The overabundance of food in postapocalyptic CDDA

[Ferodaktyl]

following the farming thread, i wanted to put to discussion the never-ending food sources in CDDA. Basically, it’s impossible to run out of food, no matter how low the loot spawn is set, no matter if it’s middle winter or 2 years after no new food was produced, practically no matter what. Not only that, food is too nutritious imo in most cases. No need for examples here :P.

While i love the ton of recipes we have, their practical use is dubious at best and that makes them all redundant.

Maybe there are some things that can be done about that :
-make animals much harder to hunt (more agile or more afraid of humans for the small ones) and yield less meat
-make foraging yield less in terms of food (after all, i’m not sure the average city dweller can sustain himself in a forest by foraging, or discovery survival shows would make no sense, not saying that they do), i mean maybe i could enough roots and nuts to not die for a day or 2, but that’s all, unless i’m a forester or a jungle native

• make food have a stacking penalty that will decrease nutrition / morale if consumed too often of the same type
  -make junk food decrease (or temporary decrease some stats, like speed), same for overeating

Anyway, the overall effect is that i feel more like walking through a huge supermarket with cheap/free food that through a postapocalyptic world, where shortage should be the norm rather than overabundance.

[Valpo]

I reject everything in there that would lessen realism. meat yield should actually be higher for certain animals as you can feed pretty long on a deer for instance all alone.

Animals harder to hunt well we can still just murder giant insects that are hostile etc.

We would have to make quite a few things uneadable(giant insects/triffids) + farming / staying in one place more dangerous while making harmless wildlife fight better or run away ( i can punch a bear to death np)

scarce bigger game (add tracking plox) more smal game that will run fast if it feels threatened (possibly stealth + tracking + some ranged skill or traping)

[Rivet]

The world didn’t end because all the food ran out; it ended suddenly by violence. That’s why there’s so much of everything lying around.

DDA’s post-end-world is closer to The Stand than The Road.

That being said, normal animals should be a bit harder to hunt, but that’s an AI issue.

[Valpo]

Yes i think more sustainable food sources will only be of much relevance once you want to feed more then just yourself. (me wants npc army town with needs like food drink happiness and protection to manage like in df)

[Litppunk]

very much yes Valpo. Bigger animals more meat, and maybe smaller animals less meat. Certain creatures= inedible / happiness penalty for eating, such as spiders. I mean most survivors are probably going to have to get a LITTLE desperate before they decide to cook and eat a spider. Make it so lower survival skill has harder time finding eatable food. Maybe acorns are completely invisible to level 0 survival. (what city dweller looks at a bunch of acorns on the ground and goes OH LOOK I could EAT THAT! Same for edible roots and wild veggies. Food should SEEM scares to characters with 0 survival skill and get to bountiful levels when at higher levels.

[youtoo]

There could always be more hardcore worldgen features to reduce food. I like hardcore to add more zombies. Having to spend more grind time on food isnt my thing. Others might like it

[Pandromidal]

Before I learned about the importance of acorns, eggs etc., getting food was a lot more of a concern when everything in towns went rotten. My character was trying to survive on a diet of squirrels or anything else that moved near their base. In fact, they got into a vicious cycle where they couldn’t get their food status above hungry (flu didn’t help). I’ve learned a lot about where to find/farm food since and it’s a non issue now but that’s kind of the point. I’ve “mastered” the food management part of the game and can now concentrated on other things like mutating and installing cbms, without having to constantly micromanage food stuff.

[Coolthulhu]

Food system is far too dependent on player skill rather than any survivor stats or skills. Once you know what to do, your survivor will learn it in seconds.

The only problem is raising cooking from 2 to 3, because there are no good recipes at 2.

[vultures]

I feel that Ferodaktyl might have a point here.

Altough I don’t think foraging and hunting are binded with that issue, everything ekse consequentially is. As the matter of fact, the only sensible thing I don’t get about hunting is how can anyone approach a rabbit only to startle it, and then hurl a rock at a speeding mammal to KILL it instantly. As I said, hunting with utensils such as javelins or bows is a whole 'nutha thing. Having dumb animals in a rougelike means no one’s even considering traps, but that’s about it.

On the topic of scavenging, I think that caches shouldn’t be common at all. Fifteen days worth of non-perishable food found in one place is a dreadful balance misconception, but it’s not that much of a get-outa-jail-free-card. Altough we had a similar problem with running water, the experience of limiting this key resource didn’t appeal to those who designed the overall nutrition balance for CataDDA. Even though supplies are scattered they shouldn’t assume the declared quantity. Even though fixed number of portions in every bathroom is evidently an override, that shouldn’t be the case with foods.
Let me illustrate it:

• Half-a-bag of noodles. Ever wondered what’s in that cupboard tin boxes? That’s you, scavenging for whatever.
• A fruit basket with only a few scraps. Granny ate all the apple sauce, and now she’s out there licking the inside of a skull.
• A handful of oreos-like biscuits in a drawer. Yeah, you forgot them and they’re slowly losing nutrition, like you and your sustenance.
• Pulverized salt crackers in an open plastic bag. Do the math.

Now, I know that some of the adjustments were made throughout 0.A++ but it’s obvious those gut-drenched, heat-blanded, moist-softened, half-burnt and all those remaining “modified” comestibles didn’t make it into the equasion. And if it’s going to be (even more) realistic and therefore somewhat abundant, they simply have to.

[Litppunk]

makes some sense on the lot of deteriorated food, but its not like everyone took their food and hid in the basement until they died of thirst/dehydration. Most everyone mutated before they could make any kind of preparations. Hence why their aren’t any boarded up doors or windows, and many doors aren’t even locked. I do think that items and food should be placed a little more…realistically, and perhaps make it so that the worlds food ages accordingly even if not in the players bzzzt brain malfunction area…around them…vision thing… anyways perishable foods should only be findable in a perished state throughout the world past what their expiration date would be. If you found it before it perished, good, great for you, you can probably con the game and keep it from perishing by moving it out of your… range since it is already loaded. Just makes sense to me.

[Rivet]

perhaps make it so that the worlds food ages accordingly even if not in the players bzzzt brain malfunction area…around them…vision thing… anyways perishable foods should only be findable in a perished state throughout the world past what their expiration date would be. If you found it before it perished, good, great for you, you can probably con the game and keep it from perishing by moving it out of your… range since it is already loaded. Just makes sense to me.

Food ages based on the elapsed time since the beginning of the game/since it was crafted. Whether it’s within the ‘reality bubble’ or not makes no difference; you cannot keep it from decaying by leaving the area.

[Litppunk]

really?!?! It does that already? guess I haven’t played a long enough game to notice ^.^

[Coolthulhu]

Food ages based on the elapsed time since the beginning of the game/since it was crafted. Whether it’s within the ‘reality bubble’ or not makes no difference; you cannot keep it from decaying by leaving the area.

There’s a bit more to that: food catches up with decay based on current ambient temperature. By only visiting food storage when it’s cold (say, in winter), you can keep food fresh forever. Also, scavenging new places during winter will generate fresh food, even in year 5.

[Eric]

[quote=“Rivet, post:11, topic:9184”]Food ages based on the elapsed time since the beginning of the game/since it was crafted. Whether it’s within the ‘reality bubble’ or not makes no difference; you cannot keep it from decaying by leaving the area.

There’s a bit more to that: food catches up with decay based on current ambient temperature. By only visiting food storage when it’s cold (say, in winter), you can keep food fresh forever. Also, scavenging new places during winter will generate fresh food, even in year 5.[/quote]

Does it have to be in the winter, or just a place that’s new? I scavenged a farm field extremely far away from my base, and found it filled with fresh fruits and veggies (this was day 70 of spring)

[Zireael]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:13, topic:9184”][quote=“Rivet, post:11, topic:9184”]Food ages based on the elapsed time since the beginning of the game/since it was crafted. Whether it’s within the ‘reality bubble’ or not makes no difference; you cannot keep it from decaying by leaving the area.

There’s a bit more to that: food catches up with decay based on current ambient temperature. By only visiting food storage when it’s cold (say, in winter), you can keep food fresh forever. Also, scavenging new places during winter will generate fresh food, even in year 5.[/quote]

Does it have to be in the winter, or just a place that’s new? I scavenged a farm field extremely far away from my base, and found it filled with fresh fruits and veggies (this was day 70 of spring)[/quote]

When you discover a new area for the first time, the item’s birthday is the day you entered the area.

[Coolthulhu]

Does it have to be in the winter, or just a place that’s new? I scavenged a farm field extremely far away from my base, and found it filled with fresh fruits and veggies (this was day 70 of spring)

Low ambient temperature, no matter how is it achieved (ice labs are good for this). It’s not necessary for the location to be new, though new locations have fresher food. If you leave your food somewhere and only visit it when it’s cold, it will never rot.

When you discover a new area for the first time, the item’s birthday is the day you entered the area.

I’m pretty sure it starts at 0 and then is aged to the current day. When starting in summer, pretty much all food is rotten.

[Litppunk]

Low ambient temperature, no matter how is it achieved (ice labs are good for this). It's not necessary for the location to be new, though new locations have fresher food. If you leave your food somewhere and only visit it when it's cold, it will never rot.

Thats what Im talking about though. A world fresh food level should be implemented, so that anything in an area where the temperature fluctuates will be rotten no matter when you discover it in year…20 or whatever. Because that food has been sitting there through 20 summers, even if you find it in the winter. The power grid should also fail after so long, and you should have to hook up a generator or something. No help for all the rotten food in those vending machines, but you can power up that terminal again…if you can find the circuitry that powers it and disconnect it from the main power grid so it doesn’t take all the juice trying to power city lights 50 miles away. (only in game effect you have to disconnect it or something) …hmm this is starting to look more and more complicated as I go along… obvious edits to idea needed, but you get the basic idea.

[Valpo]

First we need a power grid…

[vache]

I would think even the non-perishable food would start to become scarce after a while due to rodents and insects getting into it. In the future, refrigerators and similar could keep their nonperishables intact, but that box of pasta on the table would become an empty box with a hole gnawed in the corner, and that box of crackers in the cupboard would become a box of empty plastic wrappers, and so on. In the gameplay sense, instead of discovering a kitchen full of foodstuffs on year 3, it would just contain a bunch of empty food containers. I would think things like MREs and the like would have to be immune to the process. Also, your foods gathered at your base won’t be safe unless they’re stored somewhere that prevents rodents getting in, and there could be an indication that they are, like the presence of a rat vermin creature, and also some other means to kill/prevent it (mousetraps?).

[Valpo]

Love it now i want a cat.