Hot chocolate to stave off hypothermia

[hstone32]

I'm not the first person to suggest chocolate be added to the game, but I think I may be the first to suggest it as a means of preventing hypothermia. You could mix up bean grinds in a cooking pot with milk and honey, fill up an insulated flask or canteen, and then take a swig when you find yourself shivering during a bitter winter trek. Warm yourself up on the go without having to stop and make a campfire.

I thought of this whilst thinking about the logistics of adding chocolate to the game. See, in real-life chocolate making, you require more cacao butter to make chocolate than can be found in the amount of beans used. This means that you'll find yourself with a surplus of bean grinds per batch of chocolate made. What can these surplus grinds be used for? Hot chocolate, of course.

[LadyWYT]

Chocolate and coffee both would be good reasons to venture to the tropics, visit agriculture traders, or just play on a tropical/warm map to begin with.

As far as hot drinks to warm you up...yes, absolutely. I think the code may already be there in the game too. I've been helping develop a mod with @traugdor, and if I'm recalling correctly, there's already a bit in Vintage Story's code where eating hot food will already warm up your character. I don't recall if it was active code, or commented out, but it was there.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

26 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Chocolate and coffee both would be good reasons to venture to the tropics, visit agriculture traders, or just play on a tropical/warm map to begin with.

As far as hot drinks to warm you up...yes, absolutely. I think the code may already be there in the game too. I've been helping develop a mod with @traugdor, and if I'm recalling correctly, there's already a bit in Vintage Story's code where eating hot food will already warm up your character. I don't recall if it was active code, or commented out, but it was there.

this is true

Your body heat is increased a little bit by eating hot meals.

This code gets the temperature of the food in the bowl.

Then it compares the meal with the player's current body temperature. If the difference is greater than 10, it continues.

Then it gets the intensity of the effect by taking the difference between the food temperature and the player's body temperature and dividing it by 30. Compare this value to 1 and take whichever number is smaller.

Finally, the game will add to the player's body heat by multiplying the meal's satiety points by the amount of servings to eat and dividing that number by 80. Then multiply by the intensity of the effect and prevent the number from exceeding 5 or going lower than 0 degrees. This final number is added to the player's body heat, making hot food an effective way to keep from freezing in the winter.

So yes, implemented correctly, hot chocolate would 100% warm you up to drink it!

Edited August 4, 2025 by traugdor

[Teh Pizza Lady]

As an example, if you were to eat a meal that is at 90c and your body temperature was at 30c:

Difference is 60, so continue.

Divide the difference by 30 and get 2. 1 is smaller than 2 so we continue with 1 as the intensity.

Assume you ate an entire serving of food with 1280 satiety points total.

divide the 1280 by 80 to get 16 and multiply by 1 (intensity). to get a final value of 16. 16 is far greater than 5 so the value is clamped to a maximum of 5c which is enough to warm you up!

[7embre]

2 hours ago, hstone32 said:

...fill up an insulated flask or canteen, ...

Would be amazing to have the means to make them out of glass. And pretty cozy, too.

Alright, now, hear me out. How about.. warming up by drinking aqua vitae? Should definitely be a thing in my opinion. I mean, it's precious, have side-effects and don't need to stay warm because of lower freezing point — very robust and accessible solution

Edited August 4, 2025 by 7embre
typo

[LadyWYT]

5 minutes ago, 7embre said:

Alright, now, hear me out. How about.. warming up by drinking aqua vitae? Should definitely be a thing in my opinion. I mean, it's precious, have side-effects and don't need to stay warm because of lower freezing point — very robust and accessible solution

Alcohol really isn't something you want to drink to warm up, unless you don't intend to go back out in the cold for a while. The reason for that is alcohol will draw your core heat to your extremities, which can warm you up quickly indoors, but means you'll end up freezing faster out in the cold.

[Krougal]

Of course there is one big issue; chocolate does not grow in the regions where it would be useful to prevent hypothermia and it isn't like you can just run down to the corner store to buy some.

[7embre]

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Alcohol really isn't something you want to drink to warm up, unless you don't intend to go back out in the cold for a while. The reason for that is alcohol will draw your core heat to your extremities, which can warm you up quickly indoors, but means you'll end up freezing faster out in the cold.

Huh. That's a thing I learned today, so thank you. Still, I think there is a way to make it work properly, by drinking in a cave and having decreased temperature resistance afterwards. In my mind, this method is the last resort from the gameplay perspective.

11 minutes ago, Krougal said:

it isn't like you can just run down to the corner store to buy some.

You mean "corner agriculture/luxury trader"?

[hstone32]

53 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Alcohol really isn't something you want to drink to warm up, unless you don't intend to go back out in the cold for a while. The reason for that is alcohol will draw your core heat to your extremities, which can warm you up quickly indoors, but means you'll end up freezing faster out in the cold.

Isn't it a deppressant? it would slow down your heart rate, and lower your core temperature regardless of if you were indoors or outdoors?

[LadyWYT]

10 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

Isn't it a deppressant? it would slow down your heart rate, and lower your core temperature regardless of if you were indoors or outdoors?

As I said, it draws your core heat to your extremities, which means if you don't have access to a heat source(like a fire) then the cold will bleed that warmth from you faster. If you're indoors though, you're out of the weather and in a more stable environment, and typically have access to a heat source or thick blankets to help trap your body heat.

[Katherine K]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Alcohol really isn't something you want to drink to warm up, unless you don't intend to go back out in the cold for a while. The reason for that is alcohol will draw your core heat to your extremities, which can warm you up quickly indoors, but means you'll end up freezing faster out in the cold.

Yup. Your body reducing circulation to the limbs in the cold is actually a defensive measure that protects your core temperature from dropping too much. Alcohol overrides this defensive measure, making your extremities feel warmer, but at the cost of losing heat a lot faster. Some colder places get a lot of alcohol-related deaths in the winters, because people fall asleep outdoors. People often think it's just the alcoholics that are at risk, but you don't even have to be all that drunk. If you just happened to be tired and dozed off while a bit drunk, your limbs don't get cold before your core temp drops too far, meaning you don't wake up from feeling cold and skip directly to severe hypothermia, lethargy, and eventually death if nobody intervenes.

Once you are in a safe, warm environment, a bit of alcohol can help you warm up faster, because now the heat is flowing into your body, and restoring the circulation is beneficial. Doesn't take much, though. You certainly don't need to get sloshed.

[Krougal]

6 minutes ago, Katherine K said:

Yup. Your body reducing circulation to the limbs in the cold is actually a defensive measure that protects your core temperature from dropping too much. Alcohol overrides this defensive measure, making your extremities feel warmer, but at the cost of losing heat a lot faster. Some colder places get a lot of alcohol-related deaths in the winters, because people fall asleep outdoors. People often think it's just the alcoholics that are at risk, but you don't even have to be all that drunk. If you just happened to be tired and dozed off while a bit drunk, your limbs don't get cold before your core temp drops too far, meaning you don't wake up from feeling cold and skip directly to severe hypothermia, lethargy, and eventually death if nobody intervenes.

Yeah, it's great at preventing frostbite if you don't freeze to death.

I remember reading not too long ago that it is a big problem in Canada, especially with tourists.

[Facethief]

Remember kids, don’t drink and Canada.

[Katherine K]

Some people need a reminder that if you die in Canada, you die in real life.

[Krougal]

16 minutes ago, Katherine K said:

Some people need a reminder that if you die in Canada, you die in real life.

What? That's just crazy talk! Canada isn't even a real place.

[Katherine K]

1 hour ago, Krougal said:

What? That's just crazy talk! Canada isn't even a real place.

I assure you, my Canadian girlfriend is 100% real!

 

But to bring it back on topic a bit, given that hot meals giving you heat is already a feature, it sounds like all we need is mechanics for brewing more drinks and reheating meals. Some of the flowers we find might be great for herbal teas, and yeah, if there are cocoa beans, hot chocolate. But also, how about some mulled wine? There could be so many new possibilities.

The only limitation I see is that it really looks like heat is directly tied to satiety. Maybe drinks and soups should have a higher intensity multiplier? Water has amazing heat capacity, so it'd make sense for soups to warm you up better than stews despite not being as filling.

[KoviBat]

Also opens the option for cold drinks to be added to lower body temperature in hot climates. Fruit juices or maybe iced tea.

[Krougal]

6 minutes ago, KoviBat said:

Also opens the option for cold drinks to be added to lower body temperature in hot climates. Fruit juices or maybe iced tea.

Not quite. The effect of cold is already a thing in the game.

Heat is another suggestion we've been discussing.

Right now there are no effects for being hot.

[hstone32]

Seeing as this post has been necro'd, I thought I'd add another detail I forgot at first.

One might argue that there isn't really enough reason for hypothermia protection, because it isn't that difficult to build a campfire and warm up every so often. However, the cold actually poses another danger I don't really see talked about a whole lot: a 50% spike in hunger rate. Even while next to a campfire, you're more likely to starve. Hot chocolate, therefore, could be the only protection against a hunger rate increase whilst being outside in winter. It would be an important factor of stretching out your winter food reserves out longer, unless you're ok with spending the entire season indoors.

[Krougal]

LOL, 10 days is hardly a necro. Look around the forums.

Yeah, the hunger is the main issue in VS, especially for a BG who already has to eat a lot.

Much as I prefer coffee above all and hot chocolate next, I still think some kind of tea made with local ingredients would be a lot more useful.

Although there's no reason we can't have multiple hot beverages.

Hmmmm...maybe some mulled wine? We already have the wine. *glances around his cellar* Lots and lots of wine.

[LadyWYT]

33 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

However, the cold actually poses another danger I don't really see talked about a whole lot: a 50% spike in hunger rate.

 

3 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Yeah, the hunger is the main issue in VS, especially for a BG who already has to eat a lot.

Is it though? I play Blackguard mainly, and food is almost always the least of my worries. Farms produce a ton of food, as do livestock, and hunting isn't that tough. Meals like pie can stack quite nicely, so carrying enough food to keep yourself fed isn't really an issue either. 

Mind you, I'm not against hot beverages potentially warding off the increased hunger drain from being cold, and I know some players struggle securing a food supply since there are posts about it every now and then. But it's also baffling to me how food supply is an issue outside of the very start of the game.

[hstone32]

9 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

But it's also baffling to me how food supply is an issue outside of the very start of the game.

Maybe not in terms of long-term supply. But have you never ran out of food whilst on an expedition? Your fortunes have turned, and the heavy damage you've been taking recently has caused you to burn through your 3 crocks of hefty meat and vegetable stew, and you're still 8k from home.

[Krougal]

16 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

 

Is it though? I play Blackguard mainly, and food is almost always the least of my worries. Farms produce a ton of food, as do livestock, and hunting isn't that tough. Meals like pie can stack quite nicely, so carrying enough food to keep yourself fed isn't really an issue either. 

Mind you, I'm not against hot beverages potentially warding off the increased hunger drain from being cold, and I know some players struggle securing a food supply since there are posts about it every now and then. But it's also baffling to me how food supply is an issue outside of the very start of the game.

Don't you have to carry a lot more food as a BG when you go on winter expeditions?

5 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

Maybe not in terms of long-term supply. But have you never ran out of food whilst on an expedition? Your fortunes have turned, and the heavy damage you've been taking recently has caused you to burn through your 3 crocks of hefty meat and vegetable stew, and you're still 8k from home.

Yeah, I was looking at it this way too. I'm always carrying too much food...until I'm suddenly not.

[LadyWYT]

15 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

But have you never ran out of food whilst on an expedition?

Nope. I tend to have the opposite problem, if anything. I bring too much food and end up ditching some in order to free up inventory space. I also keep a pretty good eye on my supplies in general, so if I do notice that I'm running low then I either head back home to retrieve more or hunt/forage for some.

 

15 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

Your fortunes have turned, and the heavy damage you've been taking recently has caused you to burn through your 3 crocks of hefty meat and vegetable stew, and you're still 8k from home.

I don't usually bring crocks or cookpots with me at since pies are more stackable, so I will bring plenty of pie and get a lot more food out of the inventory space compared to relying on crocks, cookpots, and bowls.

 

7 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Don't you have to carry a lot more food as a BG when you go on winter expeditions?

Not that I've noticed. Blackguards do require more food, that much is true, but it doesn't really feel like that much more than the other classes. Crank up the base hunger rate though to 125% or more, and then hunger starts to be a bit more of a concern.

It's probably just another case of, when I go out on extended expeditions in the winter, I'm going to be carrying pie slices for efficient use of space, and save the crocked foods for home use.

Edited August 15, 2025 by LadyWYT
grammar

[KritterBizkit]

I was doing research on player warmth and came across this post. I'm just finishing up my very first mod...ever..lol It's coffee! Who doesn't love coffee? It will be in the tropics. Bushes with beans. Prune the beans, then craft roasted beans from the green ones. then ground the roasted beans for grounds, then cook the grounds in a pot with water for coffee. warms you up and slows the cold a bit for a short time.