[Suggestion] Make ice cream, banana pop and melonsicle pause their spoilage in ice box

[Pig Princess]

As Warly enjoyer this is something that bothered me for long time at multiplayer servers: whenever I could spice food to help people I either had to bundle spiced food (and nobody used it as a result, because barely anyone had bundle wrap recipe), or I had to cook stack of powder cakes, making people question me why I'm griefing team's food supply (and Wigfrids couldn't even take advantage of spices that way). On the other hand, for long time now I was thinking of a good reason to grow watermelons (outside of combo with onions, which already combine pretty well with garlic and pepper/dragonfruit).

Those 2 concerns lead me to the idea of non-perishable (only in ice box) food that is otherwise niche/never cooked, and I thought melonsicle fits perfectly for that. Banana pop is also thing I rarely cook and ever see anyone cooking just because of how fast it spoils and because it's overshadowed by other recipes/food almost always; yet it would be cool to have a good reason to cook these: to store spices and to create "resurrection and recharge" points across the map for multiplayer. Ice cream is something much more used compared to other recipes (at least in my case), but I would still be happy to store spices on it at community bases, especially now since Wigfrid can eat it (i.e. 2nd/3rd most played character can use it). It makes sense for these 3 to not spoil in ice box from the point of both common sense and game balance, especially since low spoilage time would still be present and experienced by players who want to restore stats in boss fight or long travels, which would leave plenty of room for recipes/food like cooked cacti, vegetable stinger, banana shake and others to shine. Plus it's not as easy to mass-produce ice cream, banana pop and melonsicle as picking cacti, mushrooms and wearing clothes, and cooking melonsicle is of comparable difficulty to cooking vegetable stingers, creamy potato puree and other recipes with farm crops (which have better stats and properties, by the way).

And I know one can spice jellybeans, problem is in multiplayer they are too scarce to store spices on if there are a lot of players (most of which can't kill Been Queen even with experienced player helping them), and realistic expectation is only very few players will have access to jellybeans; even those who are perfectly capable to kill Bee Queen won't go out of their way to kill the boss 2nd time just to be able to cooperate better - it's too much even if person is altruist to the bottom of their heart, and is on the verge of babysitting and hand holding anyway. Powder cakes also won't loose their niche (being perfect bait and be still superior to store spices on for things like ruins clearing or hound waves during regular travels), so I don't think proposed change would harm balance.

[Lil K]

What an awesome idea! Pls dear Klei, do this. 

[hhh2]

Yes. We need this.

[loopuleasa]

I disagree with banana pop.

I am torn on ice cream, since that recipe is already good.

As for melonsicle, I would be fine with that. It is a weak recipe, and it is already ice.

[ADM]

I like the logic you've put behind this, it's true that those frozen recipes could get the same treatment as basic ice and that would bring a nice unique addition to the difference between foods, I would always welcome this and we haven't got that much !

However I just don't feel super comfortable with some unperishable 50 sanity food as Ice Creams to turn so available in any icebox which is a super affordable by-product of goat farming which is a must have for all the benefits it unlocks.
I'm aware of bundles, but it always felt like a little weird having Ice Creams in them to me, at least there's the rope cost so let's say it's balanced, I'm sure using them... Anyway, yeah if not for that the concept is really original, but I would suggest a minor food re-balancing as for their stats so other recipes can still get credit from their good stats instead of one ultimate cheap sanity food (there's more than just this one to me that could use some stat buffs and nerfs).

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

I too agree with melonsickles. It would make melons more desirable. And desirability for underused crops is always nice.

[Pig Princess]

57 minutes ago, ADM said:

I just don't feel super comfortable with some unperishable 50 sanity food as Ice Creams to turn so available in any icebox which is a super affordable by-product of goat farming which is a must have for all the benefits it unlocks.

It's true that ice cream is already good, actually it's my favorite sanity restoration for Fuelweaver fight. However, it's abundant only on the servers with not much people using it (solo or small group servers); milky whites are relatively scarce and have hard cap on a rate at which they can be farmed (+ unfortunately there is unwritten rule of not activating terrarium due to EoT spawning randomly); butter is even more scarce, and it's not viable diary product for mass-production; volt goats are the most suitable for obtaining lots of diary products, but production rate is still essentially capped (because of difficulty in creating new herds), and even popular farms won't be able to produce milk (in theory, tein and tentacles could work, but it's more trouble than it's worth). My point is that the more players are on the server, the less diary is available for each person because it's accumulation rate is essentially capped, and even if one grinds volt goat herds, even with practical rain rituals in spring, it's still a lot of work to get even 1-2 more herds, make sure existing ones don't merge and to farm them manually. It is still much cheaper to just use clothing for sanity restoration outside of boss fights, or cook jelly salad, cacti, banana shake, or even banana pop (depending on banana situation).

Also idea is to have a food which Warly can spice, Wigfrid can eat, and which lasts long enough for average degree of cooperation on public servers. Wigfrid can't eat melonsicle and powder cake, and I think it should remain that way (I actually think it's weird that she can eat banana dairiki and taffy).

Other than sanity, ice cream isn't really good for hunger or health restoration, so I wouldn't call it ultimate food.

59 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

I disagree with banana pop.

I'm actually torn on banana pop myself, but considering the fact that banana pop requires to either visit ruins (with monkeys) or monkey island (with pirates and powder monkeys, which are even more dangerous and annoying), and for the sake of consistency (it's ice-like dish after all) I guess it's fine. Plus I don't see it being cooked really, other recipes overshadow the thing. To be fair, banana pop being unperishable in ice box would be more suitable if banana bushes weren't that easy to maintain (or wouldn't be as productive - even more than banana trees (!)), but I agree that from all 3 mentioned recipes banana pop would receive the strongest buff, which may be too much.

[Notecja]

Tbh sounds like great idea, but I see it as could be foods that in ice box have much longer perish time (not infinity), and outside fridge spoil within a day or less, and some foods less benefit from ice box, maybe even few things to store mostly outside fridge (maybe trail mix and dried foods could get this treatment). Also some foods could have longer lifetime in dry weather and spoil faster when rains? Even few food fully immune to being wet (how asparagazpacho... how asparagus soup can get even more wet?)

[Pig Princess]

2 minutes ago, Notecja said:

outside fridge spoil within a day or less

But technically it is the case with all 3 recipes: they fully perish in 3 days, but one has only around 1.5 days (assuming one cooks them with close to 100% fresh ingredients) to use them for sanity restoration - the only thing they are good at (banana pop is mediocre for health restoration since better alternatives exist even among banana recipes, and it's still around 1.5 days to use that healing), which means that for something like soloing Fuelweaver with default damage modifier that would be barely enough to last through 1 fight.

14 minutes ago, Notecja said:

Also some foods could have longer lifetime in dry weather and spoil faster when rains?

But ice box is waterproof container and even completely protects food inside it if it's in the middle of spore cloud (in closed form)...

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, ADM said:

However I just don't feel super comfortable with some unperishable 50 sanity food as Ice Creams to turn so available in any icebox which is a super affordable by-product of goat farming which is a must have for all the benefits it unlocks.

I think it sounds busted on paper, however in practice it wouldn't be that bad at all. I've seen what it's like to farm ice cream for sanity constantly, and it basically locks you into spending a good 25% of your gameplay just charging and killing goats to keep up. In addition to that, I actually haven't had the chance to farm electric milk at ALL in any world I've played with friends since the lunar island was added way way years ago, since everyone who farms goats seems to use that automatic anenemy farm now.

[ADM]

11 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

I think it sounds busted on paper, however in practice it wouldn't be that bad at all. I've seen what it's like to farm ice cream for sanity constantly, and it basically locks you into spending a good 25% of your gameplay just charging and killing goats to keep up. In addition to that, I actually haven't had the chance to farm electric milk at ALL in any world I've played with friends since the lunar island was added way way years ago, since everyone who farms goats seems to use that automatic anenemy farm now.

I guess it just depends of players and what they prefer to do / invest into for food stuff and sanity management.  In my case goats never caused a problem as for production for the amount and time to attend to it and their respawn, we always make two herds with their locked goats on lunar island, then we just got a chest with rain coat / hat, morning star materials and a shield of terror if you wonder about my process, I personally don't trust walls enough to use the anenemies... and that's as someone who plays mostly exclusively with friends (usually we're 3). We just always end up with more milk and so much meat than needed and it just spoil or we bundle / jerky the stuff.
And I guess it's obvious that none of us eat ice cream in a crazy amount as our sanity is at max for most of the time due to Tams and Crowns later, and there's just too much food accumulating so goat represent fairly nothing of our server food productions, we farm crops, need to kill the hounds and do boss fights, running out of Ice Cream without wasting is honestly our real challenge. ^^

But well, again that's difference between playstyles, can't go like that for everyone but I hope that's enough context to understand how I feel about some food stats in general, I hate making wastes, but if I eat something without having the benefits it will also sound like a waste to me D :

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

4 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

I'm actually torn on banana pop myself, but considering the fact that banana pop requires to either visit ruins (with monkeys) or monkey island (with pirates and powder monkeys, which are even more dangerous and annoying)

It doesn't. It requires someone in the server to visit the monkey island once. It is then more free than anything else for everyone on base for the lifetime of the server.

[Pig Princess]

6 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

It requires someone in the server to visit the monkey island once. It is then more free than anything else for everyone on base for the lifetime of the server.

Except I am that someone in 99% of the cases  Also I'm the one who clears monkey island, who are "lucky" to get double pirate raids on regular basis (I had triple pirate raid once!), so I guess my perspective is kind of one-sided.

That seems like a problem with banana bushes rather than banana pop recipe.

[ApoIIo]

6 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

It doesn't. It requires someone in the server to visit the monkey island once. It is then more free than anything else for everyone on base for the lifetime of the server.

And jelly salad doesn't even require that one time visit despite being able to fill their shoes.

Bananas aren't really as special as people make out them to be, their only selling point over the classics being that the sanity foods don't spoil halfway through FW. Goat milk farming is a tedious process for a mediocre output tbf, buff that ice cream! Mass-cremation farming tactics don't even work that well on charged goats 'cause they break walls n' stuff.

[Evelo]

7 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

It doesn't. It requires someone in the server to visit the monkey island once. It is then more free than anything else for everyone on base for the lifetime of the server.

cries in solo play

[HowlVoid]

Love your idea pig princess. I hope Klei really considers it. 

If Klei does not like the idea Id like to add a small nerfed alternative; add ice to the food to replenish it's spoil timer. Similar to how salt refreshes other recipes, ice can serve this purpose for these recipes. Ice itself lasts forever and is slightly easier to obtain than salt early game (eh, maybe not). Also doesn't salt make ice melt faster? Idk, Im not a scientist. 

Anyways, again, only an alternative if you're idea isn't implemented first. Since this would only help recipes that are pretty much about to be consumed (since bundling would still be better). 

[Pig Princess]

2 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Also doesn't salt make ice melt faster?

If one mixes ice (crystallized water at 0°C) and salt (usually sodium or calcium chloride) ice indeed melts faster, but at the same time mixture cools down below 0°C, which is used to melt ice on roads and cool down things below 0°C in laboratory, for example. Ice starts to melt and forms salty water after mixing with salt; salty water's freezing temperature is lower than pure water's freezing temparature, so instead of freezing salty water cools down further during heat exchange with ice. Meanwhile this heat doesn't raise mixture's temperature because it is spent on melting ice (i.e. breaking crystal lattice); when substances freeze/melt, their temperature remains constant (in case anybody forgot/doesn't know). In other words, salt transforms lack of heat in the form of solodified matter into the lack of heat in the form of lower temperature of mixture (as far as I know, driving force of this process is increase of entropy - measure of disorder). But why did you mention salt? Dishes can't be put inside salt box.

I don't know what is the idea behind salt crystals making food regain freshness, but real life food lasts longer while salted because microorganisms can't multiply in it just as fast (or survive at all), as far as I know. But it should be applied before food spoils, not after. Lowering food temperature helps to keep products fresh due to similar reason: majority of chemical reactions and biological processes are slown down, and much like salt, low temperature should be applied before food spoils, not after. So more similar to real life would be upgrading ice box to the version with extra space containing ice (that melts) and salt crystals (that eventually disappear), and this space would apply reduction of spoilage rate much greater than simple ice box to any food after it was put there (I would be against such change though).

[NoodlemanNed]

pretty good suggestion. Hopefully klei can implement more buffs like this for all the other garbage recipes so they can compete with strong dishes without completely outclassing them.

Also the 3 dishes you mentioned are generally a huge hassle to gather currently so there is absolutely no chance theyll become too strong after a buff like this.