40d Talk:Food

Rate of consumption

Does anyone know the rate at which dwarf eats food? --Okita 01:18, 6 June 2008 (EST)

Someone calculated it way back in the 2D days. IIRC, they came up with 6 food and 18 drink per dwarf per year, but I don't think that was very accurate. --Savok 08:49, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

I just ran some tests (Dwarven Science at its best). My 7 starting dwarves consistantly ate 2 food and drank 4 drinks per season. I tested with all 7 dwarves mining for the whole year, reloaded and then had them idle for the whole year. It was the same both times. The only variation i got was sometime by the end of the season one of them hadent gotten around to eating or drinking but over the whole year it averaged out. --Abregado 08:03, 22 January 2009 (EST)

2 food and 4 drinks each? This probably ought to be put on the main "Food" page. --Timmeh 02:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Starvation

Once my butcher starts hunting for small creatures - how do I get him to actually slaughter an animal so everyone can eat? Or do I need to make someone else a butcher so my butcher can have a snack?

Why does this shite always happen when the merchant turns up?? ;) GarrieIrons 07:36, 13 February 2008 (EST)

This is beacause your dwarves are very hungry and start looking for vermin to eat. Hoborobo 02:48, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

Hunger bug

First of all, i'm a new user, so if this needs putting somewhere else or whatever, just send me an e-mail or something. Anyway, I have a bug that keeps crippling my fortress. Sometime halfway through the year, my dwarfs (dwarves? i dunno :S) stop eating. completely. they then get hungry, tantrums kick off, and chaos ensues. any tips? --Shabang50 05:34, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Do you have food? If so, what KIND of food? They can't eat raw dead things, and they can't even eat butchered dead things. They also can't eat most kinds of uncooked fish. Also, did you make a food stockpile? Food left outside of a food stockpile will mass rot before long. --Shadow archmagi 06:20, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Yep, I have plenty of edible food ( non-rotten, stockpiled, etc). The food is definetly edible, but the dwarfs, after a while, jsut lose the will to eat! they still keep drinking, though ;)--Shabang50 12:55, 7 March 2008 (EST)

Is your food forbidden? Dwarves will not eat forbidden food. Try cooking your food. Some plants cannot be eaten without being cooked. Some plants can't be eaten at all.--Zipdog 21:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

You could have your food stockpile in a bad place. Is it unreachable because of a locked door? Also, if you ever have another oblong problem, check the orders screen. I once played a whole game where my dwarves wouldn't collect wood and I couldn't figure out why. --Dissimulation 13:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Meals

Do Roasts fill up dwarves more than biscuits? It seems logical that they would but I'm not sure. Also, do roasts take longer to eat? --Niaba 00:20, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

AFAIK, no. And it's not logical. Suppose you take 2 units of meat to make two bisquits, or four units of meat to make four roasts. Why would roasts be any larger?--Dorten 00:25, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

Oh yeah... Well, then what's the advantage of making biscuits over roasts? Am I missing something?--Niaba 04:39, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

None. With roast you get bigger meal stacks that are more likely to not fit in barrels - good cos you save barrels. You have a higher chance per meal that you please the preference of a dwarf. You have half the number of items - less clutter. Some people claim that the cook collects more experience from easy meals since he cooks more, but i cant confirm. --Koltom 10:41, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

A cook gets 30xp per meal, not depending on the size. That's been on the wiki since late 2006.

It might've not been written into the new wiki yet, though. --Savok 11:55, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

let's see - if you combine [info on DF] with [2006] what do you get? ;) --Koltom 15:31, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

Ok, thanks for clearing it up.--Niaba 16:59, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Meal Value

I was just wondering if anyone has done any research into how the value of prepared meals is calculated. I was somewhat curious because in my current fort I happened to notice that two stacks of masterpiece roasts were created of value 544☼ and 164☼, neither of which values is divisible by 12 (the masterpiece value modifier). In the case of both roasts, all the ingredients were plump helmet spawns. Also, how is overall meal quality decided? I had previously assumed that it was the highest quality out of the individual ingredient qualities, but in the case of the 544☼ meal all four ingredients were superiorly minced. I know that having a high quality ingredient in amongst low quality ingredients does bump up the overall quality, as with the 164☼ meal, which was 1 masterfully minced and 3 finely minced ingredients. Also, another oddity that I've just noticed: I got another "masterpiece" message, and took a look. "☼Plump helmet spawn roast [4]☼ This is a stack of 4 superiorly prepared Plump helmet spawn roast." I didn't see what the other two said, so perhaps the value is based off the description overall quality rather than the item name symbol quality?--Morlark 00:32, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

Ok, so I managed to answer my own question by looking up the Item value page. Never mind then.--Morlark

Question about the Z screen

When I press "z", and go into the menu, it tells me my food stores are well over 500. However, I am very low on meat, fish, and plants. The only category which has a high number is "other". What type of food is considered "other"? Is it cooked/prepared food? Any help would be great.

Cooked food is in the "other" category.Dangerous Beans 08:51, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

Fat and tallow fall under the "other". :) I had a hunter who was also my bookkeeper and he steadily brought in a Muskox or two each day (legendary skills and all. If he ran out of bolts, he could club an ox several squares down the map with his crossbow). I didn't realize just how much fat I'd piled up a few years later... and there's not much you can do other than render it (I'm not all that big on soap) or cook it. -Fuzzy 01:22, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

You have to render fat to cook it, you know... <_< --GreyMaria 16:16, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Ah, right. So fat is useless unless you render it. :) And, lucky me, I've got about 800 units of it still in 1-5 piece allocations. *sigh* I should have realized something was up when I saw that I had 1500 Other items, but I just figured my cook had been busy. But, to answer the original question, go to the stockpile option and look at what it lists under food. Eliminate the meat, fish, seeds, booze, and plants. The remaining items are Other and can be found in their respective lists under Stock (including bone meal... if it existed). Oh, flour and sugar probably count towards there too. Not certain if dye gets counted as well. -Fuzzy 16:39, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Bone meal does exist - you just have to (HIDDEN FUN STUFF). --GreyMaria 23:21, 18 November 2008 (EST)

Rots where, exactly?

I've had prepared meals rot inside a kitchen indoors but have never seen prepared foot rot outdoors as long as it's been stockpiled - even outside of a barrel. Maybe some research should be done as to where it rots...? --GreyMaria 20:22, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

From what I've seen, food rots anywhere that isn't a stockpile (regardless of being indoors or out). However, If you store your food outdoors then vermin tend to get at your food piles easier. --Toloran 22:35, 24 October 2008 (EDT)

Food on a food stockpile will indeed never rot, no matter where the stockpile is. You can put a dump on top of a food stockpile, for instance (or vice-versa), and any food dumped there will not rot.

Vermin don't seem to be able to rot food but they will supposedly eat it (this is something Toady told me a long time ago). He also said they're less likely to get at it if it's stored in barrels. Personally, I've never actually seen food lost to vermin; it's hard to spot, given how quickly dwarves can produce food, and also how quickly they eat it.

Anyhow, the bit about food outdoors rotting appears to be dead wrong, so I'll fix it.--Maximus 00:39, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Current observations on my end seem to support what you've observed. Thus, this is awesome. --GreyMaria 23:14, 18 November 2008 (EST)

I don't think this statement from the article is true: "Uncooked meat and fish is subject to wear and will eventually rot if it is not cooked, even in barrels." I have never seen this, as long as it is stockpiled. Anybody? (40d) --Kwieland 17:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Vermin will wear down food, even in stockpiles. If food is worn down enough, it either disappears or rots (never actually seen what happens, because this is a rare occurence). Possibly unprotected food will be worn down if enough dwarves walk on it. Maybe. Needs testing.--Zipdog 21:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

You have to wait really long (2+ seasons), then your meat will start becoming bracketed by Xs, like clothing. Viewing will give messages like "shows some wear" "mangled" This is only time-related, vermin will cause other descriptions like "gnawed on". To ever see this you will need to have absolutely NO cats. --Birthright 23:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Cannot link Animals

I can't link to a category using the new L method. --Bombcar 19:26, 3 April 2010 (UTC)