How do you sustain food?

[Setimu]

I find myself unable to scavenge enough food to even go 3 days before starving begins, barring a lucky stumble into a restaurant. This snowballs into low morale, low AP, and finally low motivation to continue playing.

How do you stay fed early on and through the entire run? The game is great otherwise, hunger just feels so difficult to manage.

[Tokmol]

The secret is that you can go intermittent fasting for quite a while with proper hp management.

0 satiety just gives -1hp per turn. No other debuffs whatsoever. Full hydration meanwhile gives +0.5hp per turn. Together that's just -0.5hp per turn. Sleep also regens a bit of hp per turn.. which i dont recall how much exactly.

It costs no ap to drink. Keep drinking every turn, and sleep when you have to. Bam, you now have 50ish turns before you die of no food.

If you find medicine, then you can heal that hp loss using those as well.

Dont be afraid to think of hp as a resource so that you can sacrifice some to manage starvation.

[Setimu]

Originally posted by Tokmol:

The secret is that you can go intermittent fasting for quite a while with proper hp management.

0 satiety just gives -1hp per turn. No other debuffs whatsoever. Full hydration meanwhile gives +0.5hp per turn. Together that's just -0.5hp per turn. Sleep also regens a bit of hp per turn.. which i dont recall how much exactly.

It costs no ap to drink. Keep drinking every turn, and sleep when you have to. Bam, you now have 50ish turns before you die of no food.

If you find medicine, then you can heal that hp loss using those as well.

Dont be afraid to think of hp as a resource so that you can sacrifice some to manage starvation.

I was wondering if this might not be the case. Thanks for your response. I'll stop panicking/rushing when starvation begins and see if it makes a bit more sense. The low morale was definitely my own fault because of this "gotta go fast" response to food panic.

Will have to give farming/trapping/fishing a try eventually, but I think there will be some early game "fasting" first.

[Oceon]

Originally posted by Setimu:

Originally posted by Tokmol:

The secret is that you can go intermittent fasting for quite a while with proper hp management.

0 satiety just gives -1hp per turn. No other debuffs whatsoever. Full hydration meanwhile gives +0.5hp per turn. Together that's just -0.5hp per turn. Sleep also regens a bit of hp per turn.. which i dont recall how much exactly.

It costs no ap to drink. Keep drinking every turn, and sleep when you have to. Bam, you now have 50ish turns before you die of no food.

If you find medicine, then you can heal that hp loss using those as well.

Dont be afraid to think of hp as a resource so that you can sacrifice some to manage starvation.

I was wondering if this might not be the case. Thanks for your response. I'll stop panicking/rushing when starvation begins and see if it makes a bit more sense. The low morale was definitely my own fault because of this "gotta go fast" response to food panic.

Will have to give farming/trapping/fishing a try eventually, but I think there will be some early game "fasting" first.

Another tip I can give you is to try and cook your food. The Satiety Bonus of +20-30% is the GOAT, especially when you find fresh food that would otherwise rot or only give you like 4 satiety.

Fish soup is an Awesome early game Value and Food Item, as the Ponds in Parks can provide for both as long as you got some Bait and a Pot/Pan.

[Atari 2600]

Hit gas stations as well for lots of junk food. Some runs you just get luckier than others. Don't be afraid to take spoiled food. Get to starvation before sleep, and eat all the bad food at once. You can only get disease once, so once it kicks in (maybe 3 turns) then sleep off the disease.

[Setimu]

Originally posted by Atari 2600:

Hit gas stations as well for lots of junk food. Some runs you just get luckier than others. Don't be afraid to take spoiled food. Get to starvation before sleep, and eat all the bad food at once. You can only get disease once, so once it kicks in (maybe 3 turns) then sleep off the disease.

I haven't even seen a gas station yet... lol. Only have ~6 hours in game so far. Your spoiled food method, planning ahead to sleep off disease, had occurred to me, so good call. After Tokmol's response I had another thought.

In a pinch, it might be worth rationing food in preparation for sleep. Starve and loot throughout daylight hours, then eat to maybe half-capacity before sleeping so that you're able to sleep.