Let's make Food and Drink better

[Noreaus]

With the recent improvements to the QM system, which actually makes the cargo bay one of the most busy places on the station, I've been thinking about how the poor, forgotten cafe/bar could be improved. As it stands, this fairly sizeable area of the station offers no material advantage to players, and is thus avoided.

I do not think that implemented a hunger system would be a good idea. It would add an inconvenience to the station as a whole in order to improve the game of 2 players - I think as a rule this kind of design should be avoided. For example, the money-making game is interesting if you want to play HoP/miner/botanist like that, but not participating in it doesn't really take anything away from one's experience of the game. Space debt collectors aren't going to make you walk at 1/2 speed because the payroll has to be suspended, and hunger shouldn't do anything like that either.

Rather, I think the amount of food and drink which contains reagents should be greatly expanded. Everybody knows that the drinks in the vending machines have a variety of useful effects, but I think this could be expanded to a variety of (mostly minor) buffs and debuffs from food and drink.

For example, hyperzine (the reagent in Robust-Eez) makes you run faster and is a good, balanced buff for people who know this and can be bothered to keep themselves stocked with the drink. While it can presently be injected into food and drink with some effort by the chef, why not cause it (or a new reagent which has a lesser or greater effect depending on the complexity of the food created) to appear naturally in created foods and drinks?

Spriting seems the greatest impediment after design - If the items use existing reagents, or new and simple reagents which alter existing variables, there shouldn't be much code work to be done. I'd be very willing to take charge of assembling a list of likely candidates for addition

Once again, I'm not suggesting a hunger system or anything. I admit I am jealous of the sheer range of food and drink on /tg/-station (although as far as I can tell little of it does anything but look pretty) but am looking for ways to improve what we have without copying anything wholesale.

I do think that on the whole the effects should be good, but relatively minor or amusing. Some things will be bad for you (or remain bad for you, in the case of The Monster or certain drinks), but the aim is to make food and drink useful for the crew.

I also think that these buffs and debuffs should be limited to processed food and not to ingredients - The latter would just mean that the chef's job gets supplanted by a lot of raw ingredients from hydroponics.

Oh, also: would it be ridiculous for Hydroponics to have a cargo transporter-esque device for sending produce directly to the kitchen, if this is implemented?

I'm going to start making a sheet of suggestions and posting them here once I've had a lot at what foods exist, and how they can be improved.

[enforcer9]

I like it

The rarer/harder to make foods should have good regeants, while common/easy to make foods should have borderline useless regeants.

Having it made with the perfect timing/temperature should make it have double regeants.

Also, el diablo isn't hot enough.

[Hard Boiled]

I agree with implementing a better reason for people to sit in the bar for food and drinks. This is a great idea, but on a slight tangent, maybe making some sort of intercom(flashing LUNCH on the screens around the station) or personal PDA message that the bartender and chef can use to ask whoever they want if they would like their services seems like a worthwhile pursuit. I mean, having the Chef message me as "Bar and Kitchen" asking what I wanted was pretty fun! And though I humbly asked for a monkey burger, adding buffs and things to this process could in fact be a very fun thing!

I agree with you. I like the idea and I think it would work effectively.

[Darth Various]

Oh yay, my favourite neglected department. Hope you don't mind me effortposting all over your thread before you've got those sheets ready.

Assume I think everything I'm not commenting on is just great.

I do not think that implemented a hunger system would be a good idea. It would add an inconvenience to the station as a whole in order to improve the game of 2 players - I think as a rule this kind of design should be avoided. For example, the money-making game is interesting if you want to play HoP/miner/botanist like that, but not participating in it doesn't really take anything away from one's experience of the game. Space debt collectors aren't going to make you walk at 1/2 speed because the payroll has to be suspended, and hunger shouldn't do anything like that either.

Damage makes you move at half speed, though. Sometimes I find myself picking at the donuts in crew quarters after some traitor's assaulted me, or I've been shocked by a door, but it never helps because I'm just too hurt for food to work. So if Medbay isn't on the ball, I'm stuck moving like a garden snail for the rest of the round even though the danger has passed and noone's served by my slowness.

Would be nice if food healed a little more generously, maybe much slower than chems, or with side effects. IIRC, everything that wasn't made in the Kitchen is full of sugar or Discount Dan's Goddamn Poison Brew, which both have nasty effects.

Once again, I'm not suggesting a hunger system or anything. I admit I am jealous of the sheer range of food and drink on /tg/-station (although as far as I can tell little of it does anything but look pretty) but am looking for ways to improve what we have without copying anything wholesale.

I miss their drinks, mainly. We have like seven mixable drinks that actually get a proper name when mixed, two are non-alcoholic and two are secret. (Grog and Suicider, there I said it.) The problem with implementing more without stealing from /tg/ is that, well, we both pull from real world drinks. OTOH, some coder was talking about just letting us name drinks with some machine. That'd be cool too.

(And besides, all I know is coffee drinks, and we don't have Kaluha.)

What I'd love to see is more freeform food, like how cakes, pizzas and fried stuff is now. That'd take a lot more coding, but it'd be nice to be able to just slap whatever between two hamburger buns, or on top of a bread slice and get a [whatever] burger/sandwich out of the oven. As it is, I tried to make a banana pie and accidentally rediscovered banana bread.

Oh, also: would it be ridiculous for Hydroponics to have a cargo transporter-esque device for sending produce directly to the kitchen, if this is implemented?

They just lost their conveyor belt. I would be for either that or the old disposals tube from Mushroom station.

[Clarks]

The big problem is that you cannot shove random ingredients in the oven and turn them in (average tasting) finished food. You can't experiment like you would for chemistry, because the wrong ingredients give you ????

There are A LOT of recipes, just very few people who took the time to find out how to cook them

[Klayboxx]

Holy tits yes, Ill put some ideas here and add more as I go;

Ghost foods should cause you to be slightly incorporal, obviously not allowing you to move through walls but making your sprite semi see through and making hits on you land a less % of the time with a flavor text of " 's punch goes right through Fart Smell!"

Ill say more later

[Dachshundofdoom]

Space debt collectors aren't going to make you walk at 1/2 speed because the payroll has to be suspended

:saddowns: That wasn't my terrible (sort of kidding too) idea in the QM thread at all, at least get it right!

On topic though, this is a good idea.

I think one thing that could be done would be improving heals from kitchen-cooked food. Eating fries or whatever after you get a little beat up is fine, but it would be interesting if stopping by the bar and eating a monkey steak or a piece of fried fried fried fried chef's hat cake rangoon pizza cake could restore your health significantly even if it was very low.

Finding recipes on your own needs to be made easier somehow. It's sort of irritating that I pretty much HAVE to have the wiki open whenever I'm chef and I want to do something other than serve random things from the kitchen floor that I've fried ten billion times. Not to mention that the cook time and recipes for shit keeps getting changed (as though food is some incredible secret akin to chemistry recipes ) and now pretty much everything the cookbook in the kitchen tells you is wrong, not to mention all the things on the wiki. I like Clarks idea of being able to make generic foods when you fuck up, but don't UTTERLY fuck up. Call it a casserole. Casseroles are a fine dish for those of us with access to a random assortment of ingredients, cheeses and soups.

...Speaking of which, we need new ingredients. Why are there no chickens, cows or pigs (that you can butcher for edible food) in space? Chicken is a fundamental building block of half the greatest meals in the universe, followed by beef, and pork's just a bit behind that.

[Noreaus]

I can view almost all (if not all) of the food in the game thanks to ~admin magic~ and at the moment am trying to cull what in that list is too secret to post here.

el diablo isn't hot enough.

Doesn't el diablo literally set you on fire? That's hot enough.

I miss their drinks, mainly. We have like seven mixable drinks that actually get a proper name when mixed, two are non-alcoholic and two are secret. (Grog and Suicider, there I said it.) The problem with implementing more without stealing from /tg/ is that, well, we both pull from real world drinks. OTOH, some coder was talking about just letting us name drinks with some machine. That'd be cool too.

There really can't be anything wrong with implementing more common, real drinks even if another server has them. Although it may be a pipe dream, I'd also like for more unique sprites to exist for these drinks - So that players can see a mixed drink and think "Hey, that's a Triple Citrus!" rather than "Hey, that's a...green thing". Unrealistic, but more visually appealing.

What I'd love to see is more freeform food, like how cakes, pizzas and fried stuff is now. That'd take a lot more coding, but it'd be nice to be able to just slap whatever between two hamburger buns, or on top of a bread slice and get a [whatever] burger/sandwich out of the oven. As it is, I tried to make a banana pie and accidentally rediscovered banana bread.

Can't really comment on this as I don't know how complex the code is there - The main issue that comes to mind is that visually those freeform foods tend to all look the same, save for the colour. That doesn't really add variety. That said, it's hardly a loss to have more of those - But more variety on its own doesn't increase the appeal of food and drink.

There are A LOT of recipes

Well, I don't know about that. There are a lot of variations on themes - All of the breads for instance. Like I say, I'm looking at the full list right now in the admin screen and trying to decide how much I can divulge without ruining ~the magic~.

the old disposals tube from Mushroom station.

The return of this would be great. And it would mean the return of tomato accidents.

Ghost foods should cause you to be slightly incorporal, obviously not allowing you to move through walls but making your sprite semi see through and making hits on you land a less % of the time with a flavor text of " 's punch goes right through Fart Smell!"

This has a danger of being very popular (but then, Robust-Eez isn't) - The chance of a hit not connecting would have to be quite lot. But I must admit I'm kinda fond of this idea. Would require a new reagent.

Finding recipes on your own needs to be made easier somehow. It's sort of irritating that I pretty much HAVE to have the wiki open whenever I'm chef and I want to do something other than serve random things from the kitchen floor that I've fried ten billion times. Not to mention that the cook time and recipes for shit keeps getting changed (as though food is some incredible secret akin to chemistry recipes ) and now pretty much everything the cookbook in the kitchen tells you is wrong, not to mention all the things on the wiki.

Possibly controversial opinion: I would support a massive change of time/heat, even if this buff/debuff idea doesn't get picked up. I think if you get the ingredients right, but not the time/heat, you should get "Overcooked [x]" or "Undercooked [x]" - Which could make people sick, but tell you what you tried to make.

I'm conscious of not making too many pie-in-the-sky demands for coders to fulfill, as I'm not a coder - Though I have some experience there I'm not going to start trying to learn byond right now, as I have finals to think about.

Here is a list of foods! This is not an exhaustive list of foods in the game.

Suggestions I or others in the thread have made are in italics.

Ingredients (I recommend no effect)

• Apple
  Avocado
  Bacon (raw)
  Banana (peeled and unpeeled)
  Beef
  Carrot
  Cheese (regular and weird) [requires a way to be made]
  Chicken
  Chili pepper
  Chocolate Chips
  Corn
  Cookie Dough
  Cream
  Dough
  Egg
  Eggplant
  Fish (various)
  Flour
  Garlic
  Grape
  Lemon
  Lettuce
  Lime
  Meat (human, monkey, synth)
  Meatball (swedish and regular)
  Meat paste
  Melon
  Mushroom
  Mystery meat
  Oatmeal (uncooked)
  Onion
  Peanuts
  Pork
  Potato (peeled and unpeeled)
  Pumpkin
  Spaghetti, dry
  Sweet dough
  Tomato
  

Finished products

• Regular Burger (from all meats)
  Bacon and eggs - Increase punching damage slightly?
  Banana bread
  Cake (various)
  Cassaroles
  Cereal (various - Unsure if all publicly known)
  Chili (various - Unsure if all publicly known)
  Condiments (various - Unsure if all publicly known)
  Corn dog (various)
  Coronator
  Cookie (various - Unsure if all publicly known)
  Donk Pocket (bangin')
  Guacamole
  Hot dog
  Ice cream (already inherits effect of reagent, and makes cold. Recommend no additional effect.)
  Fries
  Mashed potato
  Meat loaf
  MONSTER (massive toxin damage, I think)
  Oatmeal
  Onion, sliced (but no onion rings!)
  Onion Rings
  Pancakes (with maple syrup and not) With Maple Syrup could give an accent-ailment that appends "eh?" onto the end of sentences, and such
  Pie (various, unsure if publicly known)
  Pizza (various)
  Popcorn
  Sandwich (with all breads and meats, also cheese, peanut butter, toasted etc etc)
  Taco
  Spaghetti, cooked (with or without sauce and meatballs)
  Sloppy Joe
  Waffles
  Wonton
  Yoghurt (froze and not)

So it seems like we have a lot of stuff really. Relatively few finished products considering the amount of ingredients, but still a fair amount - Suggestions for effects very welcome)

[Cogwerks]

OTOH, some coder was talking about just letting us name drinks with some machine. That'd be cool too.

(And besides, all I know is coffee drinks, and we don't have Kaluha.)

What I'd love to see is more freeform food, like how cakes, pizzas and fried stuff is now. That'd take a lot more coding, but it'd be nice to be able to just slap whatever between two hamburger buns, or on top of a bread slice and get a [whatever] burger/sandwich out of the oven. As it is, I tried to make a banana pie and accidentally rediscovered banana bread.

Oh, also: would it be ridiculous for Hydroponics to have a cargo transporter-esque device for sending produce directly to the kitchen, if this is implemented?

They just lost their conveyor belt. I would be for either that or the old disposals tube from Mushroom station.

Yeah, that was me, I'm trying to get a thing together where bartenders can more easily name their cocktails. I've also been kicking around some ideas with ISN about freeform foods already.

You may have noticed how crops in Botany now have names like "perfect banana" or "moldy grapes" or whatever. ISN set up a preliminary quality check for me, so now all crops are harvested with a Quality tag derived from a bunch of genetic and plant-care things.

Quality is going to be a major feature of a planned kitchen/bar overhaul that is already somewhat underway. The idea I've had there is that there will be more freeform recipes where you just pick a general type of food (sandwich, burger, stir-fry, soup, chili, casserole, pizza, cake, etc) and then just lump whatever you've got around into it. The resulting food item would then take a sum of the quality var and combine the reagents of all its parts, including negative qualities, and multiply it against the cooking settings you used. Cooking settings would be changed to be more of a range thing instead of hardcoded specific values.

Things that end up having extremely high quality would be delicious as heck, quite valuable for selling and acquire some nice healing and positive boosts. Things that are of horrifically low quality would do hilariously terrible things, enough that you could even weaponize them somewhat.

For cooking times, I was thinking it wouldn't be too much work to add some ideal cooking settings to specific ingredients. Some things might need high heat, others might like a nice slow cook and have their quality get fucked up if cooked poorly, and it'd track that stuff while cooking to see how the ingredients are behaving.

I got rid of the belt between botany and the kitchen because I never saw anyone using it and having a pod bay closer to botany seemed like a good idea. Botanists can just enter the catering storage area behind the kitchen now to drag crates over to the chef. They oughta do that, it's pretty damn close to botany, there's no need for a mail chute unless you are lazy as all hell... if that's the case, I guess I could give it back. Lazy jerks.

side note: the quality var is also planned to be a central thing when I get around to overhauling Electricians

[Klayboxx]

Sugar cookie - Same as other sugar items - YOU GO FAST

Chocolate chip cookie - the speed boost along with whatever bonus chocolate gives you, perhaps a brief health boost

Bacon cookie - speed boost along with the strength bonus that bacon would give

That oreo-like cookie - some cray bonus since almost noone knows this recipie

All moon pies - doubled perks of their regular cookie bonus

[Klayboxx]

Gruel - should actually do something related to the flavor text, perhaps involuntary *sigh ing and laying down

[Klayboxx]

Sorry, if some admin can merge my posts, thatd be nice.

Brain related recipies (ones that dont give you kuru) should give you brief genetic powers.

Also, as to a new reagent for ghost foods, that wouldnt be needed - just make ectoplasm give mobs that effect.

[david2222121]

All moon pies - doubled perks of their regular cookie bonus

Make them act like temporary moon boots, making your mob bounce up and down.

[VictorMAngoStein]

sushi-eating too much turns your L's into R's
(P.S. botany needs rice and seaweed)

Cakes with candles in them
Chef starts with a lighter and an egg timer or two (for birthday cakes and beaker bombs)
Stackable Cakes
Gibbing the captain = a burger wearing the captain's hat
A butt-shaped cake (with chocolate frosting)-makes you talk like a buttbot, crew laughs when you try to report that changeling in tool storage.
plastic knives in the pizza vending machines

The ability to use the kitchen budget (instead of personal funds) to buy items from vending machines.

A second kitchen with its own set of equipment for Iron Chef style contests. Third room to store secret ingredient/reagent chosen by the Captain. Loser gets made into burgers.

[Darth Various]

I got rid of the belt between botany and the kitchen because I never saw anyone using it and having a pod bay closer to botany seemed like a good idea. Botanists can just enter the catering storage area behind the kitchen now to drag crates over to the chef. They oughta do that, it's pretty damn close to botany, there's no need for a mail chute unless you are lazy as all hell... if that's the case, I guess I could give it back. Lazy jerks.

I used the belt, but there was no semi-safe tunnel to the Kitchen when that existed.

The pod bay is definitely better now, it was kind of weirdly hidden in Maintenance before. (Did anyone ever use the QM request console in there, damn?)