Unlocking the oven sooner

[MagpieOAO]

I've got 136 hours in the game, probably 90% of that in solo on the same character in single player doing all of my own gardening and cooking.

Didn't really speed through stuff, relatively slow and stealthy. So imagine my surprise when I've basically finished what we got right now to find there's a whole category of foods I haven't even unlocked access to. I think I'm one level away, but it seems like I've already gotten access to a whole series of useful soups and prepped foods before unlocking the oven.

Maybe it's more for group meals? I'm a Parenthetical scientist and I think I have the cooking trait to boot.

[Crochwhisle purple]

+1

[Palo Wagner]

+1

[MechWarden]

Yeah, the oven does feel like it comes into play rather late, even with two more sectors yet to be introduced.

How that could get changed, I'm not sure.

[Khloros]

I think they just need to introduce it earlier. Im at the point im just waiting for reactors and i still cant even make soup. The cooking in the game if you are solo is really slow coming unless you dedicate a lot of time to it.

[MagpieOAO]

Originally posted by Khloros:

I think they just need to introduce it earlier. Im at the point im just waiting for reactors and i still cant even make soup. The cooking in the game if you are solo is really slow coming unless you dedicate a lot of time to it.

And to be fair once you can make soups it takes a while until you can make pretty decent ones and by then you're halfway through the final vision of the game, it would seem.

Maybe we need a better soup container as well that carries 4 sips that you can get before the oven to maintain some degree of competitive benefit.

[Covert Cactus]

Agreed I had to use that perk that doubles the xp gained from cooking on a new save just to make some decent progress.

[MechWarden]

Originally posted by Covert Cactus:

Agreed I had to use that perk that doubles the xp gained from cooking on a new save just to make some decent progress.

I can also verify that, at least in my solo runs, having the 2x Exp bonus to cooking gave a well paced level progression.

That said I also cook a lot for The Coworker, via grilling up unwanted meats, so there is some bias there.

[ganthritor42]

I spent so, so, so very much time just hunting down pests and peccaries bc they cook faster than most other things and give decent XP for it. I ground out a bunch a levels this way lol. But like, idek if the oven has been worth it honestly since much of it requires stuff I haven't just been that worried about getting or doing. Soup time is the best time lol

[Feliz Jueves]

Well, a no brainer solution would be swap 8 and 10 lvl rewards on cooking skill, at least partially. Extra hp regen bit could stay where it is. That would results in much less grind, half of exp requirement actualy, and you could get to Oven in natural playthrough, rather than going out your way for it.

[MrMcGreedy]

Yeah I had the extra hunger and bonus cooking xp gain traits in my solo save and have not unlocked the oven either despite making it to the entrance of Reactors and exploring everything besides the poop dimension (~55 hours). I think soups should give more xp than they currently do because each has a total of 8 “bites,” reducing cooking xp by decreasing the need for more meals.

[MechWarden]

Yeah I agree, leaning too hard on soups as soon as you get them is a good way to hurt your XP gains. I'm pretty sure if I didn't feed the Coworker with excess grilled food I wouldn't have had enough XP for when I got access to the oven materials.

[Wave]

Something that I was thinking about with friends was maybe adding a "Condiment", "Spices" or "Dressing" feature to the cooking items within Abiotic Factor. This could be a way to add extra XP to cooking without deeply further expanding cooking.

Think of the additional feature kinda like how Glowstone, Gunpowder or Redstone can change how a potion works in Minecraft.

[Mauman]

Originally posted by Covert Cactus:

Agreed I had to use that perk that doubles the xp gained from cooking on a new save just to make some decent progress.

I found directly cooking the meat on a pan gives xp WAY faster than making soup. Like 3 times as much.

At least it did....haven't played in a few months.

[Ccrack]

if you didnt pick the chef career, and get the double xp for cooking trait then just give up on leveling cooking

[Teacyn]

Yeah, Soup gives very little EXP, I think maybe it should be based on the ingredients somehow. Like the harder they are to get the more they're worth?