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Canning Essentials: An In-Depth Food Canning Mod v0.8 [90%]


Deadend

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Would love to see fish added to the list of items to be canned. http://www.food-skills-for-self-sufficiency.com/canning-fish.html

 

Its in the plans, just haven't had time to work on the mod at all (college). But I'll definitely be looking to push this mod out of WIP when I manage to free myself up again. Doesn't seem food canning is in the plans for TIS for a while with build 30 being a medical overhaul. So this mod still has some potential.

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  • 3 weeks later...

UPDATE:

 

So after almost 2 months if I'm counting right I've managed to release this new version. About 2 months ago this version was much ready to be released but sudden bugs caused me to change certain aspects of the mod so the version was halted. Shortly there after I had to go back to college and for a bit over a month I had not had the time to work on the mod. Just recently (last week and today) I finally found some time and because of my now better time management skills :D I've been able to finish this version. And hopefully will be able to continue working on it.

The new version contains a new preservation system that I'll talk more about in the changelog. Just wanted to mention that I've briefly tested this version with the latest PZ stable build and works without any unknown issues. The preservation system and new aging system however I've not be able to test thoroughly as that requires days to pass in-game. So if someone could test this, that'd be great. 

 

changes to main post:

- updated current features section. Read it for a quick down of whats new... Which is sadly not much in terms of content.

- updated the design section to correlate with the new changes.
- updated the guide section with new item, slight addition to instructions (canning process is still the same though).
- new instructions for testing mod, check bottom of official post.
 

changelog:

v0.6:
this version was mostly a lot of background stuff once again. Not much content here in terms of canning options. On the other hand though now the mod's core is more solid.
- new aging system. Decided to make my own aging system instead of using the game's aging system for food as I needed to apply it to normal items as well. Check below as to why this is.
- made sealed jarred food normal items instead of food items. There seemed to be some confusion as to whether or not you needed to open sealed jarred food to eat it since the eat option was there for sealed jarred food. That was because food items having age whereas normal items don't. The confusion along with the fact you were getting cooking exp for opening a jar got me on the path of making an algorithm and the proper modifications to allow select normal items to have age. Even better this new implementation allowed me to give jarred food a preservation property instead of just letting it age for a long period of time and having to place code in to keep track of that. Now with the new preservation property is more like putting food in a fridge in-game before the electricity runs out.
- disabled the exp control system. Originally implemented so you wouldn't get any cooking exp with this mod. Didn't want it affecting your cooking skill until the mod was actually binded to your cooking skill. But it seems it causes an unacceptable bug when cooking books are used. Haven't found a solution and its delaying this version too much since this version was basically ready for release but I held it back to look into this bug.
- jar lids are now non-reusable. But their spawn rates have been increased so they should now be more abudant.
- added a jar lids box of two sizes, 6 and 12 (both have the same icon and name but one weights more than the other). You can box your lids for a slight weight reduction bonus. You don't have to unbox the jar lids to use them. The box itself can be used directly when jarring. But if you want to unbox them, you can.
- changed opened jars of strawberry jam to say 'Open Jar Of Strawberry Jam' instead of 'Strawberry Jam*' to be more clear. Keep in mind that the icon also changes to show the jar without a lid once you open it.
- Jarred food will now lose some nutrional value if prepared through the Open Kettle Method. This as to simulate the fact that you somewhat overcook the food through this method. This, along with the higher chance of failure (in comparison to the other two methods) would be the downside to the open kettle method. The upside being that it offers a quick solution to preserve your food. 
- Jarred food will now lose some nutrional value if processed through the water bath method (or pressure method) more than once. This as to simulate the fact that you somewhat overcook the food by processing it more than once.The penalty occurs until the jar only gives -5 hunger reduction. Therefore you can no longer preserve the same jar of food indefinitely, without some sort of negative effect.
- testing feature made more robust; press 'HOME' key to get instructions for further use, they'll display in the console/terminal. press 'END' key whenever you need to bring up the instructions again. Thanks for anyone trying this mod out!  :D
- fixed a bug where you were also able to inspect opened jars of strawberry jam. Though technically not a bug, it wasn't part of my design to inspect open jars. An Open jar of food is just like an open can of food; it'll stay fresh for about 2 days. The inspection feature was more of a bundle of how you would check for a proper, tight, vacuum seal in real life and look for odd discolorations in the food (spoilage).
- removed the need for you to wait for item to cool down after removing it from heat source. Though the requisite was realistic, it was more of a nuiance than anything else.
- fixed bug where Pressure Cooker with water was returning a pot instead of a pressure cooker when depleted. 
- fixed a bug where (aside from the sealed strawberry jam) you would get 2 cooking pots or kettles when jarring strawberry mush; now you just get one back as you were initially supposed to.
- updated inspect option on jarred items; previously if you successfully jarred a food item using the open kettle method and inspect it right away it would tell you the item was 68 days old. If you were unsuccessful on either the OKM or WBM then it would say 88. And if you used an item that had begun to rot it would say something over 90. This is all because the days fresh parameter for sealed jars of food is 90 days. So hopefully you get the math in there. Now it actually tells you how old the jarred item is, from the day it was created. 
- fixed bug where eating 1/2 or 1/4 of an open jar of food wouldn't reduce the remaining hunger reduction.
 
 
 
last words,
this version was supposed to contain two new canning options. Since getting a stable core took a higher priority and because its been quite a while I decided to release the version as is to bring the mod back from a cold and quiet 2 months of inactivity. That said, I'm planning on adding a lot more content in terms of new canning options in the next version :D
 
 
 
 
 
--- 
Forgot to mention...
- reduced preservation span of food through water bath method from 3 months to 1 month. The preservation obtained through the open kettle method has also been reduced from 3 weeks to 2 weeks. 
- The chance of failure from the open kettle method has been removed for the time being.
Edited by Deadend
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Seems to work, but i only get ?-icons for the items, not the icon images in the modfolder.

I've had this issue here and there when enabling mod from modloader.

Fix#1: try disabling mod (from mods option in the main screen), back to main screen, then renabling, back to main screen, exit game, start game.

Fix#2: open up the loaded.txt (in your mods folder) file and copy and paste this on its own line 'CanningEssentials' (Without the single quotes).

Normally one of the two will fix the issue.

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  • 1 month later...

 

Regarding lid reusing and limited spawns:

box of lids

 

Spawn those instead of individual lids and make them unreusable. Like a 12-pack. Also remember that the map's going to be expanded greatly in future releases (with vehicles), so running out of stuff will be a lot less of an issue.

 

box of lids, I like it. I could implement this in two ways. either make this box of lids a drainable item like sugar and pectin. Or make it be used how the box of ammo is used (you could unpack the lids from the box to use them). What you think?

 

how about boxes for the mason jars to. usually when people can they wont have only a couple jars laying around. Here in Kentucky we can by the boxes

 

Too bad we can't make our own skill/skillbook features. (Or can we?)

 

IE: Make a new skill (or two) called: Canning/Preservation.

And give the new skill its own level/experience stuff and tell the game to not give cooking experience.

 

Haven't yet figured a way to tell the game to "not give cooking experience" (but I will look further into it). I am planning for something along the lines of skillbooks though. Basically, realistically speaking mostly no one would know how to properly can food in an apocalypse. They would figure it'd be an easy task but if you don't have a strict recipe to follow its very risky business. So I was thinking of bundling the canning options into different cooking skill levels and on top of that you would need to find these skillbooks (beginner, intermediate, expert canning) and read them to unlock the canning options for whatever level your cooking skill is at. For the first few times you can something, you would need to have the recipe book (skillbook) in hand (or at least in your inventory) to follow the instructions carefully step by step. After a few times it would be assumed that your character would know how to can that certain food without the need of a recipe book (so in the case where I decide to extend this mod's support to MP, the recipe book could then be passed from a player to another after one has "learned the recipe well" so to speak).

 

haha you must not know Kentucky than xD man from my granny canning,to my parents,or some years having our own farms,we mostly always can ;) but good job on the mod

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how about boxes for the mason jars to. usually when people can they wont have only a couple jars laying around. Here in Kentucky we can by the boxes

 

 

Good point, think I'll add this in the next update. Shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

haha you must not know Kentucky than xD man from my granny canning,to my parents,or some years having our own farms,we mostly always can ;) but good job on the mod

 

 

Once again, another good point. When I was thinking of people not knowing how to can I was thinking people in general, but considering the game world is based off rural Kentucky, the in-game characters are more likely to have an idea of how to can food. Either way the implementation of skillbooks and having the actual character "learn" how to can each food would over-complicate the mod. So I'm most likely just leaving it as you just have to find the right items and know the recipes and steps. And possibly follow the game's skill model and just require you to have certain cooking skill level to be able to can different foods.

 

Any more feedback you can give would be great, such as if you need farming knowledge to can (are you more likely to can food if you're a farmer/gardener?). And if you actually believe certain foods are more complicated to can properly (hence the need to link it to a cooking skill).

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how about boxes for the mason jars to. usually when people can they wont have only a couple jars laying around. Here in Kentucky we can by the boxes

 

 

Good point, think I'll add this in the next update. Shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

haha you must not know Kentucky than xD man from my granny canning,to my parents,or some years having our own farms,we mostly always can ;) but good job on the mod

 

 

Once again, another good point. When I was thinking of people not knowing how to can I was thinking people in general, but considering the game world is based off rural Kentucky, the in-game characters are more likely to have an idea of how to can food. Either way the implementation of skillbooks and having the actual character "learn" how to can each food would over-complicate the mod. So I'm most likely just leaving it as you just have to find the right items and know the recipes and steps. And possibly follow the game's skill model and just require you to have certain cooking skill level to be able to can different foods.

 

Any more feedback you can give would be great, such as if you need farming knowledge to can (are you more likely to can food if you're a farmer/gardener?). And if you actually believe certain foods are more complicated to can properly (hence the need to link it to a cooking skill).

 

just saying great job on the mod!!! Support you all the way. Trying my best to get the Devs to add this to vanilla

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how about boxes for the mason jars to. usually when people can they wont have only a couple jars laying around. Here in Kentucky we can by the boxes

 

Good point, think I'll add this in the next update. Shouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

haha you must not know Kentucky than xD man from my granny canning,to my parents,or some years having our own farms,we mostly always can ;) but good job on the mod

 

Once again, another good point. When I was thinking of people not knowing how to can I was thinking people in general, but considering the game world is based off rural Kentucky, the in-game characters are more likely to have an idea of how to can food. Either way the implementation of skillbooks and having the actual character "learn" how to can each food would over-complicate the mod. So I'm most likely just leaving it as you just have to find the right items and know the recipes and steps. And possibly follow the game's skill model and just require you to have certain cooking skill level to be able to can different foods.

 

Any more feedback you can give would be great, such as if you need farming knowledge to can (are you more likely to can food if you're a farmer/gardener?). And if you actually believe certain foods are more complicated to can properly (hence the need to link it to a cooking skill).

just saying great job on the mod!!! Support you all the way. Trying my best to get the Devs to add this to vanilla

Definitely behind that. If they are going to be adding home canning I don't see a better starting point than this mod; even if the actual mechanics of the system maybe completely scrapped and redone from scratch, the spirit and gameplay impact is what matters and this is the best food preservation base mod I've seen yet.

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I'm currently coding that :)

But way simplier than the mod, tho it gave me the idea for the jam :P

Basically, you just put everything inside the jar, vinegar, sugar, water and vegetables and here you go.

I may add that you need boiled water, but need to tweak the cooking food code for that a lot I think..

This is fantastic! Can't wait to try this out. Is this similar to the evolved recipe type system? Lots of modding potential if so and should make it easier to flesh out.

Edit: Also, boiling water may not be necessary. If the source water is relatively clean then merely boiling the sealed jars for a while should suffice. Boiling water is critical for open kettle canning but for water bath and pressure canning it only reduces the processing time.

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Loving this! reaally really nice mod, especially since now most of the things I plant won't go to waste any time soon. I was hating the farming simulator style to stay alive if I ran out of food.

 

Now all that's left is the chance to do the same with meat and fish, kudos and great job.

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I'm currently coding that :)

 

But way simplier than the mod, tho it gave me the idea for the jam :P

 

Basically, you just put everything inside the jar, vinegar, sugar, water and vegetables and here you go.

I may add that you need boiled water, but need to tweak the cooking food code for that a lot I think..

 

Looking through the new scripts on canning, definitely a much simpler approach. Leaves room for this mod as a more "realistic/hardcore" alternative for food preservation for the more hardcore players out there (once finished). Glad to see a basic system of food canning is being implemented!

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Now all that's left is the chance to do the same with meat and fish, kudos and great job.

 

Now that the game covers the basics of canning (veggies/farmables) I'm striding off of my planned milestones with the mod and now I'm working on what the game doesn't already have implemented, such as meat and fish canning. Hopefully the mod's more realistic mechanism  will still be of appeal to some. And for now the fact that it includes things you can't can in the game yet.

Nonetheless I'll probably make an alternative download that disables the game's default canning, and only allows you to can through the mod's mechanism, which is more challenging and interactive (this alternative download would cover everything the game already lets you can ofc).

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UPDATE:
The mod, in terms of mechanics and core elements is pretty much complete. All that's left to do is add content, do some balance tweaking and some other minor things like binding this mod to your cooking skill. This version is the first batch of content with more canning options. It's also a compatibility update since now the game has a basic mechanism for vegetable canning.
 
changelog v0.7:
- added pressure canning method, gives food a preservation of 60 days. Works the same way as water bath canning, if anything less steps and its faster.
- added medium rodent (squirrel and rat) meat canning - pressure canning method only.
- added small rodent (mouse) meat canning - pressure canning method only.
- added bird meat canning - pressure canning method only.
- added fish canning, this covers all types of fish except bait fish. I might possibly make this more specific in the future such as canning each type of fish. - pressure canning method only.
- added rabbit meat canning - pressure canning method only.
- added boxes of "quart jars (x4)" and "pint jars (x6)", you can find these where you would expect them, kitchen, garages, stores...etc. You can open the box and take out the jars or you can use the box directly when jarring. You can also now box your jars for a small weight reduction.
- modified item spawn rates for individual jars and boxes of lids to  make them a tad bit more difficult to find now that boxes of jars will be streaming in and that the vanilla game now has jar lids.
- changed name of "box of jar lids" to "jar lids (x6)" and "jar lids (x12)" accordingly.
- removed mod's vinegar item, in the future the mod will just use the game's.
- removed jar ring, now you just need a lid to jar.
- removed mod's jar lid item, mod now uses the game's jar lids along with the mod's box of lids.
- changed name of "open jar of strawberry jam" to just "strawberry jam".

 

OTHER STUFF:

- updated guide with new recipes and items.

- updated current features section

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

 

Nonetheless I'll probably make an alternative download that disables the game's default canning, and only allows you to can through the mod's mechanism, which is more challenging and interactive (this alternative download would cover everything the game already lets you can ofc).

 

This would be awesome, I'm all for this idea as I prefer canning with this mod over what PZ offers by default anytime.

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