Eating and Drinking some tips?

[Tanyon]

OK so I have seen A LOT of posts about eating and drinking being too extreme. I have no idea how it is on permadeath/hardcore as I only play on normal.

So I'm basing this off you also playing on normal.

Let me first start by saying a slider system to tweak this from 0 to+100% would be nice those of you who hate it could turn it down/off and those of you who want more could turn it up. More options is always better in my opinion.

IF your main gripe is simply how often you have to do these things then I'm sorry this probably won't help but hey give it a read anyways.

OK on to my tips and how I play.

Water Collection:

1) Make more bottles. I usually have at least 4 one in my cooking pot with clean water one on me with clean water, one on me empty to collect dirty water when I visit POIs and one for oils.

2) Collect water at POIs. Look for birdbath/water collectors. At the beginning of the game in the starting POI there are 5 birdbaths, 2 cans of water and a free water condenser membrane that is 22 water. That should last you about 6-7 game days right there in itself.

3) The greenhouse POI has a TON of water in the main area I mean I took 30 from it once and it never went down.

4) Upgrade to large bottles as soon as possible. This is so huge and helps so much.

5) ALWAYS have dirty water processing in your water purifier. I mean every-time I come back to my ship I'm either putting in dirty water, taking out clean or doing both.

6) Make membranes and/or collectors. One water condenser and 2 rain collectors should be all you ever need. It rains a lot in the game and making a membrane only cost 10 synthetics.

Food Collection:

1) Park your ship so you can always send down your lure. I park my ship on the edge EVERY-TIME I land at a POI and send down my lure when I leave the ship and then I have something there waiting when I get back.

2) Always have something on your lure AND in your pot. Things that are in your pot cooked and reeled up on the lure do not spoil. The timer does not start ticking till you pick them up. So, I always leave something in each of those spots and then just take them as needed.

3) Unique lures. USE THEM everything you need to make unique lures are at the green house. Now early on I understand you might not want to use your polymer on this but you can make them (after you research them). 100 synthetics and 5 oil = 5 polymer and then all you need are those yellow flowers 3 of them and you can make a lure with 10 casts. I usually make 2 when I get to my first greenhouse and that lasts me about 6-7 days.

4) Make a crossbow and kill the crickets they are easy, also at every greenhouse and will get ya like what? 50 food.

5) Fruit/veggies. I personally never grab these unless I need them for research but they are easy to collect and then cook and are usually in a relatively high abundance. I think the lure is easier but this is also a good alternative. If they fix/make the freezer an actual freezer this would probably actually be the best method of keeping food on hand but for me things spoil too quickly currently.

Final thoughts is that you can also expand on these.. have 2 cooking pots, have 2 lures down at a time, make 2 water purifiers, have 10 water collectors.

Feel free to add more.

[[UA]Ramiel]

Food and water demand in this game is a walk in a park comparing to Raft. I always chuckle when someone bring up this topic.
By the way, pool of dirty water at Greenhouse tower contains exactly 1000 units and can be drained completely.

[Coops]

Ramiel you filled 50 large bottles? I love when other people go to the extremes. Then I don't have to do it.

[[UA]Ramiel]

Originally posted by Coops:

Ramiel you filled 50 large bottles? I love when other people go to the extremes. Then I don't have to do it.

I had 5 large bottles for easy count and was emptying them every 100 units. Thought it would be nice to have exact number on a Wiki page.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by UARamiel:

Originally posted by Coops:

Ramiel you filled 50 large bottles? I love when other people go to the extremes. Then I don't have to do it.

I had 5 large bottles for easy count and was emptying them every 100 units. Thought it would be nice to have exact number on a Wiki page.

hahaha you legend. Wow. 1000 units.. has to be more than anyone will ever need in an entire play-through.

[Obi-Wonka Nobi]

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

...
OK on to my tips and how I play.
...

Darth, THAT. WAS. EXCELLENT! I kept thinking I'd add my 2 cents but, nope, you kept addressing everything I was going to add within the next point or two!

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by Obi-Wonka Nobi:

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

...
OK on to my tips and how I play.
...

Darth, THAT. WAS. EXCELLENT! I kept thinking I'd add my 2 cents but, nope, you kept addressing everything I was going to add within the next point or two!

TY I did try to be thorough. I do hope others have more to add I mean I'm only at like 47 hours I know some people have a lot more than that.

[Obi-Wonka Nobi]

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

TY I did try to be thorough. I do hope others have more to add I mean I'm only at like 47 hours I know some people have a lot more than that.

Well, I'm at 84 hours and you just taught me that lettuce/moths on lures and in cooking pots don't spoil - I didn't know that! I hope you'll consider adding your post to the Guides tab. It absolutely belongs there!

[LoneGunman]

Nice guide. At first the water and food can seem a bit challenging but if you do what the game wants you to do (explore) and you unlock things like the rainwater collector and automated lure device, it tends to get easier to manage. Plus, with the freezer, you can just swing by a greenhouse tower every so often to pick up a bunch of stuff to keep on hand. If you don't mind keeping track of it, you can toss fresh stuff in the freezer, which often gives you 12 or more hours before they rot, then cook them to get another 1-2 days.

I think I've only ever struggled with food and water in the early game because I hadn't discovered the greenhouse tower yet.

And having two of everything (except the condenser which I think is not really useful compared to the rainwater collector) is often a must. Allows you to keep things going like an assembly line (1 batch of food or water processing while the other is ready to go).

I would avoid the filtered bottle as that's too small to be useful. Once you unlock large bottles, it's like having a bunch of spare tanks for liquids. It would be nice if they come up with a large liquid storage item (like the barrel the plant oil comes in) to stash water, etc. longer term.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by LoneGunman:

Nice guide. At first the water and food can seem a bit challenging but if you do what the game wants you to do (explore) and you unlock things like the rainwater collector and automated lure device, it tends to get easier to manage. Plus, with the freezer, you can just swing by a greenhouse tower every so often to pick up a bunch of stuff to keep on hand. If you don't mind keeping track of it, you can toss fresh stuff in the freezer, which often gives you 12 or more hours before they rot, then cook them to get another 1-2 days.

I think I've only ever struggled with food and water in the early game because I hadn't discovered the greenhouse tower yet.

And having two of everything (except the condenser which I think is not really useful compared to the rainwater collector) is often a must. Allows you to keep things going like an assembly line (1 batch of food or water processing while the other is ready to go).

I would avoid the filtered bottle as that's too small to be useful. Once you unlock large bottles, it's like having a bunch of spare tanks for liquids. It would be nice if they come up with a large liquid storage item (like the barrel the plant oil comes in) to stash water, etc. longer term.

I completely forgot about the filtered bottle because of the limiting capacity. I think if it was 3 or 4 I'd consider using it but to be honest water is just so easy to come by I still probably wouldn't bother lol.

[LeftPaw]

It's not so much that you have to do it. It's having to do it constantly.
I am at the stage now were I have a constant supply of food and water, okay fine. Where I have a problem is the frequency you have to address it. You don't have very much time to play the game and try to find some sort of immersion or flow before the nag pops up to once more eat and drink. And the frequency is ridiculous, it's simply a mechanic to waste the players time or drag out the games duration. It has ceased to add anything to the game apart from annoyance.

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by UARamiel:

Food and water demand in this game is a walk in a park comparing to Raft. I always chuckle when someone bring up this topic.
By the way, pool of dirty water at Greenhouse tower contains exactly 1000 units and can be drained completely.

I can't remember it being a issue with Raft. I must have modded it out along with the darn shark. Thing is after I done that it was a good game. No idea what comes over the dev's to do daft stuff like this. It is just not needed at all. They seem to think if it's a survival game then for some odd reason have to eat and drink constantly.
Zhit if you were in a situation were you had to survive your rations for the day would most likely be something along the lines of 5 grains of rice and 2 sips of water.

Eating 15 cows. 25 chickens 4 ton of potatoes and drinking 250 gallons of water per day has bugger all to do with survival.

[[UA]Ramiel]

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

No idea what comes over the dev's to do daft stuff like this.

Raft have cooking recipes which give you access to more nutritious food which last longer than simply grilled fish. So by making regular food so inferior devs probably were forcing players to cook using recipes which is not a good move either.
Subnautica made a perfect balance - most of the food are easy to obtain (just grab a fish with your hands or cut watermelon from the growbed) and easy to cook - it takes literally couple of seconds with fabricator. One more thing for devs to learn. Electric cooker spend too much time on boiling.

[Coops]

Originally posted by UARamiel:

One more thing for devs to learn. Electric cooker spend too much time on boiling.

A watched pot never boils.
Keep a moth on the line and one in the cookpot. Do other stuff. Come back and eat, refill pot and drop lure. Sleep for 5 seconds. repeat.
Does anybody actually die from starvation or dehydration in this game? And if they did, what is the consequence? Nothing.

[Gietmex]

Originally posted by UARamiel:

Food and water demand in this game is a walk in a park comparing to Raft. I always chuckle when someone bring up this topic.
By the way, pool of dirty water at Greenhouse tower contains exactly 1000 units and can be drained completely.

I agreed, I don't know why people are complaining about the food and water. You basically have to eat twice a day and drink about 5 bottles of water. Honestly I like it because its very close to irl intervals.

Aside that, The devps did mentioned they will be working on implementing more foods later on, I'm sure they can do some foods that require multiple ingredients that could do buffs like overfed or something like that. Where you food meter it will decrease at a lower pace.

[LoneGunman]

And, yes, I remember Raft and it having a similar issue: you had to keep water and food on a cycle so you always had it but after your early days in a game, that tended to become fairly easy and routine. Food was much easier in Raft as Ramiel said once you got recipes and cooked them up. Water was just annoying.

But in this game, the large bottle is worth making several of. One visit to a greenhouse with that dirty water reservoir and you can have a bunch of bottles of water on reserve. And once you get the freezer blueprint and build 2-3 of them, you can store cooked foods for days in-game. Just have to cook up some stuff here and there (with some non-greenhouse towers offering up some fruits sometimes plus the odd ration or two). Also a decent amount of rations and canned water to be found in lift locations (down below).