Cooking/Nutrition System Suggestions
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:06 pm
Suggestions for the cooking system
I was having a rethink about the cooking system, and I think I have (at last) a good idea.
Cooking should be given much more importance (see nutrition suggestion below), and shouldn't be as simple as it is currently.
Cooking should be divided (though not by skill) into three sections:
The 4 sections
"Survival Cooking", "Soups", "Gourmet Cooking","Other"
Survival Cooking is the simplest. Its basically food which you can obtain and cook in the wilderness. Tool Required: Camp Fire. The food which is avaiable to cook should be rather limited; and should be based on actually having food, rather than presenting it. It doesn't require much time, and the food isn't prepared carefully, neither is it particularly attractive. Example: Smoked Fish, Smoked Meat, Cooked Shrimps. Pretty much anything you can find outside of town. No quality rating. Stackable
Soups. These fall under gourmet cooking in a way. This is liquidy food, which requires a pot to cook, water, and of course fire. The material of which the soup is going to be made has to be prepared earlier. If its vegetable matter, then the food has to be crushed (using a tool), if its meat, then the food has to be chopped (using a cook's knife). The items are mixed, and left in the pot. After a rot cycle, wooden bowls may be used with it, in order to obtain the ready made soup. The yield is always the same amount. These foods have a quality rating (depending on the skill of the cook), and a state rating (depending on the amount of materials used). Unstackable. Example: If you use 3 tomatoes to make soup, it'll be Good Light Soup. If you use 20, it'll be Good Thick Soup. Example: Tomato soup, Broccoli Soup, Fish Soup, Meat Soup.
Gourmet Cooking. These are the most complex. These require a cooking stove (oven) in order to produce; and also require some preparation time in order to fulfill them. The ingrediants are first prepared; and each step is important. Example: Flour + Water = Dough. Dough + Honey= Sweet Dough. Sweet Dough + Cherries = Sweet Dough with Cherries. Sweet Dough with Cherries (when used) = Raw Cherry Cake [ie he shaped it to the shape of a cake] Raw Cherry Cake + Stove. [waits for rot cycle] Cherry Cake complete. These foods require a rot cycle of cooking in order to be produced. They have a quality rating depending on the cook who made them. They are .: Unstackable.
Other. Food which requires some prepare time, but not any cooking. For example a salad, or sushi; or something...
Survival Cooking should yield the least skill gain...while gourmet cooking the maximum.
It also allows choices. If you have a raw fish, what should you do? Cook it over a fire? Make fish soup? Or clean it and create a meal?
Skill Increase
This also should be changed.
Once a cook increases a level, the new recipies he gains should be RANDOMISED. This will make it more realistic, as perhaps cooks of different cultures would know different recipies for example. The randomised choices should be equal in food value (example, you learn a foodvalue X which could be broccoli soup, or fish soup, or tomato soup). There is a greater chance for a creature to learn a recipy of his own base. Example a halfling or elf: vegetable based recipies; orc, dwarf: meat; Lizard: Fish ect...
Of course cooks could teach each other their recipies, however; he must be skilled enough to learn it. (Same way as runes are passed on in a way...). Example a level 2 cook could teach a level 1 cook a level 1 recipy; however, not a level 2 one; as the latter isn't skilled enough to learn it.
Tools
A cooking spoon is, in my humble opinion, somethign rather stupid to have as a main tool. Cooking spoons should only be used for soups. Other tools may or may not be needed, depending on the food itself. If you need to mash something; use a masher. If you don't you won't need one .
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Eating/Nutrition system
This should also be changed:
1) A person may only eat soup with a cutlary set (yeah i know that you can drink it from the bowl, but you're not going to do that with thick soup)
2) Your food level should decrease every so often, so that after the equivalent of one IG day (spent online), it'll drain totally.
3) When you don't eat for the equivalent of 3 IG days [or depending on your constitution], you start dying. You lose temporarily one point of strength, dexterity, constitution and agility per day spent starving.
3b) How this is done: The food level continues draining, entering the equivalent. Once it reaches its negative max, it gets reset to 0 again; and one point is lost.
4) The losses are repaired with time, if your food level is repaired.
5) If one of the attributes reaches 0 with this drain, you lose one point of that permanently.
6) Survival food isn't very good. If you eat too much, it starts damaging your attributes. You need gourmet/soup/others in order to survive (note that bread doesn't count). After a limit (which is reset after IG days), you can't eat any more survival food; otherwise you take temporary damage to your constitution.
7) The food level depends on the quality multipied by the state.
The state level allows a person to create cheap foods [example a chicken soup for poor people wouldn't contain that much chicken; but a chicken soup for a king would be full of it]; or expensive foods at will.
9) You can't get "too full" while eating a meal (soup/gourment), since you would probably stop eating it once you started... instead it fills you up to the full and you throw away the rest. (You wont get sick eating it)
10) Unprocessed foods should have a rubbish food value now...
11) There is a limit to the amount of food you can eat. So its allright if you stock up on apples, but you can't eat 20 of them at one time...this is in terms of MEALS not in terms of food value. This would make it more worth it to eat food with high food value, then lots of rubbish.
=
Those are my ideas.. pretty much... I kind of lyke it... What about you?
I was having a rethink about the cooking system, and I think I have (at last) a good idea.
Cooking should be given much more importance (see nutrition suggestion below), and shouldn't be as simple as it is currently.
Cooking should be divided (though not by skill) into three sections:
The 4 sections
"Survival Cooking", "Soups", "Gourmet Cooking","Other"
Survival Cooking is the simplest. Its basically food which you can obtain and cook in the wilderness. Tool Required: Camp Fire. The food which is avaiable to cook should be rather limited; and should be based on actually having food, rather than presenting it. It doesn't require much time, and the food isn't prepared carefully, neither is it particularly attractive. Example: Smoked Fish, Smoked Meat, Cooked Shrimps. Pretty much anything you can find outside of town. No quality rating. Stackable
Soups. These fall under gourmet cooking in a way. This is liquidy food, which requires a pot to cook, water, and of course fire. The material of which the soup is going to be made has to be prepared earlier. If its vegetable matter, then the food has to be crushed (using a tool), if its meat, then the food has to be chopped (using a cook's knife). The items are mixed, and left in the pot. After a rot cycle, wooden bowls may be used with it, in order to obtain the ready made soup. The yield is always the same amount. These foods have a quality rating (depending on the skill of the cook), and a state rating (depending on the amount of materials used). Unstackable. Example: If you use 3 tomatoes to make soup, it'll be Good Light Soup. If you use 20, it'll be Good Thick Soup. Example: Tomato soup, Broccoli Soup, Fish Soup, Meat Soup.
Gourmet Cooking. These are the most complex. These require a cooking stove (oven) in order to produce; and also require some preparation time in order to fulfill them. The ingrediants are first prepared; and each step is important. Example: Flour + Water = Dough. Dough + Honey= Sweet Dough. Sweet Dough + Cherries = Sweet Dough with Cherries. Sweet Dough with Cherries (when used) = Raw Cherry Cake [ie he shaped it to the shape of a cake] Raw Cherry Cake + Stove. [waits for rot cycle] Cherry Cake complete. These foods require a rot cycle of cooking in order to be produced. They have a quality rating depending on the cook who made them. They are .: Unstackable.
Other. Food which requires some prepare time, but not any cooking. For example a salad, or sushi; or something...
Survival Cooking should yield the least skill gain...while gourmet cooking the maximum.
It also allows choices. If you have a raw fish, what should you do? Cook it over a fire? Make fish soup? Or clean it and create a meal?
Skill Increase
This also should be changed.
Once a cook increases a level, the new recipies he gains should be RANDOMISED. This will make it more realistic, as perhaps cooks of different cultures would know different recipies for example. The randomised choices should be equal in food value (example, you learn a foodvalue X which could be broccoli soup, or fish soup, or tomato soup). There is a greater chance for a creature to learn a recipy of his own base. Example a halfling or elf: vegetable based recipies; orc, dwarf: meat; Lizard: Fish ect...
Of course cooks could teach each other their recipies, however; he must be skilled enough to learn it. (Same way as runes are passed on in a way...). Example a level 2 cook could teach a level 1 cook a level 1 recipy; however, not a level 2 one; as the latter isn't skilled enough to learn it.
Tools
A cooking spoon is, in my humble opinion, somethign rather stupid to have as a main tool. Cooking spoons should only be used for soups. Other tools may or may not be needed, depending on the food itself. If you need to mash something; use a masher. If you don't you won't need one .
======
Eating/Nutrition system
This should also be changed:
1) A person may only eat soup with a cutlary set (yeah i know that you can drink it from the bowl, but you're not going to do that with thick soup)
2) Your food level should decrease every so often, so that after the equivalent of one IG day (spent online), it'll drain totally.
3) When you don't eat for the equivalent of 3 IG days [or depending on your constitution], you start dying. You lose temporarily one point of strength, dexterity, constitution and agility per day spent starving.
3b) How this is done: The food level continues draining, entering the equivalent. Once it reaches its negative max, it gets reset to 0 again; and one point is lost.
4) The losses are repaired with time, if your food level is repaired.
5) If one of the attributes reaches 0 with this drain, you lose one point of that permanently.
6) Survival food isn't very good. If you eat too much, it starts damaging your attributes. You need gourmet/soup/others in order to survive (note that bread doesn't count). After a limit (which is reset after IG days), you can't eat any more survival food; otherwise you take temporary damage to your constitution.
7) The food level depends on the quality multipied by the state.
The state level allows a person to create cheap foods [example a chicken soup for poor people wouldn't contain that much chicken; but a chicken soup for a king would be full of it]; or expensive foods at will.
9) You can't get "too full" while eating a meal (soup/gourment), since you would probably stop eating it once you started... instead it fills you up to the full and you throw away the rest. (You wont get sick eating it)
10) Unprocessed foods should have a rubbish food value now...
11) There is a limit to the amount of food you can eat. So its allright if you stock up on apples, but you can't eat 20 of them at one time...this is in terms of MEALS not in terms of food value. This would make it more worth it to eat food with high food value, then lots of rubbish.
=
Those are my ideas.. pretty much... I kind of lyke it... What about you?