basically you'd have to make a number* of categories for ingredients. Then you'd have to put every ingredient item into one or more categories. Then you'd need to add a list of how many of each category of ingredient you can add to each and every food item. Even once that's done, the system would probably allow totally nonsensical outcomes. I'm open to listening to ideas, but if your comment includes 'it's easy', you haven't thought about it hard enough.

*I haven’t the slightest idea how many categories we’re talking about here, but I assume it’s a lot.

How is adding any type of spice to any type of food nonsensical? It doesn’t seem complicated either. It’s almost the same as reinforcing clothing. Forget about the sandwiches, stews etc. I’d rather see the weather system and other issues fixed first, but the idea of spicing up food alone seems to be as simple as adding a single line of code that improves the morale of eating said spiced up food and making you slightly more thirsty.

[Datanazush]

The issue is that you’d have to account for the fact that there would be INCREDIBLY strange combinations. I don’t think anyone ever got a morale boost out of eating a chocolate bar dusted with curry powder.

And if we went the way of making it similar to reinforcing clothing then we’d probably need to have a new item to apply spices, which seems like a bad idea.

[Catfoodbob]

i think you could do to thee category would be like make meats, breads, veggies, and other food particles in their cooking based category, and based on such you can ad or mix food at will upgrading portions and such for more nutrition and enjoyment… kinda like adding cheese to a baked potatoe, makes it more tasty and filling, whilecheap ingredients like seasonings would only do moral bonus, or do the cheesy approach and do seasoned meat as a cooking thing where you let the thing sit in a plastic bag with some liquids and seasoning. carry it around for a bit. then cook it

[Khrysanth]

The issue is that you’d have to account for the fact that there would be INCREDIBLY strange combinations. I don’t think anyone ever got a morale boost out of eating a chocolate bar dusted with curry powder.

Disregarding the fact that I, personally, have made curry with chocolate, a quick Google search for “curry powder chocolate” sends back a number of products and recipe sites with exactly that.

People will try to combine anything. That’s how we invented so many different recipes, after all.

And if we went the way of making it similar to reinforcing clothing then we'd probably need to have a new item to apply spices, which seems like a bad idea.

My thinking on a conceptual level is more like this:

Keep the simple crafting recipes (boil noodles, cook meat, etc…) - Essentially the quick and dirty cooking or food prep stage.
For more complex dishes, use something similar to the vehicle construction menu - The “base” would be a non-spice/non-condiment food item, to which you then add other foods or additives. The result would inherit the nutrition/quench/enjoyability of its components, the spoilage of the most spoiled component, and the spoil rate of the shortest component.

[kevin.granade]

For more complex dishes, use something similar to the vehicle construction menu

Do you even know what that implies? Vehicle construction is one of the most complicated parts of the game, and you want us to knock out a duplicate of it 'real quick' to enable condiment use?

The problem isn’t the interface, the problem is sorting out which ingredients can combine together in a sensible way. Unless you have a simple way of representing that relationship, you’re not contributing a solution.
And no, ‘let everything just add up’ is not acceptable. A system where you simply pile up as many ingredients as you can for the greatest benefit is pointless.

[Valpo]

I guess it would be easier to add more recepies. Food bufs have never been relevant to me as their buffs are so short… maybe buff theire duration?

[Datanazush]

[quote=“Datanazush, post:11, topic:7158”]The issue is that you’d have to account for the fact that there would be INCREDIBLY strange combinations. I don’t think anyone ever got a morale boost out of eating a chocolate bar dusted with curry powder.

Disregarding the fact that I, personally, have made curry with chocolate, a quick Google search for “curry powder chocolate” sends back a number of products and recipe sites with exactly that.[/quote]

DISREGARD THAT EXAMPLE COMRADE. I was at a severe loss for an example of weiiiird shit to combine.

[Khrysanth]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:14, topic:7158”]

For more complex dishes, use something similar to the vehicle construction menu

Do you even know what that implies? Vehicle construction is one of the most complicated parts of the game, and you want us to knock out a duplicate of it ‘real quick’ to enable condiment use?[/quote]

I understand that you are used to people thinking things are quick and easy. I am not one of them, and nowhere did I even imply that it was quick or easy. I also stated at the beginning that it was a conceptual viewpoint, not an implementation viewpoint.

The problem isn't the interface, the problem is sorting out which ingredients can combine together in a sensible way. Unless you have a simple way of representing that relationship, you're not contributing a solution. And no, 'let everything just add up' is not acceptable. A system where you simply pile up as many ingredients as you can for the greatest benefit is pointless.

Fair enough, though the same could be said for the arbitrary “enjoyability” assignments that currently exist.

What I was attempting to do was to come up with a Concept, which could be distilled into a Design, and then turned into a Plan for implementation. I don’t know if I’m misunderstanding here, but your response seemed rather hostile, and as I appreciate the work you and the others do, I will step out of further discussions about Suggestions.

[kevin.granade]

I apologise for snapping, it’s frustrating to be told over and over again that various issues that would take days of work on my part to implement are waved off as being somehow simple or easy.

[Snaaty]

I apologise for snapping, it's frustrating to be told over and over again that various issues that would take days of work on my part to implement are waved off as being somehow simple or easy.

Man, you are doing a great job here, noone really doubts that.

Also: After some contemplation, maybe it will be just fine to add those recipes instead. That job will be doable by ordinary people like me, so you devs can work on more urgent and complicated issues.

Well, that would mean a hell of a lot json typing. cracks knuckles

EDIT: Is there a way to efficiently work with github without installing a local copy? The clone always fails for me, so I must do that.
I am especially in desperate need for some tool that allows me to search for a certain string in text (Strg+F doesn’t work, unfortunately.)

[i2amroy]

[quote=“Snaaty, post:19, topic:7158”]EDIT: Is there a way to efficiently work with github without installing a local copy? The clone always fails for me, so I must do that.
I am especially in desperate need for some tool that allows me to search for a certain string in text (Strg+F doesn’t work, unfortunately.)[/quote]
Not really. If your clone keeps failing that’s usually a sign that your internet just isn’t being fast enough (the github app freaks out sometimes on slow internet speeds). You could just download the repository elsewhere, move it to your computer with a flash drive/etc. and then locate it through the app though, which would get around that.