Calories still needs a rework IMO.

[Silamon]

I know it didn't change in build 42, but playing without mods is reminding me how much I really dislike the system.

My character is eating stews full of mostly meats like chicken, beef, ham, salami etc. It should be plenty of calories. I even ate every ice cream I found as I went. I bring bags of potato chips when I have them to eat on the go. I have had down arrow for weight every day since the start. I eat until "full to bursting" frequently with those foods, and rarely allow hunger to progress beyond peckish.

I don't think it is very accurate or fun to be constantly losing weight just because I am not eating what the game considers to have tons of calories often enough. I'd eat them more if I found more, but it's just not there.

[Zushen]

Are you paying attention to the actual fat content on the items you're eating? Chips and Icecream are good for fat. AFAIK for vanilla, calories doesn't matter. Just the fat content. Been paying more attention to it with the drop of B42 without mods.

Maybe try the nutritionist trait to be able to determine fat for all foods.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Zushen:

Are you paying attention to the actual fat content on the items you're eating? Chips and Icecream are good for fat. AFAIK for vanilla, calories doesn't matter. Just the fat content. Been paying more attention to it with the drop of B42 without mods.

Maybe try the nutritionist trait to be able to determine fat for all foods.

I've eaten every ice cream and bag of chips I could find. Meats should have tons of calories, but for whatever reason they don't in game.

[Zushen]

I was struggling a bit with weight on my first B42 character as I also got familiar with base-game again. Made it 55 days on the character. But I found that butter / Lard / Margerine had the highest fat content from what I could find without nutritionist trait. One stick of butter gave me double-gains for gaining weight.

2nd character, so far at 10 days in, so haven't had too much time to deal with it.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Zushen:

I was struggling a bit with weight on my first B42 character as I also got familiar with base-game again. Made it 55 days on the character. But I found that butter / Lard / Margerine had the highest fat content from what I could find without nutritionist trait. One stick of butter gave me double-gains for gaining weight.

2nd character, so far at 10 days in, so haven't had too much time to deal with it.

I mean sure Lard is gunna be the best single item to gain weight, but I've looted all of echo creek and not found any so far.

I just hate that it is so hard to maintain weight in vanilla. I forgot how much modding carried that mechanic.... I don't even remember what mod I had that was rebalancing it but it never felt like such a chore to maintain weight.

If I am gorging on meat and snacking on chips and ice cream when I can find them, I shouldn't be losing weight constantly.

[ProfessorShwifty]

I have eaten multiple whole hams, boxes of cereal, all the pasta on the counter. Only a few days in and losing around 1lb a day while being bursting to full almost the entire time on cooked meats and other fridge perishables. not once have I had the down arrows go away I expect it after each stick of butter I eat but nothing. is something bugged?

[Silamon]

Originally posted by ProfessorShwifty:

I have eaten multiple whole hams, boxes of cereal, all the pasta on the counter. Only a few days in and losing around 1lb a day while being bursting to full almost the entire time on cooked meats and other fridge perishables. not once have I had the down arrows go away I expect it after each stick of butter I eat but nothing. is something bugged?

I don't think it's bugged, I remember having exactly the same problems when I played build 41 vanilla but I had a mod or two that changed it.

The vanilla system just requires you to really aggressively consume calories every day, and before you can get reoccurring sources of that going like fish it can be rough with rng.

[SgtEmissary [Kane's Will]]

You might also be at a calorie deficit. It caps at a -2,220 calories last I checked which takes abit to get out of. Moment your moodle is at hungry or very hungry, keep eating food over and over to get out of it. I had a mod installed that showed me the calories I was at and it worked wonders to keep tabs on it. I know that might be cheating to some but it is pretty crucial to know where you stand at.

The early game is a very pivotal moment in your play-through, if you can catch it before it goes into that deficit and stay ontop of it, then you'll have a much better time.

So the good news with that is, your calories will never go down further than that. You just dont want to get to that point in the first place.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by SgtEmissary Kane's Will:

You might also be at a calorie deficit. It caps at a -2,220 calories last I checked which takes abit to get out of. Moment your moodle is at hungry or very hungry, keep eating food over and over to get out of it. I had a mod installed that showed me the calories I was at and it worked wonders to keep tabs on it. I know that might be cheating to some but it is pretty crucial to know where you stand at. The early game is a very pivotal moment in your play-through, if you can catch it before it goes into that deficit and stay ontop of it, then you'll have a much better time.

I just don't think it should be an issue after eating stews full of meats every day and ice creams and chips on sight.

I know I am losing weight because I don't have enough calories, I'm saying calorie loss is too aggressive in vanilla.

[SgtEmissary [Kane's Will]]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by SgtEmissary Kane's Will:

You might also be at a calorie deficit. It caps at a -2,220 calories last I checked which takes abit to get out of. Moment your moodle is at hungry or very hungry, keep eating food over and over to get out of it. I had a mod installed that showed me the calories I was at and it worked wonders to keep tabs on it. I know that might be cheating to some but it is pretty crucial to know where you stand at. The early game is a very pivotal moment in your play-through, if you can catch it before it goes into that deficit and stay ontop of it, then you'll have a much better time.

I just don't think it should be an issue after eating stews full of meats every day and ice creams and chips on sight. It's too aggressive IMO.

Yeah, its like I said though, once you get that deficit its like falling into a pit. Where it feels its impossible to get out of. Which by relation to what you said, isn't a good thing about the calorie system either but for the moment, I thought I'd mention that tip to at least help with it.

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by ProfessorShwifty:

I have eaten multiple whole hams, boxes of cereal, all the pasta on the counter. Only a few days in and losing around 1lb a day while being bursting to full almost the entire time on cooked meats and other fridge perishables. not once have I had the down arrows go away I expect it after each stick of butter I eat but nothing. is something bugged?

There's something going on in the background that you aren't aware of. There is a rolling calorie deficit associated with weight loss. You have to eat enough to fill that deficit, then you have to eat enough to fulfill your caloric requirement for the day, then if you eat enough on top of all that you can start packing on the pounds.
What this means is if you're losing weight you might have to eat almost 3 times what you would normally require in a day to start getting the up arrow. Once you START gaining weight though it's not too bad to keep it going as long as you don't start slipping into that deficit again. I would give you some numbers, but I'm just not sure of them (especially with B42) and I don't want to spread bad info.

Once you're starving, it's an uphill battle. I recommend keeping a stash of junk food just to help get you over the hurdle. After that fish helps with fat, so does rabbit strangely enough.


EDIT: Looks like I'm a slow typer. Lots of people beat me to it.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by SgtEmissary Kane's Will:

Originally posted by Silamon:

I just don't think it should be an issue after eating stews full of meats every day and ice creams and chips on sight. It's too aggressive IMO.

Yeah, its like I said though, once you get that deficit its like falling into a pit. Where it feels its impossible to get out of.

My character has not gone hungry or survived off low calorie vegetables at all. He's been filling up on those stews every day, with occasional snacks as well. IRL I would likely have been gaining a lot of weight, not losing it even with the extra activity of walking around and killing zombies.

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by SgtEmissary Kane's Will:

Yeah, its like I said though, once you get that deficit its like falling into a pit. Where it feels its impossible to get out of.

My character has not gone hungry or survived off low calorie vegetables at all. He's been filling up on those stews every day, with occasional snacks as well. IRL I would likely have been gaining a lot of weight, not losing it even with the extra activity of walking around and killing zombies.

My character started as a fatty. I finally got to the weight I wanted to be at, but in order to stop the weight loss I had to eat 2 tubs of ice cream and wash it down with a ham...an entire ham. That's like...a stupid amount of calories, but that's what it took.

[SgtEmissary [Kane's Will]]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by SgtEmissary Kane's Will:

Yeah, its like I said though, once you get that deficit its like falling into a pit. Where it feels its impossible to get out of.

My character has not gone hungry or survived off low calorie vegetables at all. He's been filling up on those stews every day, with occasional snacks as well. IRL I would likely have been gaining a lot of weight, not losing it even with the extra activity of walking around and killing zombies.

Right, veggies on their own wont do much, rather I would use them to supplement the other food. Much like in RL we need more than vegetables, we need our proteins. Vegans dont get that, a strictly plant based diet isn't all that healthy.

If anything, they're good in a pinch to at least stave off starvation. Which, for some people they dont know, hunger and weight are two separate things. They can die from either. You could have a total fat-ass of a character and still die from starvation. Which got me to thinking; maybe they should add it in the game where the fatter your character is, the less hungry they need to be?

All the while toning down how fast you lose calories. I've noticed even just by sitting around back at base, they go down almost as if you were walking around. Its even worse when you play it on 15 or 30 minute days. At that point, it is impossible to get your calories up to where you need to be. Thats another thing that factors into it, is the day length people play on. I always played with 1 hour days and I think thats perfect, while 2 hour days are also a sweet-spot as well.

[Silamon]

Well, I just ate a whole bag of macaroni. almost 3000 calories. The down arrow has disappeared for now, but I didn't even get an up arrow out of that.

[Foster]

Originally posted by Zushen:

Are you paying attention to the actual fat content on the items you're eating? Chips and Icecream are good for fat. AFAIK for vanilla, calories doesn't matter. Just the fat content. Been paying more attention to it with the drop of B42 without mods.

Maybe try the nutritionist trait to be able to determine fat for all foods.

That's not true at all, calories are the predominant thing that determine weight gain but fat allows you to unlock the soft cap.
You can only gain 1 unit of weight at most by just eating veggies and the like but if you have fat content in your system then it allows you to gain more than 1 unit per day.
Best thing to do is to eat fatty foods like chips and ice cream and THEN follow that up with thousands of calories.