Food spoilage not slowed by fridges?

[11Bullets]

Looking for info/help: A buddy set up a server on a spare PC for our friend group. When we play it seems like fridges are not slowing food spoilage like they should. As a test we trapped a bird and put the fresh bird meat in the fridge. Within 2 or 3 in-game days (not exactly sure, there's debate over what day it was placed vs checked) the refrigerated bird meat is now stale.

My understanding is that the fridges are supposed to slow spoilage by some number (5x, 10x, there's debate about that). But this has been a problem, as our cook has made batches of food that SHOULD have lasted and given us a buffer of prepped food, only to see much of it rot before the other players consume it.

When the server op checks server settings refrigeration is true, food rot and fridge factor are both set on normal. Is this expected behavior for the latest version of the game (I haven't played in a long time and remember fridges being very worth it for preservation) or is this potentially a bug or something going on making the fridges NOT slow the rot cycle?

[Banzai]

Fridges certainly do work as intended so sounds like there is some issue with your mods etc. There is a sandbox setting which modifies refrigeration efficiency so you could have fridges working but not actually doing anything if something has gone wrong with that option.

[11Bullets]

Mods are very minimal, basically only some cars and QOL stuff, nothing that affects food or fridges. The sandbox settings are set to 'normal' for both fridges and food rot rate. Freezers seem to work as intended, it's only the fridges that seem to be affected.

[Coolranch]

Is your refrigerator running?

[Crunchy_Bacon]

IT AIN'T GOT NO GAS INNIT

[Gunther Kruger]

Ours work fine with 250 mods

[Armagenesis]

Have you tried doing a test with control groups?
Plant some crops, harvest, put half in a fridge and another half outside, then see what happens. Something like that.

[DivineEvil]

Well, it depends. Meat s one of the type of foods that spoil pretty quickly. If you focus your effort on securing meat and fish from nearby Marts, you'll see that meat will spoil the fastest together with soft fruits and specific greens, even when frozen. Same goes for the foods cooked using these ingredients, their freshness resets, but the lifetime appears to be average of used items, so you're well encouraged to add ingredients with high spoilage time, or don't spoil at all, to increase lifetime of cooked food.

It also does depend on how quickly you freeze the given food items after you have acquired them. In all honestly, freezing should not slow down the spoilage time, but freeze it compeltely, because frozen food virtually cannot spoil. Given that, 2-3 in-game days may be realistic.

[Kanarek]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Have you tried doing a test with control groups?
Plant some crops, harvest, put half in a fridge and another half outside, then see what happens. Something like that.

A real scientist.

[Animalman]

Originally posted by Crunchy_Bacon:

IT AIN'T GOT NO GAS INNIT

It aint got no gas innit m8

Nah probably
there is a bug i have experienced. That when i was a long distance from my fridge everything was rotted but i hadn't experienced that bug it was in single player for several real life years.
But i don't often travel too far from my fridge anymore.

Kinda like. I think same bug once appear for farms not receiving rain if u were very far from them.

But again i hadn't seen the bug in years.

Could check if the server admin rotted that food for you. To try and coax you into a looting run. Where he lay traps for u.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by 11Bullets:

Looking for info/help: A buddy set up a server on a spare PC for our friend group. When we play it seems like fridges are not slowing food spoilage like they should. As a test we trapped a bird and put the fresh bird meat in the fridge. Within 2 or 3 in-game days (not exactly sure, there's debate over what day it was placed vs checked) the refrigerated bird meat is now stale.

My understanding is that the fridges are supposed to slow spoilage by some number (5x, 10x, there's debate about that). But this has been a problem, as our cook has made batches of food that SHOULD have lasted and given us a buffer of prepped food, only to see much of it rot before the other players consume it.

When the server op checks server settings refrigeration is true, food rot and fridge factor are both set on normal. Is this expected behavior for the latest version of the game (I haven't played in a long time and remember fridges being very worth it for preservation) or is this potentially a bug or something going on making the fridges NOT slow the rot cycle?

"This process of rotting can be slowed by refrigerating the food, as indicated by a blue overlay that increases spoil time by 5 times, or freezing it will increase it by 50 times. Example: Fish fillet takes 2 days to go stale, refrigerating it will take it 10 days, freezing it will take 100 days for it. " ->https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Food

Never noticed the refrigerator working this way, even before my single mod (Pillow's) use. As in having the five times extension of spoilage time.
I always played on apocalypse prior, and i always knew i have 2-3(!) days to get all food into freezers from the moment i spawn or they will go stale. Of course i focused on major food distributors, like gigamarkets, restaurants etc. where most food was placed on counters.
Thus, I always froze everything, then when i needed i heated it up, to unfreeze it. Then i can work with it.

[Coolranch]

Does trapped meat begin to spoil before you retrieve it from the trap? Might've just lost a huge portion of the freshness from the time between the meat spawning and getting it in the fridge.

The best test would probably just be a can of food, because you can open it while standing directly in front of the fridge and put it in there immediately. Canned Corn Beef has the same spoilage time as Small Bird Meat.

[Kanarek]

Originally posted by Coolranch:

Does trapped meat begin to spoil before you retrieve it from the trap? Might've just lost a huge portion of the freshness from the time between the meat spawning and getting it in the fridge.

The best test would probably just be a can of food, because you can open it while standing directly in front of the fridge and put it in there immediately. Canned Corn Beef has the same spoilage time as Small Bird Meat.

I was thinking about pointing this detail out (first paragraph from the quote) but I didn't know how to put it all together into neat, proper words. The test you have suggested appears to me to be a very good idea to make sure if things indeed work as intended.

[Catastrophology]

Originally posted by Gunther Kruger:

Ours work fine with 250 mods

250 mods... is it at least still project zomboid at this point?

[Billson Factor]

Originally posted by Coolranch:

Is your refrigerator running?

Better go catch it. Also make sure its turned on

[mb]

Originally posted by Billson Factor:

Originally posted by Coolranch:

Is your refrigerator running?

Better go catch it. Also make sure its turned on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn_8AkN21ww

I was gonna do the OG Simpsons prank call reel but saw this classic instead