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After the rather poor reception of my propose sleep mechanic and more research into combat, I feel I can offer a unique spin on the idea of Food. First and foremost: Food should not be required to survive. This is not a Hard Core survival sim (though I wish it were, sometimes). My proposal is thus: Food will give bonuses/maluses to stats. These bonuses/maluses will be in the single digit percentage ranges and will cover a few skills at a time, with one primary. (+5% shooting, +2% reload, +1% crafting, +1% dodge) Food items can be combined to improve their "taste" and the bonuses given. (For example: Raw Wheat will give a small malus, raw flour will give a malus, but a cake will give a bonus.) All food items will have "taste" profiles and modifiers. The profile determines what "taste" is added when combined, while the modifiers alter the "taste" of the other ingredients. (This will probably be best displayed as a radar plot) All players will have a randomly generated "palate" that slowly and randomly evolves over time. This "palate" determines how much of a bonus is gained from the food. "Tasty" foods give bigger bonuses, "nasty" foods give maluses. It will take years before a "palate" noticeably changes. This will be shown in the UI when a food is selected. (General Bonuses * Palate modifier = Actual bonuses) Bonuses will last for 3-4 hours, with a slight increase during the first hour and then a steady drop off afterwards. Maluses will only last for 30 minutes and quickly decrease. Every food has a "satiety" value. You can only eat so much before you are full. Once you are full, further eating adds Maluses, rather than stacking Bonuses. The more you eat, the longer the bonuses last. Spices will exist that have small "satiety" levels and limited "taste" profiles, but they will have large "taste" modifiers. (Don't like savory foods? Add cayenne pepper! Make it spicy!) Finally, all plants will take months to grow and harvest, however between planting and harvest, the plants will require minimal supervision. They'll require more supervisor the less friendly the climate is to that plant. Harvests will produce a great quantity of food. (Farmer's should be able to explore the universe too!) The purpose here is many-fold: To encourage economic activity by creating an intuitive category of good. Most people understand food and how good eating is good for them. This idea is focused on organizations as the primary producers and consumers. A solo pilot isn't going to mind being a few percentages slower at mining, or reloading, or crafting. But on the industrial scale of large organizations, these foods will be very important to squeeze out every Quantum. Wars have been fought over spices and I see no reason DU can't be the same. I've always disliked games where plants grew very rapidly. To gather a large stockpile, you were constantly running from plot to plot, planting and then you only have a few hours before you need to go harvest everything. Plants take time and care. Insta-plants aren't fun. The random element to the food is because a) everyone likes different things, and b ) this way there will be no "best" plant. What's in demand will change with the seasons and the years. (P.S: Wooo! 100th Post!)