Okay, folks, I live in America and honestly have never run into some of the food pickups I see. And, y’know, I’m not saying that’s unrealistic or even bad, but it sure is a pain in the ass from a functionality standpoint-- I’m constantly throwing away rotting food I never would have picked up in the first place if I’d known it would rot.
Maybe it should be locked to Cooking skill. Maybe it’s a bad idea because it’s unrealistic and you don’t immediately know if something will rot when you pick it up. But with the occasional funky wording used in naming items, the various translation projects, and the base-building/hoarder focused gameplay that the devs focus on most, it’d damn well make things more accessible.
If the food is canned, in carton box it won’t rot, liquid in plastic bottles will rot but slower, and fruits, milks and maybe some other things rot very quick - in fact I rarely see normal milk every time I play.
My only advice is eat any non-canned and carton box food as soon as you pick it up (unless you’re full of course), reading the item’s description will help too.
Canned soup rots. Boxed pizzas rot. Yogurt rots. Milk is always rotten by game start.
Your list is a good rule of thumb, and it’s what I grab loot by, but it isn’t actually true. I spend a lot of time throwing out rotten food on older characters. This is realistic, judging by the state of my refrigerator, but it’s just as boring a chore as in real life.
[quote=“Coyote, post:3, topic:4586”]Canned soup rots. Boxed pizzas rot. Yogurt rots. Milk is always rotten by game start.
Your list is a good rule of thumb, and it’s what I grab loot by, but it isn’t actually true. I spend a lot of time throwing out rotten food on older characters. This is realistic, judging by the state of my refrigerator, but it’s just as boring a chore as in real life.[/quote]
Add: pudding rots pretty fast, Ketchup, mayonnaise both rot (mustard maybe too), all of which are in plastic containers. The new no-brand Pop-Tarts in a box rot; toaster pastries (I guess they’re two separate items) rot - also boxed.
Pickles seem to last nigh-forever.
I’ve often wondered if some kind of color-coding scheme for inventory items (food especially) would work. Have food turn “danger colors” as it ages and we could have a “oh no this banana I found turned red in my inventory … it must look nasty, I better eat it fast or toss it”.
And Coyote, I’m with you on the “what is this thing?” aspect of some of the newer food additions. Some things are just bizarre and I think merged in by people far enough outside American culture to not know what isn’t a product over here, so I give it a pass and usually just refuse to pick up anything in game that I have no idea what it is, food-wise.
Part of the odd foods is that a zillion mundane items are added Its pretty likely that you can cook up a pretty fair representation of you favorite meal in real life, in DDA :> I think, for rotting, that a couple “early warning” flags would be helpful to let the player know that the food is still good but approaching the end of its life… I would say it should be tied to cooking skill, but it seems pretty based on common sense to me :> Master chefs aren’t trained to know when a food is still barely edible, just how to pick the best/freshest ingredients and how to avoid cheap stuff (and of course to cook it) A case could be made for survival skill too, but most survival training doesn’t include a seminar on when the very latest time is that its still safe to eat your soggy uncooked previously-frozen pizza and still avoid food poisoning
[quote=“Dominae, post:5, topic:4586”]Pickles seem to last nigh-forever.[/quote]actually, pickles DO last forever, that’s the whole point of pickling things, to make them last forever.
Well “forever” being somewhat of an overstatement as nothing really will last forever, usually the “pickled things last for many years” is for a sealed jar with the brine and such still in it. Though, once open the shelf-life will drop some but not too significantly because, yeah, pickling is an awesome way of preserving things.
“pickle” that you pick up in game, to me, just seems like a loose deli pickle I found on the floor. I feel like ya’ can’t just stuff a pickle in your pocket and expect it to last indefinitely.
I know you intended it to only tell the player whether the food will spoil or not, but personally I think it’s would be better to give an estimate.
For example: This food will not spoil --> This food will last for a long time --> This food will last for awhile --> This food will be spoiled easily. The wording could be better but you get the idea. The problem I see is it’s too “binary”. Surely the character can read the expiration day on the can/carton box or have gut feeling if the food is a fruit or juice? “This food will rot” can range from 2-3 days to weeks or months.
Not sure if the current system allow for that, just my 2 cents.
@infectedmochi: The problem is that now that we have fridges, the spoil time of food can change. You can’t really tell just by looking at something how quickly it will spoil, and the best-by date is just a rough approximation at best.
[quote=“infectedmochi, post:10, topic:4586”]I know you intended it to only tell the player whether the food will spoil or not, but personally I think it’s would be better to give an estimate.
For example: This food will not spoil --> This food will last for a long time --> This food will last for awhile --> This food will be spoiled easily. The wording could be better but you get the idea. The problem I see is it’s too “binary”. Surely the character can read the expiration day on the can/carton box or have gut feeling if the food is a fruit or juice? “This food will rot” can range from 2-3 days to weeks or months.
Not sure if the current system allow for that, just my 2 cents.[/quote]
There have been talks about implementing literal expiration dates, but the way I look at it, you would have to either express the expiration in number of days, or implement actual months and years instead of just seasons.
if the spoil point is not temperature dependent and it is expressed as expiration time, it’s another metagaming feature.
A note mentioning if it is perishable or not would be more than enough imo.
Heh, this must’ve been brought up before, but yeah;
Instead of a single counter for ‘rotten’:
2 counters, 1 for smell 1 for appearance.
Milk
Smell
<2: This smells like milk!
2<days<4: This smells rather sweet.
4<: This smells pretty awful.
Sight
<4: This looks fine!
4<days<7: There are pretty obvious curdles.
7<: This is sludge.
Each level increases chance to be poisoned by a certain amount depending on the food, (milk would be 20% for lvl3 smell, 30% for lvl2 sight & 50% for lvl3 sight).
Include yet another counter almost identical to ‘rotten’, but is instead ‘expired’ for pre-packaged foods only, (cans, bags, cartons). This is to handle foods that wouldn’t be apparently bad unless you open them up & look, and would be part of the item name.
Tons & tons of work, but would be a pretty intuitive & more involved system.
I’m still wondering how we got salmaic powder in-game. I thought the Finns were the only ones crazy enough to eat that stuff. It’s definitely not a North American thing.
If it were Pixie Stix or something similar it wouldn’t stick out, but here in the USA we tend to think of ammonium chloride as fertilizer, not food.
Its pretty likely that you can cook up a pretty fair representation of you favorite meal in real life, in DDA :> I think, for rotting, that a couple “early warning” flags would be helpful to let the player know that the food is still good but approaching the end of its life… I would say it should be tied to cooking skill, but it seems pretty based on common sense to me :> Master chefs aren’t trained to know when a food is still barely edible, just how to pick the best/freshest ingredients and how to avoid cheap stuff (and of course to cook it) 
A case could be made for survival skill too, but most survival training doesn’t include a seminar on when the very latest time is that its still safe to eat your soggy uncooked previously-frozen pizza and still avoid food poisoning 
