Cooking Chart and In Depth Guide



This is a list of most action possible at the campfire, (not including filter water, fraternize, and repair). Cooking typically takes 1 Action Point, however the roast an animal action requires 2 survivors to cooperate, similar to joint construction, costing a total of 2 Action Points. The cook character trait has a chance to save Action Points used.

The main use of cooking is to remove the risks often asscociated with raw food items, boost morale, and extend the life of food or keep it from perishing. The purpose of the below chart is to help players decide when action points are worth spending or risking on any given cooking action.

Remember when looking at the chart that a statistics like meat points does not mean the same thing as meat items. For instance, 12 Meat points could be filled by 3 items of raw meat, since they are worth 4 meat points each. Consult the raw food items chart to get handle on ingredient values.

Also keep in mind that 1 Food Value clears 10 hunger value on the character sheet.

The General Conclusion is an informal assesment designed to offer an overalll impression of the value of cooking a particular item.

If you have built a grill, Stuffed Roast by far comes out looking like the most attractive meal. If you are only up to pot, eating raw foods and clearing away the indigestion with teas seems like a solid move. Scrambled eggs are also a solid choice at this stage.

If you have a big supply of meat, preserving some with the smoked meat function seems like a solid choice.

I didn't include the frost removal in my general assessments since it's so minor, and I often handle that with the care function at Quarantine Point to boost relationships. However Herbal Teas and Fruit Teas are decent for it, at around 8 frost removal each.

The Mushroom Soup has some weird rules to it, you need 4 mushrooms from 1 day, and the final product is either not impressive, or potentially harmful if made from pyschedelic or poison mushroom.

In these assessments I have stressed using action points efficiently for overall generation of beverage/food value, but take your own situation into account. Morale should be kept high on higher difficulties. If you have a large water filter, getting more water likely won't be a problem. Most importantly of all, is simply that nearly anything is better than starving.

When choosing which ingredients to cook or eat raw, be sure to include the perishing meter in your calculations. As far as I can tell, using food with a low perishing meter doesn't hurt the final product. It is also annoying that you can't manually pick which meat you want to preserve with the smoked meat function.

Edible roots make for a prefered choice of vegetable for cooking, since they carry an indigestion risk when eaten raw. Mushrooms could be used to fill vegetable value for this reason as well, but keep you will lose out on the higher food value. Beans and garlic are safe to eat raw, so could be saved for direct eating unless roots run out. Consult the raw food items guide for help on making decisions regarding the optimal use of ingredients.

And MOST IMPORTANTLY (SPOILERS)

The game can have different conditions affecting the end of the game called scenarios. In a particular scenario: The Final Showdown your campfire is shut off pemanently, so it is can be good to have a supply of food already cooked, dried, or otherwise made non-perishable before day 17. It is very possible to survive on raw foods, but could make it harder to manage your survivors morale.