Alternate food sources?

[Machetian 🌸]

I've exausted pretty much all the fish within 200 meters of my home, i've got a melon but it doesn't seem to work as a seed. What else can be obtained as food?

[ImHelping]

Oh, right. It doesn't tell you, but you have to stab melons with a knife to get the seeds (one stabbed melon = 4 seeds).

Those lanternfruit trees are also great. Not as filling per item, but you just plant them (In that case, you plant the fruit directly. No seeds), and it will grow an entire tree that has zero need to replant stuff like with melons. For space/convenience reasons, I use a few pots for trees, and a growbed for the melons.

You could easily get more mellons per space with pots, but since you need to replant those, the larger grid of a growbed is worth the convenience if you want a bunch of mellons.

As for fish, the Alien Containment tank (needs to be in the Multipurpose room, needs a hatch to enter) can hold up to 10 fish properly, and they will reproduce. If you have MP rooms on top of eachother, you can stack the alien containments (2 tall lets you grow creepvine seeds properly).

I still keep fish around even though I have fruit. Because fruit is huge, and rots quickly. Fish is still useful for making cured fish as travel snacks.

EDIT: Alien containment can also hatch eggs, to grow small fauna, and baby versions of larger. They will spring to full size when released though (and agressive, if a predator) so be careful with that.

Note to self, get around to reinstalling my rabbitray+jellyray tank just for how cool those look.

[Spoderman]

Definitely go for Lantern Fruit. You can fit 4 in a growbed or one per pot. Plant two or 3 in your bases or inside your cyclops, and you will be set with probably the best and easiest sustainable food in the game.

What I like most about them is they restore about an even amount of food AND water, so you never really have to make water anymore either and it is easy to top off both stats before you head out into the water.

Just go to the big island with the seabases on it, take at least one piece of the fruit, stick it in a planter and you are good to go!

[KromeHWI]

just for fun i usually plan all of the edible plants: fruit trees, veggies, bulbo trees, and mellons, although admitedly i eat more fruit than anything else because of their abundance. that said, the mellons, as stated, are super uesful for their small footprint, and very fast grow speed. they are also very usefull for the bioreactor. plant a pot of them next to the reactor, slice one to get 4 seeds and throw the other three into the reactor for fuel. then plant the seeds and repeat. the seeds will grow to full size long before the reactor has used the three mellons. infinite bio-fuel.

[Machetian 🌸]

thank you!

[Urazz]

Lantern Fruit is the best and easiest. It gives some water in addition to some food. It's not the most filling food and water source but it's easy to get and you can grow it on the cyclops as well. Makes for easy time keeping food and water filled up.

[mivinson24]

One lantern fruit tree is all you will ever need to stay fed and hydrated forever.

[KromeHWI]

Originally posted by mivinson24:

One lantern fruit tree is all you will ever need to stay fed and hydrated forever.

this is probably true although i will always plant at least two and alternate which i pick from to ensure that i dont run out no matter how much i eat. im guessing that all of this will all be ballanced more eventually. living entirely off of one tree seems a little too easy to me (not that im really complaining). better to have to suppliment with veggies, fish, or other foods. it would be cool if they implemented some sort of nutrition system, but i doubt they will go that far into it.

[ImHelping]

A "Varied nutrition" system would be a bit of a jump past several degrees of gameplay hurdle, with viable produces being hidden away on drawdistance island.

Throw that in with the devs admitting fish spawns can still be busted instead of working as intended, and extra layers beyond the simple Food/Water bars would just be unduly obtuse.

I wouldn't say no to it as an option though, once they get things working right and you have more to chew on than creepvines at the start.

But a more easily implemented system would be (slightly, SLIGHTLY. Only enough to notice, not enough to impede gameplay for putting it off) reduced efficiency below 50% food/water.

I'm sure a lot of people living off of nothing but plants are just chomping down 4 fruits and hovering forever in the 50-60 range of their water bar. It's much harder to top off from low with plants, but we have no reason to care about having low meters.

Then again, I'm also bizzaro person who prefers my salted fish on the go diet, because I am slow as molasses as I mosey along the sea. While considering plants a between trips food even on my cyclops (though I certainly top off before heading out the door).

"Oh huh, I left my food/water reach almost under 20% again." *pops open Seamoth trunk for snacks* "Bam, 100/95+ Food/Water without bloodloss trigger"

[Boreout [Aut]]

Originally posted by Machetian:

I've exausted pretty much all the fish within 200 meters of my home, i've got a melon but it doesn't seem to work as a seed. What else can be obtained as food?

There is also the spore sack.

You can grow it in an alien containment or an outer growbed.
Neither the seeds or the spore-sack itself will rot in your inventory as far as i know.

It might be an alternative to cured fish but lacks a bit in nutritional value (+5 food +4 h2o).

The spore-sacks are found in jellshroom caves.
You can only cut it once to get the seeds or you can plant the sporesack as a whole (simliar to melons).

I plant those together with braincoral (oxygen) creepvineseeds and jellymushrooms (light) outside my base and some inside the wrecks (if possible ) to get easy access to oxygen, light , food and water.

[KromeHWI]

i think there is already a slight boost for being fully fed (at least to healing). but yesh it would be interesting if there was a slight penalty for being nearly starved. like reduced swim speed or something (is there already?).

i realize that it would be a rather major overhaul to add a nutrition/ballanced diet system. im not even really suggesting they do this, it was mearly something that popped into my brain so i put it down here. certianly they have MANY other things to figure out first even if they decide to implemement something like this. it was mostly as a way to incentivise eating more than just fruit, or just fish. i could see them adding something like a minor boost for a varied diet, rather than implementing a penalty for not having one.

[Mad5cout]

The fruit tree is the easiest. But I wanted to mention an alternative since no one seems to have brought it up.

If you make a large aquarium and put two or three of one kind of fish inside (go for high food yield fish), they will breed. Building two of these aquariums on top of one another will increase the yield or total amount you can house. If you couple that with a desalinator thing, it will create salt and water. Water hydrates, obviously, and you can combine the salt and fish to make cured food. If you have airsacks breeding in addition to a good food source fish, then you also have a backup water source in a pinch.

This is a more complicated and more expensive solution, obviously, but one that is available to you. The benefit of it is that the items are smaller and have a higher yield of return so sometimes they can be great for crash site exploring where you want more inventory space.

[Mad5cout]

Originally posted by KromeHWI:

i think there is already a slight boost for being fully fed (at least to healing). but yesh it would be interesting if there was a slight penalty for being nearly starved. like reduced swim speed or something (is there already?).

i realize that it would be a rather major overhaul to add a nutrition/ballanced diet system. im not even really suggesting they do this, it was mearly something that popped into my brain so i put it down here. certianly they have MANY other things to figure out first even if they decide to implemement something like this. it was mostly as a way to incentivise eating more than just fruit, or just fish. i could see them adding something like a minor boost for a varied diet, rather than implementing a penalty for not having one.

This already exists. If you start to starve or get dehydrated too far, you start to move slower. If you are underwater when this happens, you can get into real trouble.

[KromeHWI]

oh ok, yeah i wasnt sure if that was just my imagination or if it was actually a thing. thanks for the clarification mad5cout.

a good trick is to do the aquarium early on and fill it with airbag fish. this gives you a steady stream of both food and water until you get other food options up and running.

[bbfloyd]

Mid game: two large fish tanks with a foodfish breedstock, and 2-3 water filtration units will make all the cured fish and water you will ever need; power it with thermo, and you are near self sufficient. I jsut return home and grab 4-6 bottles and 4-8 salted fish whenever I get low.

[Vankman]

I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of nerf to the plant's growth speed like 10 times slower.
Imo bio fuel is the best source of power since 1 lantern fruit tree got around 12 fruit in it, not to mention any other plant you can cut to get 4 seeds or some others you can cut more than once pretty much making nuclear reactor useless for now.
Also 1 lantern tree in all your bases + inside your cyclops and your set for life in term of food and water.

For very long trips without a cyclops bbfloyd explained it very well but I can add one thing, get reginalds for the fish as they are the best (+44 food).