Sterile Atmosphere should not exist

[Lacost]

Hello Dev-Team!

This is just a short suggestion from a food scientist (me) about the concept of having a sterile atmosphere.

 

Especially CO2 is not sterile since a lot of food relevant microorganisms can grow under anaerobic (= no oxygen) conditions. The only gas in the game that would fit a sterile atmosphere would be chlorine but only because the gas would dissolve in the foodstuff and poison it ... even for humans. Only molds absolutely need oxygen to grow but a lot of bacteria and yeast generally don't care that much.

Next, food spoilage is not only caused by microorganisms but also by enzymes or other means of staling (fat turning rancid). So even food stored in chlorine should go stale over time. Those non microbiological processes are significantly reduced in speed if the food is stored under cold conditions which would make fridges or cool storage more relevant.

On top of that, there is an issue for the gamebalance too since fridges are utterly useless. Just build a ration box in a CO2 pocket (which will create itself anyway) and you have an unlimited shelflife.

 

My suggestion:

* Chlorine should be the only sterile gas (would make chlorine gas more meaningful)

* Sterile atmosphere should only kill off Food-Poisoning and Slimelung germs that are on the surface of the foodstuff

* Shelf life is no longer affected by sterile atmosphere

* Food spoilage time is increased the lower the temperature is and becomes infinite below -16°C (real life deepfreezing temperature).

 

This would make food management more challenging and, more importantly, more realistic. At first you store everything at room temperature with very short shelf lives. Then you would have fridges which increase the shelf life and allow for longer farming periods (sleet wheat). In the endgame a freezer-room has to be constructed to store food for infinite times below -16°C.

 

Thanks for reading!

[The Plum Gate]

Tuning spoilage rates of cooked foods makes sense, otherwise people will just prep it "vine ripe" making only enough food as needed and storing that which does not spoil ( berry sludge ).

This would render the fridge useless for cooked food and then a DIY freezer? People would store less food in general.

The better way to handle this is by tuning spoilage rates @ temperatures stored.

I had poked the idea of freeze drying, or piping sterile gas into the fridge.

[TheScaryOne]

1 hour ago, The Plum Gate said:

I had poked the idea of freeze drying, or piping sterile gas into the fridge.

These are great ideas. Dehydrating would also be a good solution for storing the non-renewable meat from hatches or a fish creature. I still think sterile atmo should exist, having to maintain a CO2 or Chlorine cloud will generally require putting it down in the corner of your base, forcing certain design choices or compromises, but having a gas fridge you could put anywhere would be a nice late game item.

[Rossum]

3 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

I had poked the idea of freeze drying, or piping sterile gas into the fridge.

As far as long-term food preservation goes...

Some foods such as honey and soy sauce have basically an infinite shelf life so long as they are stored properly. Soy sauce might not have the same flavor after a long time, but it should still be edible. Salt and vinegar have are similar in that regard.

It would be interesting if salt was added to the game, either as a mineral you can dig out or in the form of salt water that has to be evaporated to get the salt out. Then use the salt in preserving food item.

Honey would be pretty cool. Maybe there could be a creature that gathers up nectar from plants and produces honey (either storing it in wax containers like a bee, or the dupes have to 'milk' it to get the honey). If the honey has an essentially unlimited shelf life, it could make for a nice food that require a bit of work to set up but ultimately worth it to get.

[Lacost]

12 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

Tuning spoilage rates of cooked foods makes sense, otherwise people will just prep it "vine ripe" making only enough food as needed and storing that which does not spoil ( berry sludge ).

This would render the fridge useless for cooked food and then a DIY freezer? People would store less food in general.

Which is something that should be happening. It is definitely not uncommon to see screenshots here on the forums with >100,000 kcal of food stored for a 10 Dupes colony. That's not what food preservation and storage should be. You rather should have to:

1. Produce just the amount your Dupes eat = high turnover rate of stored food so it never goes stale.

2. Produce preserved foods like the pickled meal which currently is simply useless. It could serve as an emergency backup foodsource though. Unfortunately, this is not needed in the current upgrade since you have unlimited shelflives on every foodstuffs.

3. Freeze large amounts of food, which costs energy and requires more technology.