confused about the drying rack changes

[WhackE]

Can someone try to explain to me why it need to be buffed, I'm just trying to understand why they needed to be changed I'm genuinely confused because I thought they were fine before?

[Theukon-dos]

Surprisingly, many players considered drying racks to be fairly underwhelming for the cost. I agree that the grass demand was a bit steep, which this change technically fixes. But I do agree they where generally fine.

[Dingle]

Now they're 3 times more fine.

I stopped using drying racks way back, just too much cost in materials. That and the sprawling size they took up, real estate wise. An awful lot of pain for jerky, which gets outclassed bad once you learn crock pot recipes.

Once Walter got his perk tree, the dog got a 3 slot drying rack.

That gave people the idea to ask for drying racks to have 3 slots.

And here we are.

[Cruvimaster]

17 minutes ago, WhackE said:

Can someone try to explain to me why it need to be buffed, I'm just trying to understand why they needed to be changed I'm genuinely confused because I thought they were fine before?

I stopped using this item because I realized it was more advantage in simply packing the meat and then making a lot of food at once. I still find it much more advantageous to store meat, especially with the introduction of Icker Preserve. Just increasing the amount of Jerky does not change my vision. If meat never spoiled, I would even create this item for decoration purposes only at the base.
 

[GimplyGoose]

For me, it wasn't the capacity of drying racks that makes (made) them bad, it is the interaction time. Like if you want to turn 12 big meat into jerky, that is 24 interactions VS like 6 for just turning them into stews.

[Well-met]

I think anything that costs ropes scares off the masses for some reason

[hoxi]

Are we gonna ignore that there more downsides to the new ones? Refer to this comment here as I don't wanna keep repeating myself in multiple threads.

It honestly feels more like QoL that reduces tediousness and makes things more consistent (how weather and local temperature and so will affect them as expected), and the biggest thing for me is not having to dedicate an entire chunk of an area to place a bunch of them and have a decent amount to dry. I appreciate compacting them like this more than them being more cost effective.

[WhackE]

2 hours ago, hoxi said:

Are we gonna ignore that there more downsides to the new ones?

Because at surface level it's hard to tell that there are more downsides, the post you linked does a good job outlining the differences so thank you.

[Dyzrespect]

The time and space it took to use them was incredibly annoying, and people didn't use them. Not everything is strictly about balance and buffing/nerfing. However I agree with the underlying sentiment that jerky is extremely strong, and we will likely see the dawn of a new age of jerky.

Also we pretend like food and healing isn't already solved for those of us experienced and savvy enough to become forum posters. The ship of food being a challenge fully sailed with the Reap What You Sow update. Making things more accessible for newer players is probably the single best thing Klei could do for the game.

Edited July 29, 2025 by Dyzrespect

[WhackE]

2 minutes ago, Dyzrespect said:

The time and space it took to use them was incredibly annoying, and people didn't use them.

hard disagree, I've always used jerky it has always been a strong viable food source, some people might not want to use their time towards setting them but when you did it was always well worth it.

[Dyzrespect]

Just now, WhackE said:

hard disagree, I've always used jerky it has always been a strong viable food source, some people might not want to use their time towards setting them but when you did it was always well worth it.

To be fair I said "people", not you or me specifically. You're preaching to the choir, I really only eat jerky or cooked veggies when I'm not Warly. Making the process of making jerky not miserable has no real downsides imo, the real downside would be if the true power of jerky becomes apparent to everyone and they have to nerf it.

[Baark0]

Jerky has been outclassed by other options for a long time due to the cost of drying racks and how much space they take up. Perogi are better for healing, and cactus flesh is just as good for sanity. The only real niche jerky has is compacting healing and sanity into a single inventory slot, but due to the setup cost and the actual time it takes for jerky to dry it generally wasn't worth building drying racks. Now that you get 3x the value from 1 drying rack craft, I'm actually considering setting up 1 or 2 next time I play and just dropping off meat that I randomly pick up, so overall I think it's a good change.

[This14Real]

For me the problem was the long interaction time for one single piece of meat. When you have multiple drying racks it sure is tedious gathering from all of them. Made me skip drying meat completely, I would prefer a quick pick action but increasing the slot count works too, less drying racks occupying space sounds amazing.

[mkemal23]

For me the biggest problem of drying racks wasn't the cost, the waiting time or any other thing people suggested here.

It was the collecting speed.

The amount of time you wasted with collecting items from a drying rack. Plus the fact that you needed to run to other one because you can't place them too cloose to each other made them so time wasting that it was just better to use crock pot cycle for the foods.

Now looking at the new drying racks, i think they will be a solid option until you unlock the bearger bin

[Catuna_]

15 hours ago, WhackE said:

Can someone try to explain to me why it need to be buffed, I'm just trying to understand why they needed to be changed I'm genuinely confused because I thought they were fine before?

They're not bad, but drying racks are rather expensive to make in bulk and their output is disappointing compared to other food sources that grow year round regardless of season or rain or whatnot... It's also a bit of a food power creep situation in a way from banana dishes becoming so accessible and whatnot. Not to mention the polar bearger bin makes it so that jerky is a lot less appealing since you can't store it in there. Making it 3 slots is a good way of keeping the cost while better matching the value of other food sources in the game.

[Well-met]

comparing jerky to pierogi makes 0 sense because its not even the same preparation process at all. Jerky is literally one click away with 0 ingredient involved.

[Mayson71]

16 hours ago, WhackE said:

Can someone try to explain to me why it need to be buffed, I'm just trying to understand why they needed to be changed I'm genuinely confused because I thought they were fine before?

Um, because they suck? I mean, I'm really happy for you if you've used them, but the reality is that most players just don't see the point in using them. They only allow me to dry one unit of anything, they take up a lot of space, so I also have to spend nine grass for each one. It was always just not worth it

[cybers2001]

The only benefit of jerky over cooked meat is that it adds some health and sanity. Both of which are easy enough to obtain without having to dry meat for two days.

[ZeRoboButler]

1 hour ago, cybers2001 said:

The only benefit of jerky over cooked meat is that it adds some health and sanity. Both of which are easy enough to obtain without having to dry meat for two days.

Yeah, these days we have options that remove the need to focus on jerky for the most part, honey, leafy meat, fishing (trawl nets and fishing bins especially) and farming have made it so we have a lot more options when it comes to stat replenishment. It feels a lot better to kill cc get a Bearger bin and put high value foods inside rather than wait 3 days for some meat to dry. 

I personally like what the other options make you do, how they make you engage with the game and how they feel like a good use of time and attention from finding decent fishing/trawling spots, to sowing a crop and reaping the benefits or hunting grass gators and gathering honey to beat sanity issues, sure it spoils faster but getting it was fun.

[Well-met]

4 hours ago, Mayson71 said:

Um, because they suck? I mean, I'm really happy for you if you've used them, but the reality is that most players just don't see the point in using them. They only allow me to dry one unit of anything, they take up a lot of space, so I also have to spend nine grass for each one. It was always just not worth it

this is like saying the icemaker from shipwrecked sucks because you only build one instead of like, 10.

(build many racks)

[Dyzrespect]

3 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

The only benefit of jerky over cooked meat is that it adds some health and sanity. Both of which are easy enough to obtain without having to dry meat for two days.

 

1 hour ago, ZeRoboButler said:

Yeah, these days we have options that remove the need to focus on jerky for the most part, honey, leafy meat, fishing (trawl nets and fishing bins especially) and farming have made it so we have a lot more options when it comes to stat replenishment. It feels a lot better to kill cc get a Bearger bin and put high value foods inside rather than wait 3 days for some meat to dry. 

I personally like what the other options make you do, how they make you engage with the game and how they feel like a good use of time and attention from finding decent fishing/trawling spots, to sowing a crop and reaping the benefits or hunting grass gators and gathering honey to beat sanity issues, sure it spoils faster but getting it was fun.

You guys are both neglecting that after the first 2 days of waiting, making jerky only takes as long as it takes for you to harvest and rehang the meat. The 2 days it takes for meat to dry you don't have to sit there and watch it dry, it's free time. If your racks hold 40 items, you're getting 40 jerky items every 2 days for what is now probably 20 seconds of work.

Also it's a little ironic that you say adding health and sanity to meat is a minor benefit, when it's probably the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way in the game to get both of those things.

[cybers2001]

28 minutes ago, Dyzrespect said:

 

You guys are both neglecting that after the first 2 days of waiting, making jerky only takes as long as it takes for you to harvest and rehang the meat. The 2 days it takes for meat to dry you don't have to sit there and watch it dry, it's free time. If your racks hold 40 items, you're getting 40 jerky items every 2 days for what is now probably 20 seconds of work.

Also it's a little ironic that you say adding health and sanity to meat is a minor benefit, when it's probably the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way in the game to get both of those things.

This assumes you will be at your kitchen 2 days after you load up your racks. Jerky stays in the green zone for up to 10 days after drying, which means you can set up meat and leave for 12 days before the jerky is stale. With each day being 8 minutes long, that means 96 minutes of game time.  
  
Conversely, acid rains lowers freshness by 1% every 1.5 seconds, which means meat on the rack becomes stale after 75 seconds.  
  
Your time to harvest drops 98% when you’re in the caves with shadow rifts.

 

 

[Dyzrespect]

5 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

This assumes you will be at your kitchen 2 days after you load up your racks. Jerky stays in the green zone for up to 10 days after drying, which means you can set up meat and leave for 12 days before the jerky is stale. With each day being 8 minutes long, that means 96 minutes of game time.  
  
Conversely, acid rains lowers freshness by 1% every 1.5 seconds, which means meat on the rack becomes stale after 75 seconds.  
  
Your time to harvest drops 98% when you’re in the caves with shadow rifts.

 

 

I don't get the point you're trying to make. This issue is a way bigger problem for any other method of food processing. Farms require more attention, non-jerked foods spoil faster, even in an ice box. If you left any food in your base for 12 days, it would all go stale, in fact the jerky would be the only thing probably left intact.

Also what does it even matter if after 6 days you have 120 jerky, basically enough to last an entire year on hunger alone. 60 seconds of work over 6 days for a year of food doesn't really seem that hard.

[Mayson71]

1 hour ago, Well-met said:

this is like saying the icemaker from shipwrecked sucks because you only build one instead of like, 10.

(build many racks)

Um, what? 
This is the problem, that in order for drying rack to become as efficient as possible, they MUST be installed a lot, a VERY a lot

[Well-met]

4 minutes ago, Mayson71 said:

Um, what? 
This is the problem, that in order for drying rack to become as efficient as possible, they MUST be installed a lot, a VERY a lot

if only klei had just tripled the count for free...