Hunger Rating Increases While Indoors

[Onsdag]

TL:DR If you have a water source block anywhere inside your home your hunger rating is treated as if you were outdoors.

So it's winter time now and I noticed that for some reason my hunger rating was almost always super high (125%) for no apparent reason while inside my home. I wasn't wearing any armor, had nothing in my offhand, and I'm a Commoner so not affected by Class debuffs. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what was affecting my hunger rating so atrociously. Opening and closing doors sometimes would, sometimes wouldn't drop it to 100%. The only thing I could think of was somehow my home was being treated as if I were outdoors, but this didn't make sense because I was warm while indoors whereas outside temperatures were regularly getting to -17C. After doing a lot of experimenting trying to find out what the problem was and how to correct it - tearing down walls, adding walls, replacing the roof and foundation, changing half slabs to full blocks, etc. - I finally discovered the source of the problem: water!

You see, I built a home and have added a water source block in my kitchen area to help facilitate cooking. This one tiny water source inside my home somehow makes my home "outdoors" for purposes of calculating hunger rating, but not for temperature. Simply putting a solid block above the water source immediately returns my hunger value to a more normal and manageable 100%.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Onsdag
Added screenshots

[Onsdag]

Ok, while covering the water worked to consistently stop my hunger rating from jumping up I am finding it does still sporadically jump to 125% for no apparent reason. Usually opening and shutting a door will into the room/house will correct it.

[Streetwind]

Yes, the room detection sometimes still has a few hiccups. In my last world, my perfectly working house randomly stopped being recognized as a room overnight, in mid-winter, for no discernible reason. To this day I still don't know why. Tore it down and rebuilt it completely in creative mode - nothing changed. I proceeded to live in the basement for the rest of the winter.

The water source thing is interesting though. It might make sense if the water block counts as a "not solid" block in the walls/floor/ceiling, which therefore results in an incomplete room. Could you check how high your ceiling is? There must not be more than 7 blocks between the floor and the ceiling at any point. If digging out the hole where you put the water in makes it an eight block in vertical height, then it's not actually the water, but rather the fact that there no longer was a solid floor within 7 blocks of the ceiling.

Another thing you can test is whether constructing a "tub" and placing the water block in such a way that it is no longer part of the floor will change anything.

[Onsdag]

I didn't know there was any limitation on room sizes, other than hearing that cellars couldn't be any larger than 7x7x7. But cellars aren't (or shouldn't be) the same thing as being in a room/house/indoors for purposes of being exposed to the weather and/or hunger rating.

Interestingly enough though, after you mentioned room sizes, I did some testing and this indeed seems to be the problem (or at least part of it). My kitchen area is 6x9x3. Height isn't the problem as it's only 3 meters high, 4 if you include the water hole. From my testing on a creative world the maximum room size allowed to keep hunger rating normal is 8x8x8. You can, in fact, have a larger room than 8x8x8 (successfully tested up to 11x11x8) and depending on if you're standing in the middle of the room your hunger rating will normal (100%) or elevated (125%) if you're standing by the walls. 12x12x8 or larger rooms all bets are off - sometimes they are stabilized briefly, but mostly they are unreliable.

As a side note, in doing all of this testing I discovered that cellars don't actually have a size limit (theoretically - only tested up to a 21x21x7 room). As long as the stored food is far enough away from the outside world and/or limit light coming in through doorways then you can have as large a cellar as you want. Which is actually kinda weird that your hunger rating is so buggy indoors. If the hunger rate is supposed to be directly tied to your temperature and exposure to the cold, then why is it that the game is able to perfectly detect whether body and food storage temperatures are being affected properly while indoors, but not hunger values?

As for the water source... I'm just as confused now as ever. In my multiplayer world I've replaced the solid block above the water source with a trap door. This keeps my hunger rate at 100% regardless if the trap door is open or closed, and allows me to easily access the water for cooking. However, if I step into the water my hunger rate immediately shoots up to 125%, which is actually kinda annoying as that water source doubles for panning. I think it might somehow be associated with the room size issue since my kitchen is 6x9x3 and creative world testing shows weird anomalies with rooms greater than 8x8x8. However, in my creative world I can't replicate it, but in fact have other weird oddities with water. Such that the opposite effect is seen and standing in water actually stabilizes my hunger rating to 100% in rooms that are unstable. But not all water. The trap door seems to give water a stability opposite of what the room is. So if I'm currently at 125% hunger rating then stepping into a water source has no effect, but stepping into one with a trap door above it will drop my hunger to 100%. Whereas in my kitchen that is stable at 100%, when I step into the trap door water source raises it to 125%

Edited June 19, 2021 by Onsdag
correction

[JohnMidnight]

Didn't. Know this, what constitutes a room? I've always been used to the 120% hunger rate as baseline.

[Onsdag]

As far as I know these are the things that affect hunger rate:

• Class. Blackguard has the 'Ravenous' trait, which increases hunger rate by +30%
• Armor. Wearing most armors will increase your hunger rate; up to +24% for Plate.
• Items held in off hand. Torches, lanterns, or other items held in the off hand increase hunger by +20% (probably why you're at 120%)
• Game/Server settings. The default "Standard" game mode is 100% hunger rate, "Exploration" mode is 50% hunger rate, "Wilderness Survival" is set to 125%, or you can customize your own game settings anywhere from 25% to 200%.
• Temperature. Exposure to extreme temperatures (definitely cold, not sure about heat) can increase your hunger rate up to +25%. From my testing your hunger rate begins to start increasing around 1C, and seems to slowly increase by about 3% per 1C drop in temperature thereafter, up to a cap of +25% at -8C.
• Mods. Outside of the scope of the base game. Variable.

"What constitutes a room?" is an excellent question. One that I'd like the answer to myself.

For the purposes of stabilizing your body temperature you don't even need a space completely enclosed. For example, going far enough into a cave you will start to warm up. From some testing standing underneath a 15x15 platform, with no walls, and otherwise completely exposed to the elements, is also good enough to start stabilizing your body temperature. Same goes for food storage (walls do help, but aren't strictly necessary). As long as there is enough coverage from the open sky temperatures can be mitigated and regulated.

However, hunger rate doesn't seem to play by the same rules. As long as the outside temperature is low enough then you must stay indoors, and more specifically (insomuch as my testing has shown) within a completely enclosed room of no greater than 8x8x8 in order to maintain a 100% hunger rate. That is, of course, assuming there isn't something else affecting hunger.

[JohnMidnight]

Okay, I just tested it, I'm a commoner, on 1.14, Removed latern from my left hand and I'm outside at 100%, so interesting.