Food poisoning and dysentery

[Sjustus548]

I'm not a fan of the changes to these two things. Having a 3-4% chance to get food poisoning from eating cooked food and dysentery from drinking boiled water seems like such a low chance but it happens much more often. In a stack of 10 grilled meat I get food poisoning from at least 2 of the pieces. I was getting dysentery so frequently that I quit gave up on drinking boiled water and put a point in to cooking so I could make the teas. I'm close to giving up on cooking food and just starting to live off the magically refilling vending machines for my food. Either the tooltip doesn't match up to what the actual percentage chance is or I'm the must unlucky survivor there has ever been.

[Jugginator]

BEcause previously food was never an issue; you'd have 9000 pounds of meat, 50 meat stews and more. It adds a bit of a challenge to the game, but don't forget there are vitamins and the iron gut perk. And yes, Red Tea is your friend. The buff it gives is nice, reduces the need to eat, and the buff stacks. Spend 5 mins in a grassy biome and have enough tea to last weeks.

[Hek Harris]

Wash you hands.

Wash the vegetables and cut the meat quickly (time is bacteria's friend).

Respect cooking time.

Wash your hands again.

No time for that ?

Have diarrhea.

[Sjustus548]

I didn't know the buff stacked. How much does it stack up to? So far I haven't noticed a difference from drinking the Red Tea, well besides not constantly having dysentery that is lol. I still have to constantly shovel food and water down like crazy. It feels like my character is constantly hungry and thirsty no matter what I do.

[Jugginator]

I didn't know the buff stacked. How much does it stack up to? So far I haven't noticed a difference from drinking the Red Tea, well besides not constantly having dysentery that is lol. I still have to constantly shovel food and water down like crazy. It feels like my character is constantly hungry and thirsty no matter what I do.

 

The buff reduces your food drain (stamina), I don't have to eat as often with the buff on (and iron gut, 1 point into it in my last run). The buff itself doesn't stack but the timer does. I've gotten it to like 15 mins before, but I haven't pushed it further.

[Hek Harris]

I didn't know the buff stacked. How much does it stack up to? So far I haven't noticed a difference from drinking the Red Tea, well besides not constantly having dysentery that is lol. I still have to constantly shovel food and water down like crazy. It feels like my character is constantly hungry and thirsty no matter what I do.

Maybe it's a time of apocalypse, who knows?

You must explore. And do quests like "buried the supply". And explore. There is canned food everywhere. When my avatar is hungry, I rush into a POI. And I leave satiated.

[Jugginator]

Maybe it's a time of apocalypse, who knows?

You must explore. And do quests like "buried the supply". And explore. There is canned food everywhere. When my avatar is hungry, I rush into a POI. And I leave satiated.

 

Yeah I save Dog food, salmon and cans of sham in case I can craft the good food if I can but I eat a lot of canned food early, it saves me.

[Hek Harris]

Yeah I save Dog food, salmon and cans of sham in case I can craft the good food if I can but I eat a lot of canned food early, it saves me.

You just described my real life...

[SickPuppy]

Sounds like you just had a bad run. I've put nearly 70 hrs in a18, FP 3 times and dysentery not once. And we fix FP with eating food. It's hardly that big a problem.

 

For me it's a welcome addition to a survival game I actually wish survival was much harsher. Started 6 new games in a18 and each game I've found the water purifier mod for head armor making dysentery obsolete. And before find that, teas/juice are easy to make.

[ZombiDweller]

Yes, the flat 4% food poisoning chance even with better cooking skill or more advanced food is somewhat weird.

If get master chef skill in game, that should lover the food poisoning chance, not the iron gut skill. More logical that when you are better qualifed making food, you also have better hygiene.

 

And the first trade the game points you. Do couple of simple buried treasure mission. Then empty out all vending machines you found. You will be set for life in A18 version. Vending machines refresh every day, so no worries getting hungry ever again.

 

Waste of skill points and time to try grow crops yourself. Maybe really late game when you have excess skill points to spend. And already have skill you want.

[snatchedalmond]

Yeah, the 4% food poisoning chance should go down with Master Chef skill. Food poisoning is nothing but a pain in the ass, especially after the first day or two, it becomes nothing more than an annoyance. The Iron Gut skill seems like it was added just to counter the new food poisoning, and creating a new annoyance that can be fixed by investing a skill point or two is pretty r-word, and imo just not good game design.

[Birkenhoff]

BEcause previously food was never an issue; you'd have 9000 pounds of meat, 50 meat stews and more.

I still have 50 meat/vegi stews so whenever I puke I shove in some stews afterwards. That's not a real challenge.

[Ezed]

Edited...had a good run with no food poisoning after drinking red tea but today it happened...after approx. 40 in game days. Myth busted.

[SickPuppy]

Master Chef shouldn't reduce chance of FP. You read a cooking book that lists ingredients for dishes and then you know how to farm? No. Being a chef means you know how to make certain dishes that's it.

 

It certainly does not make the animals you catch clean and healthy. Wild animals are roaming freely in a zombie apocalypse with dead and rotting corpses and what not, you've no idea what disease they have no matter how good a chef you're, and so your meals have a chance of fp.

 

Your gut / immune system will get stronger when your body fights disease. So the more you improve your Iron Gut the less chance of FP.

[snatchedalmond]

Creating problems that's fixed with skill points is not good design. What is it with you people and trying to use logic to defend dumb design decisions when you can look at a blueprint or kill freaking zombies and magically be able to craft a god damn gyrocopter on a workbench. There comes a point where you need to prioritize stuff being fun over "realism".

[P!nk]

There comes a point where you need to prioritize stuff being fun over "realism".

 

No!

[Sjustus548]

...What is it with you people and trying to use logic to defend dumb design decisions when you can look at a blueprint or kill freaking zombies and magically be able to craft a god damn gyrocopter on a workbench. There comes a point where you need to prioritize stuff being fun over "realism".

 

I've never understood people quoting realism while talking about mechanics in a video game. Oh you are fine with zombies, skill points, reviving after you die, and everything like that but you draw the line at whether you get food poisoning from certain foods or not?

[Limdood]

Better cooking skill should equal lower food poisoning chance?

 

Who says that the food poisoning is from poor cooking?

 

This is the zombie apocalypse. There are animals running around, many of which are already diseased and rotting. Who KNOWS how the zombie plague is affecting the deer, snakes, chickens, wolves, rabbits, and boars in the game. Are they diseased with some form of the zombie plague? are they just diseased in general? Sick?

 

There are also burned forests, rotting corpses, and radiation zones in the world...and we're drinking standing groundwater? We expect a little bit of boiling to completely remove the danger from doing that? We're also eating plants grown in compromised soil, affected by who knows what toxins and radiation. Heck, "rotting flesh" is even one of the ingredients in the farm plots. This flesh is diseased by some zombie-making super-plague, don't forget. And we're eating corn grown in it, and surprised when we get sick.

 

The lore, and common sense, completely supports the sickness chance from non-canned food.

 

What's more, it's a gameplay decision as well....If food should have a danger associated with it, and the Devs seem to think so, then they need to be somewhat balanced. canned food requires an up front risk of zombies and death and infection in order to loot it. It also isn't endlessly renewable. Grown food has no innate risk up front, but you COULD lose all the food you ate and more if the food poisoning hits. It requires an investment of time, effort, maybe skills, and land area though, so the risk for the grown food is tempered somewhat by the fact that if you CAN mass produce enough of it, then the risk of losing your food to food poisoning is significantly mitigated.

[Sjustus548]

Better cooking skill should equal lower food poisoning chance?

 

Who says that the food poisoning is from poor cooking?

 

This is the zombie apocalypse. There are animals running around, many of which are already diseased and rotting. Who KNOWS how the zombie plague is affecting the deer, snakes, chickens, wolves, rabbits, and boars in the game. Are they diseased with some form of the zombie plague? are they just diseased in general? Sick?

 

There are also burned forests, rotting corpses, and radiation zones in the world...and we're drinking standing groundwater? We expect a little bit of boiling to completely remove the danger from doing that? We're also eating plants grown in compromised soil, affected by who knows what toxins and radiation. Heck, "rotting flesh" is even one of the ingredients in the farm plots. This flesh is diseased by some zombie-making super-plague, don't forget. And we're eating corn grown in it, and surprised when we get sick.

 

The lore, and common sense, completely supports the sickness chance from non-canned food.

 

What's more, it's a gameplay decision as well....If food should have a danger associated with it, and the Devs seem to think so, then they need to be somewhat balanced. canned food requires an up front risk of zombies and death and infection in order to loot it. It also isn't endlessly renewable. Grown food has no innate risk up front, but you COULD lose all the food you ate and more if the food poisoning hits. It requires an investment of time, effort, maybe skills, and land area though, so the risk for the grown food is tempered somewhat by the fact that if you CAN mass produce enough of it, then the risk of losing your food to food poisoning is significantly mitigated.

 

Canned food is endlessly renewable and is easier to obtain than farming and hunting for animals to kill. With just a little bit of money you can buy so much canned food from the different vending machines located around. They also renew their inventory every day. So every day you can go to a couple different buildings and possibly get a ton of food a lot easier than you can with the other methods. Also canned food, after a time, does become unsafe to eat. Just because something is canned doesn't automatically make it last forever. So why shouldn't we have a chance to get sick from eating that food as well? Also, why doesn't boiling water get rid of the sickness but using that same water to turn it in to tea magically does?

[EstebanLB]

Hello, just to throw in my 2 cents. I DO like the new A18 mechanic, the more complex the meal, the more you get from the individual ingredients, but also less chance to get food poisoning or dysentery per max stamina point gained. Beacon and eggs is IMO the best early-mid game meal so far, and I haven't reached farming, I spawned and stayed in the desert biome and Yucca juice is my only drinking source, as far as I know, other biomes give ingredients for more juices/teas. Vitamins are somewhat easy to find and the occasional herb remedy too, even more so in other biomes.

The one thing that players should now, is that not all biomes have the same difficulty, grassland/forest/dessert are easy while the other are somewhat harder, and that's based on food and medicine access

[RipClaw]

It is strange that canned food now has advantages over self-prepared food after it was always the other way around in the past.

But you can adapt to it if you play very methodically, which I fortunately do. I don't see it as an additional challenge. Rather an inconvenience.

[HungryZombie]

Everyone acts like canned food is so OP. At best you get 15 max stamina back per can. To get back your stamina from empty to full takes a heck of a lot of canned food. I don't know what you are all doing all day but I have to refill my stamina bar a few times a day. Unless I spend all my time looking for and buying canned food I can't keep up.

[Bloodyvixen]

Better cooking skill should equal lower food poisoning chance?

 

Who says that the food poisoning is from poor cooking?

 

This is the zombie apocalypse. There are animals running around, many of which are already diseased and rotting. Who KNOWS how the zombie plague is affecting the deer, snakes, chickens, wolves, rabbits, and boars in the game. Are they diseased with some form of the zombie plague? are they just diseased in general? Sick?

 

There are also burned forests, rotting corpses, and radiation zones in the world...and we're drinking standing groundwater? We expect a little bit of boiling to completely remove the danger from doing that? We're also eating plants grown in compromised soil, affected by who knows what toxins and radiation. Heck, "rotting flesh" is even one of the ingredients in the farm plots. This flesh is diseased by some zombie-making super-plague, don't forget. And we're eating corn grown in it, and surprised when we get sick.

 

The lore, and common sense, completely supports the sickness chance from non-canned food.

 

What's more, it's a gameplay decision as well....If food should have a danger associated with it, and the Devs seem to think so, then they need to be somewhat balanced. canned food requires an up front risk of zombies and death and infection in order to loot it. It also isn't endlessly renewable. Grown food has no innate risk up front, but you COULD lose all the food you ate and more if the food poisoning hits. It requires an investment of time, effort, maybe skills, and land area though, so the risk for the grown food is tempered somewhat by the fact that if you CAN mass produce enough of it, then the risk of losing your food to food poisoning is significantly mitigated.

 

While I am not as irked as some about the whole food poisoning from food you make I would like to point this out: Being a better cook in real life does actually equal less run in's with food poisoning. That's because a good cook practices proper food safety procedures! They recognize the tell tell early signs of food spoilage and throw food out that is unsafe to eat or turning. they understand how long something can be kept before it turns, and understand how to properly fix/store food so it is safe to eat later.

 

Every person I've ever known who was dumb in the kitchen was feeling it later when they are frequently ill due to food borne illness. I've sat down and talked people through their entire procedures when cooking at home to figure out why they keep getting sick so they stop calling out over food illness. You'd be surprised how many people who cook don't follow basic food safety procedures and feel the consequences later. I can see how a point or two into Master Chef could reduce food poisoning percentage because they just understand how to cook/handle food better.

[ZombiDweller]

Yeah, the 4% food poisoning chance should go down with Master Chef skill. Food poisoning is nothing but a pain in the ass, especially after the first day or two, it becomes nothing more than an annoyance. The Iron Gut skill seems like it was added just to counter the new food poisoning, and creating a new annoyance that can be fixed by investing a skill point or two is pretty r-word, and imo just not good game design.

 

Good thing is that vending machines spawn need foods every day. And easier it gets when you keep finding more vending machine locations. Doing couple of mission to trader you buy food for days. And now when eating better food doesnt affect your max health. It comes by player level. So there is away around it. And now need to waste skill points on early game to iron gut.

[Synvastian]

Canned food is endlessly renewable and is easier to obtain than farming and hunting for animals to kill. With just a little bit of money you can buy so much canned food from the different vending machines located around. They also renew their inventory every day. So every day you can go to a couple different buildings and possibly get a ton of food a lot easier than you can with the other methods. Also canned food, after a time, does become unsafe to eat. Just because something is canned doesn't automatically make it last forever. So why shouldn't we have a chance to get sick from eating that food as well? Also, why doesn't boiling water get rid of the sickness but using that same water to turn it in to tea magically does?

 

And what happens, pray tell when said "Food Gods" (vending machines) Eventually get nerfed to only have food say...once a week? and less of it. I doubt they get filled by a single person, or heck a flock of people daily, too much risk* of drawing hordes to whatever convoy is transporting all this canned food and bottled teas to these vending machines (I mean, it makes no sense in the case of the POI vending machines at all, if anything, those ones should be One and Done with its inventory and require old cash as payment)

 

I tend not to use vending machines for this very reason, they make no sense from both a game-play and lore perspective...the ones in the traders get a pass as a way for them to entice people to spend more on the way IN and OUT, just like those shelves near check stands with candy and gum, impulse buys...but otherwise they shouldn't exist anywhere else unless they were one and done inventories.

 

IMO canned food is wonderful as quest rewards (buried supplies) and occasionally in loot. (Shamway, it makes sense as it was a grocer for the area)

 

&Canned Foods& (at least veggies and meats excluding tomatoes and citrus fruits can last 5+ years in cans, and even longer if keep in the dark away from water

 

@Boiled water/teas@ Boiling water wouldn't remove particulates from the water itself so yes, it would make you sick, chances would be much lower than straight from the source, and as for teas making it "magically ok" might be due to antioxidant effects of the herbs we added, they would neutralize the leftover sickness inducing bits and still retain enough potency to have a beneficial effect

 

 

*This is lore based for the game, driving vehicles, dealing with lights, existing, and sounds draw infected to you, filling a vending machine, which works on a drop mechanic to dispense its items would create a gathering point for the dead, because it makes noise to run (low hum from cooling/electricity) and the food dropping in the chute

 

#These are all my personal views and opinions and I don't expect a lot of support on my views