Hunger and thirst

[mouse223]

Whats the deal with the hunger and thirst in this game I ate like 5 steaks and it doesn't fill up the meter and still need to eat more? Drank 4 glass's of water and still thirsty? come on tone this down

[Shurenai]

Hunger and thirst from food and drink are applied over time. The numbers on the left over your HP and stamina reflect how much is left to consume, while the blue and green bars below your hotbar are your actual hunger and thirst meters. If you down a bunch of food or drink at once, it takes a bit for it to fill you up and negate those debuffs; This both loosely replicates actual digestion, and also encourages the player to stay on top of their food and hunger instead of leaving it till the absolute last minute and stuffing their faces Skyrim cheese wheel style.

At level 1, you have a max of 100 hunger and 100 thirst, One water gives 20 iirc. So 4 waters fills 4/5ths of your thirst meter. Ingredients and basic foods are intentionally weak to encourage the player to actually make MEALS instead of just scarfing down the ingredients themselves. A single meat stew for example fills 50 hunger.

[jimbo]

i think the iron gut perk helps with hunger

[Mithrandir]

As already stated, it's all intended to start the game with you at incompetent level and encourage you to do better (aka : get your character to progress and be better in things you consider important).

They choose not to "tone it down" as you say, but to implement a progression system that allow the player to decide what to improve first.

If food wasn't the problem you describe in early game and was easily solved with starting knowledge, no one would perk to get better at it and/or try to learn to cook/farm to make better meals. What would be the use of those perks and crafting skills then ?

Progression fun/challenge won over reality sim. And I'm good with that.

Btw, bacon&eggs is easy to learn and quite a good meal for the first week or 2.

[Crater Creator]

You probably didn’t have 5 steaks. You had “charred meat” or “grilled meat.” There’s an actual steak & potato meal that’s more filling than these, but it requires the skills and additional ingredients to cook it. Similarly, if you make tea instead of plain water, it provides more hydration. How fast you burn through food & water is also affected by how active you are (expending stamina) and the temperature.

Is it somewhat arbitrary? Arguably yes. But if the game is going to apply these progression principles - of higher skills and rarer ingredients yielding superior results - then you’re going to wind up with something similar to this.

[Nando234]

Recomendation: Right after start ALWAYS invest the first 4 free skill points in
Iron gut = Will slow down food/water meters degradation
Healing Factor = You will heal faster from injuries
Master Chef = Find more cooking books, thus unlocking better recipes.
Weapon skill of Choice = Will find more books, weapons and parts of the desired weapon.

Check ALL cupboards in buildings and you will a lot of food and cooking books,
Check ALL toilets and drinks machines, take all the murky water and cook it later for water,
Take ALL scrap polymers and bones. You will need them to make glue and later Dew Collectors.

Also: DO NOT ENTER BUILDINGS IF YOU ARE NOT ON A QUEST. At least until you know what you are doing.

[Tahnval]

A couple of other possibly useful snippets;

Traders quite often sell ingredients for cooking. Eggs and cornmeal and suchlike. It's a convenient way to get the ingredients, often in quite large quantities. If you loot containers you'll soon learn at least some recipes. I think containers in kitchens have a higher chance for it, but that might be confirmation bias. Buying food to eat from traders is also an option. It's not very efficient, but it can be very useful in the early game.

Punch flowers as you're passing by. Goldenrod or Chrysanthemum. Stash them away for when you learn to make red tea and yellow (Goldenrod) tea. Both work well for hydration, better than water, and red tea also reduces food and water usage for a few minutes.

Similarly for the remains of coffee from coffee machines. At some point you'll learn how to make coffee from them. I tend to drink coffee almost exclusively for most of the game. Much like real life :)

[James]

Originally posted by jimbo:

i think the iron gut perk helps with hunger

Yup. In solo play I always put 1 point into iron gut and another in cardio right out the gate. Then I just use whatever I find in loot (which is more than enough) and I never have to worry about food or water again.

[Uncle Al]

Originally posted by Opprimentis:

Recomendation: Right after start ALWAYS invest the first 4 free skill points in
Iron gut = Will slow down food/water meters degradation
Healing Factor = You will heal faster from injuries
Master Chef = Find more cooking books, thus unlocking better recipes.
Weapon skill of Choice = Will find more books, weapons and parts of the desired weapon.

Healing factor is a mixed blessing as an early game pick. You're trading food consumption for medical supply consumption. The fast healing, like regular healing, costs food, 1 point of hunger per HP healed. A character with Healing Factor tends to get hungry a lot faster than one without it.

You can avoid the negative as long as you're aware this is happening, but you have to keep an eye on what resources you have and act appropriately. So if you're short on food but have plenty of bandages, you need to still bandage minor wounds even though your fast healing will quickly take care of them. If you don't then you can burn up a lot of food due to healing.

[Nando234]

Originally posted by Uncle Al:

Originally posted by Opprimentis:

Recomendation: Right after start ALWAYS invest the first 4 free skill points in
Iron gut = Will slow down food/water meters degradation
Healing Factor = You will heal faster from injuries
Master Chef = Find more cooking books, thus unlocking better recipes.
Weapon skill of Choice = Will find more books, weapons and parts of the desired weapon.

Healing factor is a mixed blessing as an early game pick. You're trading food consumption for medical supply consumption. The fast healing, like regular healing, costs food, 1 point of hunger per HP healed. A character with Healing Factor tends to get hungry a lot faster than one without it.

You can avoid the negative as long as you're aware this is happening, but you have to keep an eye on what resources you have and act appropriately. So if you're short on food but have plenty of bandages, you need to still bandage minor wounds even though your fast healing will quickly take care of them. If you don't then you can burn up a lot of food due to healing.

I recommended the healing factor not for healing, but for recovering from injuries and broken limbs.
Some rank 1 buildings have a drop right after you come inside the house, and sometimes if you are unlucky you end up with a sparined or broken leg. Or worse, a first hit while not wearing armor breaks your arm and you are left without strong attacks.
The faster healing is for that and, like I said, only until he learns to fight properly

[NHLreturns]

dont use realism to deter your experience, it's hard for a reason

adapt and thrive, reduce the overall difficulty if you wish for a smoother experience

[Cash Siiide]

Not sure why ppl complain about hunger and thirst. Day 2 and beyond I'm stockpiled with food + drinks.

[Dini]

Originally posted by mouse223:

Whats the deal with the hunger and thirst in this game I ate like 5 steaks and it doesn't fill up the meter and still need to eat more? Drank 4 glass's of water and still thirsty? come on tone this down

Actually depending on how it's cooked, it doesn't add too much to your calories or whatever you'd call it. Once you get full and satiated with water tho, you're good to go for awhile. If you started the game and didn't find food for awhile then of course your char gon be hungy hungy

[MiSFiT77]

Originally posted by mouse223:

Whats the deal with the hunger and thirst in this game I ate like 5 steaks and it doesn't fill up the meter and still need to eat more? Drank 4 glass's of water and still thirsty? come on tone this down

Eat raw eggs for the first few days. Raid every nest, eat the eggs as you find them. They decrease your hunger by 5 with no thirst penalty. Avoid charred meat early game. It fills you up more than raw eggs, but makes you thirsty. I don't even bother making charred meat. Eat eggs, spend your money on water if you haven't got a cooking pot.

If you have got a cooking pot. Eat raw eggs, raid houses for jars of the murky stuff and hopefully the occasional tin of cat food/pasta etc. Eat any tins of food instantly (check that you are actually hungry first). You don't have any recipes early game, so treat tins as instant hunger boost.

Once you have a grill and can cook grilled meat, things begin to get easier. You should build up a quick supply of grilled meat, thanks to all that charred meat you didn't bother making. And then a little later it's bacon and eggs.

[Subasu]

Originally posted by mouse223:

Whats the deal with the hunger and thirst in this game I ate like 5 steaks and it doesn't fill up the meter and still need to eat more? Drank 4 glass's of water and still thirsty? come on tone this down

Use a forgettin elixer and don't go into the healing factor tree

[8_Hussars]

Originally posted by Opprimentis:

I recommended the healing factor not for healing, but for recovering from injuries and broken limbs.

I believe "Physician" is the perk you are indicating here, not healing factor. Hence the confusion.