Cooking revamped. Just like Mama!

[Omnicast]

So right now all you do when you cook is just slap the raw ingredient on to the pan or toss them into the pot for soup. Stare at it mindlessly like a zombie until it's done. Then you get the oven you just craft it at the crafting bench. No process involved.

My suggestion is for basic cooking to remain mostly the same. For raw meat you just need to flip it at the half way point. Look at the meat and press E or something. Or add a flat spatula into the game so the cook can equip it and flip the food that way. Add a flipping animation to the spatula and have it work via LMB. Aim at the pan/food and click.

Soups just need a stir twice to prevent it from burning. So a stir at the 1/3rd point and one more at the 2/3rd point. Give it a visual and sound cue for the player to know when to stir. As if it's bubbling over. So... another utensil would be a ladle? Or another spatula?

Now for the oven items I think the devs could do well with introducing more cooking mini games. Like cutting the potato with a kitchen knife or with a sword... shaving the anteverse lettuce to make a salad then top with grilled pest, sliced up super tomato, and finally seasoned with... salt? Uh add some other condiments too please.

The cook can fail these mini games and what you end up with is... well subpar disgusting food. Overcooked steak, burnt potatoes, undercooked meat. things that make you sick and vomit.

The food will get 0-3 stars as a rating. Food with 0 stars are low quality food that doesn't give any bonuses at all and isn't fulfilling to eat (barely recovers any of your food/thirst bar). Eating low quality food continuously may cause your character to be sick and tired(debuffs).

Well cooked food should give you massive buffs like stamina usage, faster run speed, more health, slow to hunger/thirst, takes less damage from melee or ranged, and more.

Eating a perfect 3 star meal should either give you multiple buffs and or allow the food/thirst meter to pass the 100% limit. The new max would be 200% and it has a snazzy new vfx to it. You get the well stuffed modifier and any bonuses gained from the food is doubled.

So if you made a recipe that gives you +20% max health it will be +40% max health. Which would be a massive improvement to survivability.

Also a better stove recipe would be nice... four burners and a flat iron grill on the side with a oven on the bottom. Hell make it two ovens. Also add built in lights with it's own switch to toggle on and off. Maybe the other side can have a deep fryer too. Yeah this would be so damn badass. I'd feel like Gordon... no not the one with the crowbar... the one that cooks. Wait... can I cook with the crowbar?!? Hmm best of both worlds... Gordon Freeman Ramsays.

This encourages players to cook more as amazing food allows players to power through otherwise painful encounters.

[Vuur]

I like this idea. It could be added to the other mini games we have. I'd like to see more "human" and "alien" food items and maybe recipes that use vending machine items.

[dr46onfusion]

The game has 'cooked porkchops' but no real way to access pork.

[Omnicast]

Maybe the devs can add in Pigmen that hunt us down in the labs... you can butcher them for... 'Pork'. I'm all for hunting and slaughtering tribal Pigmen. =D