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Sugar, Spice, and everything worth killing for: Food


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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:

  1. To encourage economic activity by creating an intuitive category of good. Most people understand food and how good eating is good for them.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!)

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I would love to see some kind of Drug/food mechanic (if it's not too OP, not needed to play and not broken ofc).

One small addition: every food should have a bonus AND a malus . I actually quite enjoyed eves approach there: increase armor repair bonus, but take a hit on armor hitpoints and a hit on capacitor capacity. If such mechanics only have a plain bonus without a malus, people won't ever use the bad food at all - because it doesn't make sense. If such a bad food gives you a huge hit on velocity but halves your reload timer on guns.....

 

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Very interesting this theme. On food and survival theme, in my feeling, all ways could work well if they are supported by, at least, a good logic explanation (given by Novaquark) that we can accept. If DU is made to be a pretty realistic game (containing emergent gameplay, economy, politics, building, warfare and so on) then there will be a good reason for having (or not having) food. As I said in another post:

Quote

 

For instance, we can imagine or assume that the eating issue has been solved technologically/evolutionarily, at some point before the arrival to Alioth, and people just dont need eating because -for example- they make sungazing (or prana absorbing) and that's it. Or they simply eat pills, made through a relatively easy process, using common substances.

Or they need to eat like us (and maybe go to the bathroom too, if we'd like to be VERY inmersive), and so they need to do agriculture, hunting, fishing and so on. Every option has its pros and cons, but the point for me is: IT HAS TO MAKE SENSE, and be properly explained. That's a core thing if we are talking about a pretty realistic/inmersive virtual game.

Sorry, I go to the bathroom (real food have fermented in my interiors).

 

:D

 

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12 minutes ago, Captain Jack said:

With the various elements of game play like combat, economics, exploration, industry, and politics, I can see where agriculture/food could play a role too. I was at an in-game bar this weekend and would have killed for a pint.

Well, that's a fkn good reason!

:D 

 

And imagine how the industries and economy would appreciate it.  This is not only a cultural or recreative or gustative or survival question.

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14 minutes ago, Alsan_Teamaro said:

Well, that's a fkn good reason!

:D 

 

And imagine how the industries and economy would appreciate it.  This is not only a cultural or recreative or gustative or survival question.

Is there a big enough group of farmers out there to sustain that part of the economy? I mean, if a freighter full of grain goes missing, will it affect anything?

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29 minutes ago, Captain Jack said:

Is there a big enough group of farmers out there to sustain that part of the economy? I mean, if a freighter full of grain goes missing, will it affect anything?

If it does go missing and there's not a lot of supplies then prices will rise. That's all. Ppl will start realizing that money can be made and will start farming... Economy ftw

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33 minutes ago, Captain Jack said:

Is there a big enough group of farmers out there to sustain that part of the economy? I mean, if a freighter full of grain goes missing, will it affect anything?

If a freighter full of grain (needed in a zone without food resources) goes missing, it could end up in a sort of "Alioth grain party", starting a war, even if all was a "false flag" attack or steal...

Each event can be used for the interests of every organization. All these things will let the true colours of people and guilds be shown...

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Those eyes, ShioriStein... It seems you're getting VERY high!  :D

 

Now, imagine the potential of that in so many levels. That's a fact, even if we talk of legal pharmacological drugs in DU, created  by industrial organizations to combat certain possible deseases caused by, for instance, mining or getting exposed to certain substances or steams in planets, moons or asteoids. 
And I remember specially the movie Outland (1981), with Sean Conney, when miners in an asteoid are drugged by the chiefs to work harder and be more profitable to the company...

 

 

Those were some of the collateral effects of the drugs....

 

 

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Whatever the bonus/malus will be, food will be great to have from a design and trade point of vieuw and as an extre part to the emergent nature of DU. For pharmaceutics its the same. Adding those would really make the design of research labs a need and open a whole new creative angle in DU.

Please Add both, and while doing that add drinks and maybe domesticable wildlife too. Not joking, anything to add to the diversity of DU.

 

Let me give you a thought:   SpaceWhales 

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So BOO is probably gonna start out their own space skooma trade if this gets implemented. Should be interesting.

 

3 hours ago, Aaron Cain said:

Let me give you a thought:   SpaceWhales

Don't forget space kraken

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There's no shortage of land in DU... is there ?

 

If farming requires sizeable fields to grow crops, that could throw an entirely new light on the value of "good land" on planets. Barren planets would have to import food, etc., or could possibly grow crops commercially that don't do well on "earth-like" planets. Perhaps some exotic alien cactus-analogue has amazing medical applications !

 

If food and medical items become popular and sought-after in the game, then the means of producing the raw materials to make them can become a significant part of game play, and would provide an alternative to the current "mining is everything" scenario that DU will be starting with.

 

Agriculture and Forestry could also be used as a source for raw materials/chemicals needed in general industry, it doesn't have to be all about food and/or medicine. Various plants could provide sources of biofuels, acids, textiles, etc. that can be used to make and power ship elements.

 

Our civilization on Earth started with agriculture, after all.

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54 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

Our civilization on Earth started with agriculture, after all.

Right but best thing happen after human know how to use WEED :)

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56 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

There's no shortage of land in DU... is there ?

 

If farming requires sizeable fields to grow crops, that could throw an entirely new light on the value of "good land" on planets. Barren planets would have to import food, etc., or could possibly grow crops commercially that don't do well on "earth-like" planets. Perhaps some exotic alien cactus-analogue has amazing medical applications !

 

If food and medical items become popular and sought-after in the game, then the means of producing the raw materials to make them can become a significant part of game play, and would provide an alternative to the current "mining is everything" scenario that DU will be starting with.

 

Agriculture and Forestry could also be used as a source for raw materials/chemicals needed in general industry, it doesn't have to be all about food and/or medicine. Various plants could provide sources of biofuels, acids, textiles, etc. that can be used to make and power ship elements.

 

Our civilization on Earth started with agriculture, after all.

Agree, that's it, if we're talking about a realistic game.

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1 hour ago, NanoDot said:

If farming requires sizeable fields to grow crops, that could throw an entirely new light on the value of "good land" on planets. Barren planets would have to import food, etc., or could possibly grow crops commercially that don't do well on "earth-like" planets. Perhaps some exotic alien cactus-analogue has amazing medical applications !

Don't forget there's always hydroponics. But that would come at added expense ofc so fertile worlds would be more productive.

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I'm more into agriculture as a way to make players shape the land a bit more.

I'm not much into tedious clicking on can icon every half hour to avoid starvation/buff some stats.

Thus I'd rather have plants as part of necessary industry: either as basic source of bio-fuel, or as base ingredient for "spawn tokens". Both would completely change the game is played from planet to planet. On green ones flying and respawning would be cheap, as you can easily cover large areas with fields. On barren planets, asteroids or space stations it would be really expensive, as you need to either import it or grow in expensive hydroponic basins.

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I agree with everything said above.  This mechanic would add some real depth.  I think that anything that gives a bonus should have a malus along with it.  And I think pharmaceuticals,  food processing,  etc.  should be difficult.  Lots of research,  building facilities,  farming/synthesizing,  etc. It shouldn't be something you can just "pick up" as a hobby when you're not mining,  ya know? 

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Anyone that would enjoy that type of play.  Tons of people play that one farming game, (you know,  on fabo)... 

 

I'm envisioning solar orbital platforms hundreds of km2 supplying the "consumable" food/biofuel/pharma/etc.  

 

That's a lot of possible economic depth. Not to mention the building and logistical issues that would be pretty cool IMHO. 

 

Think of the wars that could be fought over "spice". I mean you could make a movie about that kind of economic scenario....

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1 hour ago, CoreVamore said:

Sounds fine until u ask yourself.... who will do the mundane job of farming?

I would, not full time, but with the suggestions made here i would surely build a plot or two and add a pharmacuetical lab in one of my buildings too. Farming wont be a fulltime job, specially if it bares any resemblance to real life. Pharmaceutics will be a different story, but the research and devel;opment combined with a pharma plant are just too interesting to forget about it. 

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3 hours ago, CoreVamore said:

Sounds fine until u ask yourself.... who will do the mundane job of farming?

Those people that get tired of the mundane job of mining ? ;)

 

Did you know, there's a game called "Farming Simulator 17" on Steam, which is ranked at 76th most popular game on Steam ! :D

 

Just because you think "farming" sounds boring, doesn't mean everybody else does too...

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