CyberCat05

They tried that with Bell Peppers but they were buggy so they were sent to purgatory

Tomato Sauce could be made by just cooking tomatoes in a pot. Tomatoes naturally fall apart when cooked for long enough even if you cook them whole. And traditional marinara sauce is not pureed anyway, it fits the game's aesthetic way better. (It's also quite good, the tomato bits get browned and caramelized even if I'm not a fan of the texture). I'm also a fan of more Cheese types being added even if they wouldn't have any use. I think instead of just adding a recipe tree for Pizza, since it's such a specific dish, Pizza should be just one of the many possibilities you could make in an eventual more complex, modular cooking system. Like you can take leavened dough and place it on the table and choose to flatten it and put sauce and cheese on it, but that's just one of the limitless other things you could do with it.

Every Rock type in the game has a corresponding kind of Sand (and Gravel), so the implication seems to be that every type of Sand is just a finely ground version of its host Rock. But if that's the case what separates the Lime item you get from grinding Limestone or Chalk in a Quern from the Limestone or Chalk Sands you can find in nature? I figured the only thing that would make the raw sands unusable is that they'd be dirty, with a bunch of bits of organic matter and unrelated minerals. So I figured, the best way to process them and make them useable is to sift them with a sieve. You could do the process manually like with Panning, or you can make later make a sieve shaking table to automate the process with Mechanical Power. Limestone or Chalk Sand would yield 1 Lime per block Halite Sand would yield 1 Salt pet block (doesn't currently exist but should as Salt deserts are awesome) Claystone Sand would yield 0.5 Red Clay per block on average Shale Sand would yield 0.5 Blue Clay per block on average I do think this is balanced. For Lime, you technically get less Lime per block than you get from Chalk or Limestone, as each block of those drops several stones. For Clays, you get several pieces of clay per Soil deposit, and you don't have to process them first. The Sieve is locked to the Copper Age already, so you won't be able to get clay from them immediately and would still need to find a deposit. It'd just provide a good, reliable yet labor-intensive way to get large quantities of Clay mid-to-late game if you absolutely can't manage to find a deposit near you, which I don't think is too broken since you already get several hundred pieces of Clay per deposit. With the next ones I'm not so sure they should be added since the stuff you would get from them is currently locked behind the Pulverizer. Sandstone, Chert or Granite Sand would yield Crushed Quartz Peridotite Sand would yield Crushed Olivine Bauxite Sand would yield Crushed Bauxite All of these would technically allow the player to get certain items without Mechanical Power when they wouldn't otherwise be obtainable, Maybe there's a way to balance it that I'm not seeing, but right now I don't think it's balanced. The one exception is the Silica Sands - I definitely think Glass should be obtaineable through those sands, as that's literally the most well-known use of sand IRL. Maybe instead of sifting them for Crushed Quartz, you could put them directly in a Bloomery for glass, with drawbacks like getting less glass per block and the resulting glass looking dirtier due to impurities. That way you wouldn't be able to get Crushed Quartz - and T1 Refractory Bricks - from Sand while still being able to use it for glass.

Imo there are enough grains and berries in the game. For grains, the game made an interesting decision to go with more exotic/rustic grains than the modern classic ones. I think the crops in the game pretty much completely cover the uses of the main ones besides Corn. Mayyybe a soft grain like Oats or Barely would be nice, though to keep with the game's spirit I'd pick something more rustic like Millet, though I still think it's unnecessary. Corn is the main one I'm surprised is not in the game. Just like how Rice is in the game Corn is so important to human culture and so distinct from other grains that it seems like a no-brainer. I do think it should be trade exclusive though since it's so vastly different from the plant it was domesticated from. For berries, there are more than enough varieties in the game. All of the modern classic ones are here as well as 3 varieties of Currant and a few more obscure ones. If anything I think there's way too much berries and that some should be removed, especially since a lot of them all generate in the same areas, have the exact same uses in the game, have the same growing times and have very similar growing conditions. If they added more, maybe Mulberry since unlike the ones in the game it actually grows exclusively on trees. But there are more interesting Tree Fruit to add. There are a few Fruit Trees in the game but I think that Tree Fruit IRL are so diverse and distinct that you could justify adding more. I'm surprised about a few exclusions of fruit that are historically significant. Coconuts and/or Dates are surprising since there aren't any palms in the game, Bananas/Plantains are very important globally, and Figs are literally the first domesticated crop in history that we know of. For something more exotic I'd go with maybe Durian or Mangosteen. Almonds would also be cool. There's a lot of options. Vegetables are pretty baffling. There are three kinds of Taproot vegetables (two of which from the same family), none of them are beets, and there's only one Tuber in the game, and it's Cassava rather than something like Potatoes or Yams. The only Fruit Vegetable (as in Vegetable that is botanically classified as a Fruit) is Pumpkin, with Bell Peppers being stuck in hell. Squashes are cool but they're closely related to Pumpkins, I'd rather have something completely new like Cucumbers and Tomatoes or Eggplants. The most baffling crops are Legumes. So the game's cooking system mostly revolves around making stews, right? And Pot Pies, which are just a Stew in a Crust. So Legumes should've been perfect for it since for most of them, their biggest use is being used as stews. But for some reason out of all the Legumes, they chose Soybeans and Peanuts, the two Legumes whose biggest uses AREN'T as ingredients in Stews but rather as ingredients for further processed products, Like Tofu, Soy Sauce, and Peanut Butter, none of which you can actually make in the game. Why were they chosen? It's weird. I would add Chickpeas and Lentils, maybe Green Beans too (I think it'd be boring to add any of the "normal" kinds of beans)

It only preserves fruit though

Because it's good to have that option even if just to fill a niche gap. Again, the entire alcohol system is pretty much pointless besides Aqua Vitae which is pretty obscure and most people won't be using as it's simpler to just use a few cheaper healing items than one alcohol-soaked bandage. But for the few players who do want to maximize their playstyle, it's nice for that option to exist to fill that gap, even if it takes up an entire mechanic that is pretty much pointless otherwise.

I don't see why it's a bad idea just because most people wouldn't use it. If we went by that logic the whole Alcohol system should be removed since it takes more effort than it's worth. Optional Content is great, and the game should have the option. The "just install mods" argument will never not be silly to me but especially in this case, where it's a feature where a big part of its inclusion would be intended to solve a problem that is most prominent on large servers, where you can't rely on everyone having the same mods installed.

About boiling Saltwater for Salt being unrealistic due to toxicity, isn't the main reason that it's that toxic IRL because of human pollution, which wouldn't really be a problem in a Medieval setting?

Appreciate the feedback, I guess it would work better as a mod than a necessity in the base game. I still think that, since so much of the base game's advancement in the food sector is focused on finding new ways to process food in order to better preserve it, non-perishables are kind of the logical final step. As for realism, out of all the options I presented, Salami is the only one that realistically can't be stored for anywhere near that long. Hardtack very famously lasts pretty much forever if it's properly stored (hence its widespread use in rations), and properly canned and stored jams and pickles can last for decades. Parmesan is just a bit of a stretch since it's not a widespread practice to keep it for that long but since it has antimicrobial properties and extremely low moisture, it's very feasible to store it for that long if you wanted to. An alternative to Salami would be Pemmican which can famously easily be stored for decades but it just felt too easy to make, it's just dried meat powder and tallow.

Explaining some of the creative liberties I took: -Hardtack is traditionally not sweetened, but I added Honey to the crafting recipe for a few reasons: It helps make the final product more complicated to obtain, in-universe it would make the Hardtack actually palatable if you decide to eat it raw, which historically wasn't that favorable and sailors would usually crush it up and boil it instead (hence it being usable in cooking). It also helps insinuate just how dry the dough is, since Honey is only ~16% water. -Scraped Hide for Sausage Casing is the biggest liberty I took. Historically Intestinal Lining was used for that purpose, but I think adding an Intestine drop to every Sheep you kill is a slippery slope towards animals dropping every one of their organs. Hide and Intestinal Lining are both mainly made of Collagen, but Hide is usually too thick to bite through. I think that can be overlooked for the sake of gameplay, it's possible that the player is somehow shaving the hide into extremely thin sheets. I dug into the subject a bit and poultry neck skin is actually sometimes used as casing for a sausage called Helzel in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. Kind of far from what we're working with since we're not using Poultry skin in the game, but I feel like it's close enough.

Food Preservation is basically the main thing you upgrade the more you progress in the Agricultural side of the game, so I definitely think there should be a final stage, a sort of magnum opus tier of foods that takes a lot of effort with the reward of never having to worry about spoilage, as long as the food is stored properly in a cellar and a fitting container. Not only would it be useful for Multiplayer Servers, but it would also be incredibly satisfying to walk into a cellar stocked to the brim of Food of every type that you will never have to worry about going bad, knowing how much work you put into it. Of course Salt is the majn preservative and you're gonna need a lot of it to get everything. - For Grain: Hardtack Crackers. Mixing one liter of Honey with 7 flour of any kind and 1 salt will give you 8 Shaggy Cracker Dough. Since this Dough is so dry you can't knead it by hand, and you have to use a Helve Hammer to process it into proper Cracker Dough. You have to cook this dough on a low temperature for a long time, as it burns easily. Hardtack Crackers never spoil as long as they are stored in closed Crates in a Cellar. -For Meat: Salami. Sealing Scraped Hide in a barrel full of Salt for 3 days will give you Dry Hide, which can be crafted into Sausage Casing. Crafting a Sausage casing with 7 pieces of a given type of meat, 1 lump of fat and 1 salt will give you a raw sausage, which you can seal in a salt barrel again to get Cured Sausage. If you hang it out to dry in a cold enough environment (doesn't matter if cold or not) for 20 days you will get Salami. You can also smoke Salami (assuming a smoking mechanic gets added eventually). Smoked Salami will never spoil as long as it is kept on hanging racks in a Cellar. - For Dairy: Parmesan Cheese. If you seal a raw cheese wheel in brine you will get a Brined Cheese Wheel, which you can either Wax and let ripen for Gouda, or further process into Dry Cheese Wheel by sealing in a salt barrel, then letting the Dry Cheese Wheel ripen for 6 entire months in order to get Parmesan Cheese. Parmesan will never spoil as long as it is stored on shelves in a cellar. -For Fruit and Vegetables: Canned/Jarred Jam and Pickles, respectively. I'm assuming these are gonna be added anyway once Glassmaking is added since it is weird you can make Jam and Pickles but can't store them in Jars. For full preservation you would have to properly can the jars in a boiler, and they would never spoil as long as they are stored on scroll racks in a Cellar. All of these could be eaten as they are for decent Saturation (maybe even as much as their unprocessed cooked counterparts as reward for all that work), but they would all also be useable as ingrediemts for Stews and Pot Pies, including Hardtack, though the resulting meal would still spoil normally.

I think it would not make sense game-design wise to make spelt both the crop used for increasing Phosphorus in the soil and suffer from Phosphorus deficiency.

Soybeans aren't that hard to come by in my experience but something like Chickpeas or Lentils would be cool, especially with how historically significant they are. And they're also much more fitting of the game's cooking mechanics that generally revolve around stews and pot pies, I'm sure Soybeans and Peanuts have been used for that before but it's kind of weird to choose them as the only legumes in the game when you can't make Tofu or PB

Those trees look so alien, I think they'd work better if they ever add an alternate dimension like a true Rust World dimension

In real life the practice Crop Rotation - Using the same Farmland for different crops in different seasons to make full use of the soil nutrients - is a bit more complex than it is in VS - In the game Crop Rotation is used to effeciently use remaining Soil nutrients while the other ones passively recover, but in real life Farmers don't rely on magic passive nutrient recovery, they also strategically choose crops that fix certain Nutrients to the soil in preparation for next season's crops. Technically it's not the crops themselves that fix Nutrients to the soil, but rather Microbes that form symbiotic relationships with them. So first of all, I suggest significantly lowering the rate Soil Nutrients recover on their own - Not completely get rid of it, but lower it significantly. The most important crops for this are Legumes. All Legumes are Nitrogen fixers, meaning they (their symbiotic microbes) take Nitrogen from the air and chemically bind it to the soil. So I suggest that when you plant Legumes (the current ones in the game being Soybeans and Peanuts), in addition to consuming whatever Nutrient they need from the soil, they also increase the Nitrogen (N) content of the soil at a faster rate then it would recover naturally, up to and maybe even a bit beyond the Soil's base Fertility level. For Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K), it's a bit more complicated. Since they're Minerals, Microbes can't just pull them out of the air into the soil. But in Phosphorus' case, there are still Crops in Crop Rotation that help make it more available for future crops. While "Phosphorus Fixing" technically doesn't exist, the symbiotic microbes do something else called "Phosphorus Solubilizing", which means they help break down particulates in the soil and leech the trapped Phosphorus out of them, making Soil Phosphorus that was previously unavailable to the crops much more Bioavailable. In the game it would function virtually the same as Nitrogen Fixing: When you plant Rye or Spelt (the best crops for Phosphorus Solubilizing IRL out of the ones in the game), while they consume the Nitrogen out of the soil, they also Increase its Phosphorus content, just like Legumes do with Nitrogen. TL;DR: Soil N and P recover much slower on their own, planting Soybeans and Peanuts increases the Farmland's Nitrogen (N) content more effectively, while planting Rye and Spelt increases the Farmland's Phosphorus (P) content more effectively.