Recommendation: Honey should not decompose.

[HauntedShadowsLegacy]

I'll put the tl;dr up here for convenience: In real life, pure honey does not decompose, mold, or rot. The fact it does in the game makes no sense.

To explain further (for those interested): Honey is a unique foodstuff irl. Bees, as ascetic as they are, have developed a special protein in their honey stomachs that prevents all forms of expiration in the honey. Archaeologists literally found edible honey in an Egyptian tomb from thousands of years ago.

That said, honey that has been altered, cooked with, combined into other substances, etc., loses the ascetic property. Essentially, no, that honey bun will not be safe to eat after twenty years. Honey mixed into medical poultices will go bad with the other substances mixed in. The unique protein does not stand up to cooking, and it does not readily transfer to other substances.

I'll admit, I thought it was well-known that honey does not expire. When I noticed the honey going bad in the game, I was confused. I know the devs are taking a well-deserved break right now (good on ya, honestly), so I'm not expecting this to be fixed in a blink. It is quite the glaring problem, though, so I do hope it is fixed eventually. I know non-expiring foodstuffs is somewhat overpowered in video games, but other things could be done to balance it out.

[sf]

Have not verified in-game, but from in-game data, it seems that honey doesn't rot (does not lose freshness)?. Just decompose. Did you store it under shelter protected from weather?

Rotting is prob losing food freshness due to temperature etc. Decay is prob losing the actual structural integrity(? hp?) due to being exposed to weather or bare ground.

I could be wrong though.

[HauntedShadowsLegacy]

Originally posted by sf:

Have not verified in-game, but from in-game data, it seems that honey doesn't rot (does not lose freshness)?. Just decompose. Did you store it under shelter protected from weather?

Rotting is prob losing food freshness due to temperature etc. Decay is prob losing the actual structural integrity(? hp?) due to being exposed to weather or bare ground.

I could be wrong though.

The in-game description says it's decaying due to temperature. Sure, it's not 'freshness', but it still makes no sense. Hot, cold, lukewarm, it shouldn't affect honey. Real, raw honey doesn't break down in natural, common ambient temperatures, even in the dead of a summer heatwave. And while getting some rain in your honey is less than ideal, it doesn't ruin the honey.

Now, I will concede that storing honey on bare ground could be problematic (by way of pilfering critters), but raw honey does not require refrigeration to prevent degradation. Raw honey is essentially an immortal sugar.

[nevryn]

Real honey will crystalize at low temperatures, and will ferment if exposed to moisture, it's hydroscopic. So it can rot. If it's stored in sealed non-permeable containers then it doesn't degrade.

[HauntedShadowsLegacy]

Originally posted by nevryn:

Real honey will crystalize at low temperatures, and will ferment if exposed to moisture, it's hydroscopic. So it can rot. If it's stored in sealed non-permeable containers then it doesn't degrade.

1) Crystallized honey isn't 'bad'; it just needs to be reheated, and it'll revert to its original, gooey consistency. Even then, the game makes the honey degrade if it's *not* refrigerated or frozen, meaning the game *requires* it to be stored crystallized.

2) The game takes place in a post-plague Europe. While there is no in-game hygrometer, even the warmest of the European countries aren't super humid. Room-temperature honey in a clay jar won't ferment unless you make it ferment.

3) Of course any form of contamination would impact the edibility of honey, but that would entail the honey no longer being pure. Mead is not made from *just* pure honey. If you really want a food contamination mechanic in the game, that's an idea.

[nevryn]

Originally posted by HauntedShadowsLegacy:

Originally posted by nevryn:

Real honey will crystalize at low temperatures, and will ferment if exposed to moisture, it's hydroscopic. So it can rot. If it's stored in sealed non-permeable containers then it doesn't degrade.

1) Crystallized honey isn't 'bad'; it just needs to be reheated, and it'll revert to its original, gooey consistency. Even then, the game makes the honey degrade if it's *not* refrigerated or frozen, meaning the game *requires* it to be stored crystallized.

2) The game takes place in a post-plague Europe. While there is no in-game hygrometer, even the warmest of the European countries aren't super humid. Room-temperature honey in a clay jar won't ferment unless you make it ferment.

3) Of course any form of contamination would impact the edibility of honey, but that would entail the honey no longer being pure. Mead is not made from *just* pure honey. If you really want a food contamination mechanic in the game, that's an idea.

To re-heat honey you need a temperature controlled environment.. with early medieval technology that just isn't possible.
Clay vessels are porus, unless glazed or sealed with wax. 99% of clay storage vessles, even in egypt weren't glazed, and storing such a vessel in a pyramid with a relative humidity of a few % is vastly different to the average 55% humidity for the UK.
All honey of the period was collected from skeps. No fancy extractors or presses. It comes with all 'bee and wax' debris, and with all it's natural yeasts, and at what ever water content it had.
Mead is made by fermenting honey in water. They would have just added more yeast from their stock source. And period yeasts were no where near as alcohol tolerant as modern yeasts so you're looking at a maximum of about 11% by-volume as opposed to 13%->18% with modern yeasts.
So in-period honey deradation during storage is completely a viable action.

[sf]

hmm yeah. on more careful inspection of game data, though there is no "rot", (low) decay do happens over 10 degrees Celsius (making it similar to preserved food, like smoked meat and pickled vegetable etc. Compared to other raw food types (other than barley) which decays over a threshold of 5 degrees Celsius.

Just verifying regardless of the topic of whether honey should be made non-decaying at room temperature.

just for reference, the current in-game data for honey is found in

{steamlibrary}\steamapps\common\Going Medieval\Going Medieval_Data\StreamingAssets\Resources\Resources.json

    {
      "id": "honey",
      "iconPath": "UIResources/Icons/ResourceIcons/Resource/honey",
      "locKeys": [
        {
          "language": 1,
          "name": "resource_name_honey",
          "info": "resource_info_honey"
        }
      ],
      "prefabPileIDs": [
        {
          "quality": 0,
          "prefabID": "honey_pile"
        }
      ],
      "weight": 0.5,
      "stackingLimit": 50,
      "hitpoints": 100,
      "decomposeModifiersId": "barrel_food_decay",
      "wealthPoints": 5,
      "category": 8388744,
      "sortingGroup": "FoodRaw",
      "onUseEffects": [
        "AteRawMeal",
        "StomachFoodInstaDmgVeryLow",
        "AteRawMealNegativePerkEffector"
      ],
      "healing": 1.1,
      "nutrition": 25
    },

{steamlibrary}\steamapps\common\Going Medieval\Going Medieval_Data\StreamingAssets\Resources\DecayModifiers.json

    {
      "id": "barrel_food_decay",
      "temperatureCoefficients": [
        0,
        0,
        0.1,
        0.2
      ],
      "groundCoefficient": 0,
      "weatherModifiers": {
        "keys": [
          "rain",
          "snow",
          "game_event_thunderstorm",
          "game_event_hailstorm"
        ],
        "values": [
          0.6,
          0.6,
          0.6,
          0.6
        ]
      }
    },

For those who wants a "quick fix" to make honey not decay wrt temperature, one easy way is to change the value of "decomposeModifiersId" property from "barrel_food_decay" to "barrel_drink_decay".