Cooking needs its own UI

[John_234]

I did a brief search, and while I get the impression the UI is going to be changed and cooking is known to be a little bit unintuitive, I didn't see many specific suggestions for fixing it.

 

The problem for me is that while the recipes make sense, the steps required to make them happen are so unintuitive that you basically have to dump your items into your inventory, overburden yourself and go through trial and error till you either die or manage to cook the food and reduce the weight you're carrying.

 

For example, you can cook a bowl of ramen with a water bottle, empty bowl and a packet of ramen. Not with a bowl filled with water and a pack of ramen, or by standing near a sink. It's a little bit ridiculous and it basically forces you to look on the wiki for a very specific recipe.

 

I find its also a little annoying you have to drag items into your inventory from you pack to combine them, when you can eat right out of your pack. Having to bounce around a can opener every time you want to open canned food seems a bit annoying and not particularly realistic. I feel like the delay the game gives you sitting stationary while crafting is more than sufficient, and having to juggle food items around your inventory and containers is unnecssary.

 

You should be able to cook using ingredients in your immediate vicinity or backpack, really.

 

I think there's two better ways to go about this.

 

The first is, make it like Day Z. You click and drag an item into another, and the game asks if you would like to combine things a specific way. Example:

Bowl + Water = Bowl of Water

+ Can of Soup  = Bowl of Soup Stock

+ Ramen = Bowl of Simple Uncooked Ramen

 

Bowl + Ramen = Bowl of Dry Ramen

+ Water = Bowl of Boring Uncooked Ramen

+ Can of Soup  = Bowl of Simple Uncooked Ramen

 

Bowl of Water / Cooking Pot w/ Water + Egg = Egg Drop Soup

+ Packet of Ramen  = Boring Uncooked Ramen (+ Note denoting danger if uncooked)

+ Bacon = Simple Uncooked Ramen

+ Can of Soup = Tasty Uncooked Ramen

 

Bread + Butter = Buttered Bread

+ Cheese = Tasty Cheese Sandwich

+ Ham = Ham and Cheese Sandwich

+ Frying Pan = Sandwich on a Pan

 

Bread + Cheese = Boring Cheese Sandwich

+Butter = Tasty Cheese Sandwich

 

Cooking Pot + Water = Pot Filled With Water

+ (Ingredient 1 OR Canned Soup) = Boring Soup

+ (Ingredient 2) = Simple Soup

+ (Ingredient 3) = Tasty Soup

 

You could also right click the item, and it would allow you to add water from a sink if you were close enough. You would click and drag a bowl into a pot of soup to fill it, click and drag a can opener into a can to pop it, that sort of thing. I believe this system would also somewhat reduce the meta-game aspect to it, since you can't undo a recipe when you toss some items together experimentally. It also gives people who don't know the recipes very well a chance of making something good.

 

The other way, in my mind is to have a UI that displays what you need for crafting food. You'd have boxes with labels over them and arrows. Probably 'Container,' 'Base Ingredient,' 'Extra Ingredients,' 'Cooking Method'

 

Say you stick a pot in 'Container.' If it's filled with water, 'base ingredient' is greyed out and it says water. OR, you walk over to the sink and it displays the icon, click it to fill the pot with water there. Or drag a water bottle into it.

 

The inventory is grayed out for items that cannot be used as ingredients. The clickable ones can be dragged in to upgrade the end product, which is displayed at the top of the UI. Once all the ingredients you want are added, you can either click and drag a camp stove (if added) or walk over to a range or microwave, then click 'cook' to automatically turn on the range and put the food inside. Same with walking over to a campfire.

 

Alternative, you can just click 'combine' to keep the unfinished food.

 

Here's the example of sorts I threw together in MS paint:

 

 

Just my thoughts. What do you guys think?

[Dtrahan12]

That would be very cool, I would like to see this into the game if not, at least a mod.

[Ridickulo]

Yes it does but...beta!

[Eblanc]

I agree with the fact that the cooking system ATM is somewhat complicated. 

 

As long as that gets fixed in some way I'm a happy camper. GUI would probably be very useful to cook in a more user friendly way

[EnigmaGrey]

It'd be better just to mimic the way real recipes are done and make it consistent across the board for cooking. It doesn't necessarily need a new GUI to do this, but I wouldn't mind it. Being able to act on a container other than the player's inventory would also be a plus.

[Kidlonewolf]

Being able to act on a container other than the player's inventory would also be a plus.

+1

[John_234]

It'd be better just to mimic the way real recipes are done and make it consistent across the board for cooking. It doesn't necessarily need a new GUI to do this, but I wouldn't mind it. Being able to act on a container other than the player's inventory would also be a plus.

As long as it's done in a way where you explicitly combine items rather than just hope you have enough in your inventory at the same time for it to work.