Food Balance

[wulf]

Maybe people have different experiences, but I'm just throwing this out for consideration

The food situation on servers is either stable and barely a consideration if you're doing work and making some money, or is catastrophically dire and everybody just logs off and waits for it to improve, and it rarely feels like it's anywhere in between

You either have a dealer who has already invested into providing food because the server needs it, in which case as long as you're doing work you have plenty of money to buy from them even at a high markup, or nobody is an established dealer or has a shop open selling food and the only source of food is rations, fish, and meat

Problem with that scenario is that rations are on a cycle, fish doesn't give nutrition worth the tradeoffs for how slow it is, especially if multiple people are relying on it, and so meat becomes the primary nutrition sink. Two things seem to happen in this case: cortex starts logging off or end up becoming proles because they can't easily get meat outside of purge, and proles just accumulate cytes through one hunger cycle and then suicide to give meat to friends. Scum starts operating more brazenly with no cortex and people start logging off, until the server is just dead. It's very hard for someone to just switch to dealer and start providing food due to the investment required beforehand, especially if there's no banker on because they left, so until an established dealer joins the server just can't revive, like an engine turning over and over

Food being a serious factor and impact is great, but it feels like a server needs to reach that critical mass necessary to "start" the engine. Once it gets going I barely ever think about food, just like I barely think about water. Between paycheck, ration, and the occasional meat, you just don't have to worry about food if you're playing the game

I don't think there should be a better free food alternative, but I think food flow to players needs some examination. Keep rations as they are, but add maybe something similar to the infirmary where you pay to fill up hunger, and dealer's task is to provide a better rate than it provides? And to compensate dealers for the non-player competition, maybe bars and cafes operated by dealers also have such a facility at a rate set by the dealer, and/or provide a multiplier to nutrition consumed while players are inside the bar and provide cytes to the dealer when players do this. Right now people don't really use bars except as a shop, maybe a special property that slows nutrition/thirst drain while inside can encourage people to go there when they want to take a break from work

Maybe I'm just getting unlucky but it's becoming a bit of a cycle where people clear out of the server because there's no food, and my only option is to go to another that's populated or hope an established dealer joins before I starve

[Atheta ｜アセータ]

This is why imo there should be at least ONE publicly accessible kitchen for people to use much like the one workbench and metalworks. Gatekeeping cooking to a select few establishments only furthers the food economy. I do agree with you in that food is either a complete non issue or it's literally life ending because you MUST find supplementary food in between ration cycles.

Maybe that breaks the food economy? Maybe it doesn't. Sausage rolls and Gabagool are still excellent food choices because they not only give great nutrition, they give buffs, and are only purchasable, not craftable. Most of the craftable food honestly doesn't give that great of nutrition outside of blood bagels giving health on top of their hunger. Canned Bread is also great for thirst as well as hunger. Then again, I haven't personally eaten every single craftable food to know its exact nutrition and/or buffs offered. But I know scary soup makes you paranoid.

[machineguy]

We need more kitchens! Let us COOK!

[megamisto]

does anyone get paid or given cytes for actually growing food at the greenhouses

[woahbunch]

i think now that proles/doctors make more credits, i find its much easier to buy/sell food. idk if good food should really be free, i think that hunger is meant to be one of the most challenging aspects for proles. but yea it is kinda unlucky when ur in a server where no one has access to the dealernet, so i usually do just log off and wait for the world to continue on. but in my experience it's not an issue to me, i just play more cautiously and store my items when i know i'm gonna die :')
i also agree there should be a public kitchen, i get asked a lot by newer players where to find a kitchen and i never really know how to respond

[Taehl]

I agree. I already suggested adding a fire barrel or something for public cooking, too.

The other part of the issue is that most food items (aside from rations) are practically worthless, especially for the amount of time and effort it takes to get them. I remember the first time I finally managed to afford an apartment with a kitchen and enough ingredients to make a tushonka (just in time to beat starvation!), only to get kicked directly in the balls by how eating tushonka only gives like 4% food and SUBTRACTS like 5% of your water! So I went and spent all my money on two blood donuts, and guess what? They ALSO only feed you for like 4%! Then I starved, despite just eating 3 things in the past two minutes.

Food needs to be seriously buffed to be worth all the effort of making it.

[threedogs5]

I think the public cooking station sounds like a good idea.

Also (just an idea here) but what if you or another officer was commended someone and they get more rations? Like a 20% or 25% increase in food and water for both of them, giving them more of an incentive to stay in line and if they don't then the opposite happens.

Also a buff to food recipes plus a few more would be excellent