Flavourings / Food Essence and Food Dyes

[Kaedrin18]

Hello there, so I had a small idea that in a sense then encompassed more ideas to tie into it. One was suggested in part by another over at RSOD's thread and is in a sense the following broken down into various categories:

First up is Food Dyes themselves, or the Food Colouring Reagents. My contribution for this is it would be the only "safe" way going forward to colour food other than the natural colour by mixing the food in question. The other effect would be something along the lines of "Any food coloured with normal paint will taste bad and give food poisoning, alongside small toxin damage"  With the reasoning being that paint is unsafe to consume whether eaten or drunk by people. It would also give any traitor of spy thief chefs, or other types of people a way to do small toxin damage to people too.

Secondly is Food Flavourings or Food Essence. This would be useful not only in cookng, but in bartending too, alongside further use by traitors and spy thieves. It would be able to be ordered from cargo, and maybe another means too if needed. But the considered thought for it at present is if used with poison, it will mask the poison's taste and description when drunk, if it has a higher unit amount than the poison. For example a 50 unit drink may containabout 12 units of the flavouring to ensure that 10 units of poison is hidden, whilst only leaving 28 units free for the drink, leaving careful consideration and balance for it.

I am open to hearing feedback and discussion on this. It is a more "small scale" idea I had that could improve it a little bit for both NT staff and the Syndicate staff alike.

[Lord_earthfire]

I really, really don't like the bloat of foodchems we already have.

This idea, as well as the food dye one, would add a lot more chems without much benefit.

Even worse, we have these food chems -because of the flavor and colour-. So these ideas are even worse, because they do something that should should actually be done by the foodchems.

On top of that, getting the right chems for your food colouring is rewarding. Making these available roundstart just removes the reward of your food looking nicer than the one by a lazy chef who doesnt ask botany or cargo for supplier or get creative with their cooking.

Overall, i feel like these ideas would 1. removes most food chems place in the game and 2. would decrease the cooperation demand for cooking good looking food. Both are things we should, in my opinion, not encourage.

[Kaedrin18]

I really, really don't like the bloat of foodchems we already have.

This idea, as well as the food dye one, would add a lot more chems without much benefit.

Even worse, we have these food chems -because of the flavor and colour-. So these ideas are even worse, because they do something that should should actually be done by the foodchems.

On top of that, getting the right chems for your food colouring is rewarding. Making these available roundstart just removes the reward of your food looking nicer than the one by a lazy chef who doesnt ask botany or cargo for supplier or get creative with their cooking.

Overall, i feel like these ideas would 1. removes most food chems place in the game and 2. would decrease the cooperation demand for cooking good looking food. Both are things we should, in my opinion, not encourage.

It's understandable, but the premise least in my term is it could help more beginner people, or possibly be more used for lower populations or so forth. It's not a "must have"

[Lord_earthfire]

That's what the limited selection on the kitchen dispenser is for.

Admittably, i like the idea of chems colouring/flavoring more than others, just not as an alternative to food chems. I feel that function can be added into foodchems. That would give them some additional mechanical difference.

[Frank_Stein]

I feel like the paint and hair dye machines already sets a precedent of "Machine that makes things different colors"

I would suggest just making some generic placeholder chems for different industrial dyes, with generic tweaks to the name based on its use and RGB values.

Red Syrup 213
Blue Compound 15
Yellow Powder 32

Maybe require some mixing to build out palettes, rather than being able to directly input all the values

[Solenoid]

Some coloring system similar to Frank's suggestion would be pretty rad, and reduce/eliminate further foodchem bloat. Otherwise, I really love this idea and hope something comes out of it! I think having more food colors could be really fun, and it means I could finally serve a platter of sec-flavored pretty patties 

[RSOD]

i like the idea of food essence being good to disguise the evil juices chefs can cram into their burgers, but there hasn't really been much talk about what they'd do for the crew, it'd just seem suspicious when chef / bartender is conveniently pulling them out.
maybe they give extra healing when eaten, or some new buffs catered specifically for a type of job? (i.e. one that makes your breath boost plant growth and health, or one that makes you strike rocks harder when using mining tools)