Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted (edited)

Hello fellow survivors :)

 

I've invested close to 100 hours into new beta and I have some questions, reflections and opinions on food i would like to share or get some insight upon.

 

1. I've noticed that it seems quite hard to stay on top of my colories requitements without using lootable high calories food like cereal or peanut butter.

2. Havent managed to test farming properly (i have bad RNG with magazines, so I dont know what correct planting seasons are) but from vegetables found in the world, only potatos and cabbages seem to be anything more than slow death by starvation.

3. Soups, stews, stir fry does not provide sufficient calories intake to justify the expenditure of time and effort they require. Same goes for multiple meat sources like chickens.

4. All above issues combined results for me in total dependency on looted processed food in order to retain desired body weight.

 

My questions are:

1. Is there a way to stay reliably fed before i have farming/ranching setup going on?

2. What is currently the most efficient long term source of food? Excluding fishing.

3. Does anyone less find "slow metabolism" trait of little use to slow down starvation?

 

Addendum:

4. How to I kill captured rats? i had this briliant idea to just catch rats as they are easy get by second and third month into the game, but I have no idea how to kill them. And I can't place mouse traps (always showes them on red, whe I attempt to place them anywhere).

 

Edited by ChristopherSowinsky
addendum
Posted

1) Trapping, forage some bait and set traps for rabbits.  Potatoes & Carrots are both fairly common, if you're outside of a city.

2) Trapping (rabbits), or Butter.  I can't bring myself to do the latter, it just seems like cheating.

3) No.  My reading of the code is that it makes it harder to maintain weight than not taking a metabolism trait, but I have not had any difficulty maintaining my weight with it though.  (Fast Metabolism looks *really* bad value, due to the increase in calories you need to eat).

4) If they work like rabbits, drop them and then kill them - you'll need a weapon.  You probably won't get many calories from rats, no idea why the trap can't be placed - I've found a few mouse traps but not used them.

Posted

Yea they need to add some way to actually get the animals you track down or what just world spawns ....currently the only way i see is drag a animal zone around them at wich point they chage to tame animals what wont run away from you if you anything closer then a screen away, then you can just pick em up and butcher em a screen away to prevent a mass animal panic ;)

All i can catch with a run after the animal approach is lil babys.

And i wont accept guns as requirement for anything  ....guns are stoopid ...is a 50/50 situation thou ....half likes guns half hates em.

If you got a Car thou you can get a lot of rats just driving around ...aka roadkills ;)

Dragging an Animal zone is easy thou and i hope this dont get removed without a proper way to finish up after you tracked for half a day finaly finding something.

Posted
On 1/16/2025 at 6:27 PM, Hugo Qwerty said:

1) Trapping, forage some bait and set traps for rabbits.  Potatoes & Carrots are both fairly common, if you're outside of a city.

2) Trapping (rabbits), or Butter.  I can't bring myself to do the latter, it just seems like cheating.

3) No.  My reading of the code is that it makes it harder to maintain weight than not taking a metabolism trait, but I have not had any difficulty maintaining my weight with it though.  (Fast Metabolism looks *really* bad value, due to the increase in calories you need to eat).

4) If they work like rabbits, drop them and then kill them - you'll need a weapon.  You probably won't get many calories from rats, no idea why the trap can't be placed - I've found a few mouse traps but not used them.

Thanks! 

 

What about food supplies for longer trips? Is there any lightweight option able to stay fresh for a week or so, which the player hss ability to manufacture? I've seen mentioned to drying meet in few places but no details how to actually do it. In build meanu I've identified only contraptions to dry skins.

Posted

There is serveral foragable things what last indefinite ....they bad to maintain wight but if you eat yourself fat to 84 you can live quite long off thouse without needing powerfoods.

Firenettles, Rosehips , Violets, Sunflower Seeds, Frogs,Peanuts for example, other things can have exceptional shelflives like Potatos for example or Insects.

You can also bring LIVESTOCK in a trailer ....i mean thats literaly what the name saying right? put some chicks or bunnys in a trailer and butcher on demand, its an option.

If there is Water you can bring insects "exceptional shelflife" and fish when needed.

You can also Pickel Crops either grown yourself or found.

Bringing a Bowl is a gud idea for food since you can "cook" materials with it on the fly for a hunger boost.

Foraging when Hungry gives you a boost to find food, for me its usually enough to have 10 foraging and dip into a forest forage zone every now and then but tbh every zone works just fine aside from flukes.

Birdtraps are a secret few know ....they dont have the night mechanic like bunnys/squirles have in snare/create/cage traps ....just place em far enough away in your back (traps have to be offscreen to be operational, minimum 75 tiles away) you can get worms from digging with a shovel or handshovel for gardening.

Lemongras(dont go bad) is not technicaly food BUT it get rid of food poisen so you can improvise a lil by being able to eat foods what are dangerous uncooked, just be carefull to not overdo it ....you need a LOT of lemongras to compensate for eating a 45 small aligator raw ;)

Roadkills, pay attention to the noise ....i killed SO MANY "invisible zombies" on the street who i thought just didnt spawn in yet before i realized those "zombies" are actually the rats im runnin over XD

High cooking skill 7+ lets you use a rotten ingredient in meals savely, its not much you can do with that aside from happymeals but i thought i mention it.

NEW: Handpress can make Seeds into Oils what last indefinite.

First 2 or 3 days of a trip you can save your nonperishables and bring perishable from home.

 

Okay thats all of the ways i like ....now the current meta i dont like ;)

If you have ded animal in your backpack you can infinite butcher even a rotten one to fresh meat it wont ever go away.

Butter ....just plain and simple as that XD

Soda meta ....soda currently regenerates abnourmus amounts of food thirst and fatigue. 1/4 can of soda is basicly cure all ....you best of to bring a 100ml cup and use the liquid interface ;)

Canned Food/scavanging towns ...its okay with no loot respawn but when loot is respawning this feels wrong.

 

See you have plenty of options there 0/

Posted

Currently on my longest run in B42 (only 5 weeks), and even with extremely rare loot across the board, I've been finding enough high calorie foods to maintain 80-82, even with fairly highly active days. Though I do tend to take a down day once a week to read, do stuff around the safehouse, etc which seems to help. Like, I've always got several peanut butters, cereals, butter/lards, etc in my stockpile. But I haven't spent days cutting trees and building log walls, or fighting 100 zombies a day, etc. It seems like a major part of weight management now is not just what you consume, but how much energy your spending, in a way that is more realistic and therefore harder than B41.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On 1/18/2025 at 6:02 PM, ChristopherSowinsky said:

Since I don't want to start new topic for just one question, i will ask it here:

 

How do you get hay?

actual hay, not sure, but you can remove grass and the grass clippings work the same. 

Posted

Calories completely broken now. How it works, if you starving you can have for exemple -2000calries, but ahen you eat you calories work just  your -2000 + foodCalorie, how I see with UI. 

 

So human body when you get calories not work as debt, all consumed calories permanently goes to your energy. So in project zomboid It should be work like your 

1. If you starving and get food so your -2000 should equeal 0 before and then u sum your food. Devs, understand conception?

 

For author jus use mod Easy Gain Weight it works well.

Posted

I've noticed that I'm really struggling with farming. Is there any point of referrence (article, guide, data sheet) which is up to date with current unstable?

For example I've planted Radishes in August and instead of blooming, they died in September. According to in game information, August still should be fine.

 

I'm thinking to temporary reverting game rules to vanilla farming.

Posted

Yeah, agree with people in this thread- calorie requirements right now seem absurd & very unrealistic. You basically have to be railing butter to not lose weight when you're already underweight which doesn't make sense, even if you're very active. The human body is pretty good at adapting to food availability- you do not become emaciated just because you're eating a mere 1600 calories a day and jogging for a couple hours.

 

In general would be nice to see an overhaul of how strength/fitness works in combination with calorie requirements- would make sense to need more food to build muscle or maintain a lot of it, but otherwise it's kinda silly

Posted

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3418392722&searchtext=Calories

Ok, guys you can try my mod. So I don't agree with devs in case with calories below zero. So I think if I starving and will eat big pot of stew with 1000 calories, my "calorie debt" should paid more faster. The calorie debt must be extinguished more strongly. It will works only when your calories < 0 and calculated with 

debtBonus = 0,55/(1+EXP(-0,001*(-1*currentDebt-200)))*100
foodBonus = 0,55/(1+EXP(-0,001*(foodCalories-200)))*100
sum = foodCalories*foodBonus/100 +foodCalories*debtBonus /100 
 

Posted (edited)

Ok, I've reached day 70. I haven't touched trapping or fishing. But

- soups, stews and scrambled eggs (especially with butter) actually give some decent results. I actually got too fat.

- useless foraged food items when combined into salad seem to actually give more calories than just sum of the ingredients.

 

So, chickens (cows are nice for butter too) + foraging/ runned over dear here and there at it is possible to survive just fine.

 

 

Edited by ChristopherSowinsky
grammar
Posted

Question, does anyone know, when high level cooking gives you more hunger satiation for using ingredients, does it also alter the calories? or is it the same calories, just more filling? 

Posted

I've also noticed a few things that make me think the weight gain has some odd variable or bug in play. I've had several instances where I've eaten a few thousand calories in a go, had the down arrow change to an up arrow, even a double once, and i'll go to sleep, not doing any other exercises, wake up, and its a down arrow again with no change in weight. Seems to only happen sleeping past midnight. Haven't tested it enough to bug report yet, and I don't have anything set up to look at calorie counts directly. 

Posted
1 hour ago, ScrivenerSpills said:

Question, does anyone know, when high level cooking gives you more hunger satiation for using ingredients, does it also alter the calories? or is it the same calories, just more filling? 

I believe it does. Between 1st and 6th level hunger satiation of the same dish made from the same set of ingredients increased. I've installed one od UI mods, so i know how much calories i have at the moment. So, at first level of cooking stir fry eggs with butter gave me something aroung 600 calories, right now at 5th level it's over 1000.

 

From what I can confirm after observing exact values of calories, character seems to consantly loose calories at constant base rate, hich increases based on activity (fighting/exercise/chopping treas).

As long calories are above 500-700 you are slowly gaining weight (single plus next to your body weight), and when above 1000-1200 you are gaining weight more quickly (double plus next to body weight).

 

All values above are aproximation based on observation and might be way off, but general principles, I'm quite sure of. If you want to gain weight, you need maintain high calory surplus for extended time. This mod will be helpful to monitor that: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3399432867

Posted

Oh thats interesting!  I was hoping / expecting calories to stay the same since its a matter of getting the same hunger satiation but using less of the ingredient. 

Wait.. you said omelet, which just takes two eggs flat.  interesting.  Will definitely look at the mod, now I want to see about evolved recipes.  Thanks. 

Posted
56 minutes ago, ScrivenerSpills said:

Oh thats interesting!  I was hoping / expecting calories to stay the same since its a matter of getting the same hunger satiation but using less of the ingredient. 

Wait.. you said omelet, which just takes two eggs flat.  interesting.  Will definitely look at the mod, now I want to see about evolved recipes.  Thanks. 

 

The exact recipy is Stir-Fry, (right click Frying Pen) and I always just add four eggs and butter for seasoning. If you spawn in Echo Creek (new farming town) this is achievable from day 1.

Posted
20 hours ago, ScrivenerSpills said:

I've also noticed a few things that make me think the weight gain has some odd variable or bug in play. I've had several instances where I've eaten a few thousand calories in a go, had the down arrow change to an up arrow, even a double once, and i'll go to sleep, not doing any other exercises, wake up, and its a down arrow again with no change in weight. Seems to only happen sleeping past midnight. Haven't tested it enough to bug report yet, and I don't have anything set up to look at calorie counts directly. 

you can use a mod as mentioned above to monitor both your own cal. and the contents of foods, but for those who dont want mods ....for testing you can just use the nutritionist perk to figure out what foods made off ;)

Posted

So started using that mod, thanks.  And looking at the scales for the macro nutrients and how they can go negative, I realized something...  

They built the calories per gram of macronutrient in, but... those scales for your macro levels? are based on the calories provided by, but using the actual grams for the numbers being applied, it looks like.  some bad design there. 

 

Posted

Yeah, playing around a bit more with that mod, thats exactly what happened. that 500 odd range for the macro nutrients should be calories, and is mass units (probably grams)

Its impossible to keep them all above zero without balooning weight. 

 

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...