Eco Best Food Combos [Updated to 0.9.4]

Food Quality And Specializations

When you enter the world for the first time you don't have a choice, you're bound to eat raw food you find growing somewhere. Raw food gives the least skill points and usually plants don't regrow fast enough to support a large number of players for a long time. So your first way is to build a campfire and cook your first food. In the beginning your choice mostly depends on the available ingredients. But as a provisioner you should settle somewhere near a farmer of trust or start with planting your own ingredients. Campfire food gives a good bonus over raw food and should be considered one of your first priorities. With more skill point coming along you'll progress to higher levels of Campfire Cooking quite fast which gives another reasonable boost to your skill point gain.

When To Eat

Always carry a whole meal with you and eat it en bloc when you're hungry. This way you avoid a drop in skill point gain when a single food is removed from your stomach (after 24 hours) leaving an unbalanced diet and you have to wait for some minutes or even hours until the next food is removed that you've eaten to balance out the previous one.

Sometimes it happens to me that I accidentally eat a Camas Bulb or a Bean instead of planting it. Don't try to balance it out (unless these raw foods are a part of your diet anyway). After 24 hours the Bean is gone and balance is restored.

Meals Aka Food Combos

When it comes to the personal diet it usually depends on availability. But as a chef you have the power to provide the best food combos one can get and thus you are responsible for progress on the server. The following table gives an overview which food combos give the highest skill point gain a chef with the respective skill level can provide.

The values are based on a default configuration of 12SP Base Skill Gain and a Skill Multiplier of 1.0x. Changing Base Skill Gain and/or Skill Modifier won't change which food combos work best (at least from my experience). I computed these values based on a stomach size of 3000cal which is the start size.

The two numbers on the end of each line are nutrition balance/skill point gain. The nutrition balance (possible values between 0.5 and 2.0) only gives a hint that with a better balance there could be a higher skill point gain. But the crucial number is the skill point gain.

Food Combo Reference Table - The Basics

SkillFoodCaloriesBalanceSPRAW FOODjust don't do it---NO CHEF'S SKILLS1 Charred Agave, 2 Charred Cactus Fruit, 1 Charred Fish, 1 Charred Meat, 1 Charred Tomato, 1 Wilted Fiddleheads22502.037.8

Campfire Cooking 11 Root Campfire Salad, 1 Jungle Campfire Salad, 1 Charred Sausage, 1 Charred Fish29501.960.5Campfire Cooking 21 Root Campfire Salad, 1 Jungle Campfire Salad, 1 Charred Sausage, 1 Charred Fish29501.960.5Campfire Cooking 31 Wild Stew, 1 Jungle Campfire Salad, 1 Campfire Roast30001.965.0

Food Combos - The Path Of Cooking

Cooking 11 Clam Chowder, 1 Vegetable Medley17001.677.2Cooking 2-61 Clam Chowder, 1 Simmered Meat, 1 Vegetable Soup29001.890.8

Advanced Cooking 11 Corn Fritters, 1 Pineapple Friend Rice, 1 Seared Meat, 1 Wild Mix25202.0106.0Advanced Cooking 21 Corn Fritters, 2 Elk Taco18001.9109.0Advanced Cooking 3-41 Bear S U P R E M E, 1 Pineapple Friend Rice, 1 Sweet Salad29202.0125.5

Food Combos - The Path Of Baking

Baking 11 Baked Corn, 1 Baked Meat, 1 Camas Bread, 1 Fruit Muffin30001.974.5Baking 21 Baked Roast, 1 Baked Taro, 1 Camas Bread25001.976.1Baking 31 Huckleberry Pie, 1 Meat Pie26001.889.4

Advanced Baking 11 Fruit Tart, 1 Meat Pie, 1 Pirozhok29501.895.3Advanced Baking 21 Baked Meat, 2 Macaroons24001.797.2Advanced Baking 32 Macaroons, 1 Tasty Tropical Pizza29001.9115.4Advanced Baking 41 Fruit Tart, 1 Stuffed Turkey23001.8119.0

Food Combo - Best Of Both Worlds

Baking 3 + Cooking 21 Huckleberry Pie, 1 Simmered Meat22001.993.1Advanced Baking 3 + Advanced Cooking 31 Millionaires Salad, 1 Stuffed Turkey24001.9126.5

Increased Stomach Size

With increased levels of the Self Improvement skill your stomach size increases up to 4250cal at level 7. Here's a selection of the best food combos per skill with that stomach size. The combinations of Cooking and Baking don't give better results with higher calorie limits.

Campfire Cooking1 Fern Campfire Salad, 2 Jungle Campfire Stew, 1 Root Campfire Salad40502.066.9Cooking1 Phad Thai, 1 Simmered Meat, 1 Vegetable Soup33001.994.3Baking2 Huckleberry Pie, 1 Meat Pie39001.890.5Advanced Baking1 Macaroons, 2 Stuffed Turkey38501.8122.4Advanced Cooking1 Bear S U P R E M E, 1 Pineapple Friend Rice, 1 Sweet Salad29202.0125.5

Notes

The guide was first written for 0.7. With 0.8 the levels for a skill are gained with practice. The SP multiplier is taken into account and increases the speed of leveling.Thus I stick to computing levels 1 and 2 because you'll want to practice with useful meals.

With 0.9.1 the Baking path really got pushed so there is no clear order any more. Up to 0.9 Cooking was clearly better than Baking and Advanced Cooking topped Advanced Baking. Now it's a completely different story. Baking is slightly better than Cooking, Advanced Cooking is slightly better than Advanced Baking, and the best values come from the combination of both paths

Update 0.9.4 really stirred the foods again (horrible pun, I know). I didn't take the "Food Variety" or "Food Tastiness" mechanics into account. I just didn't have time to test them enough to provide useful information

Some of the raw foods are harder to get than others. You really should get a campfire soon so you don't have to gather different meal parts only to gain a ridiculous 30something skill points.

The "Pineapple Friend Rice" still has it's name so I assume they did it on purpose and it's not just a typo

To all Smelters: Please sell Cast Iron Stoves so your chef can provide the "better food" you're constantly crying for. Same goes for Kitchens (Carpenters) and Stoves (Advanced Smelters). In 0.8 chefs could also use the anvil for the Cast IIron Stove but at a very high material cost. From 0.9 on chefs depend on smiths again

The next guy asking for an update of the guide 4 hours after release of the new version will just get blocked. FU

I really appreciate how much you all look at this guide, mark it as your favorite and even give me awards for it. Some even link their own approaches or super fancy food calculator websites in the comments. That's great and I think in combination all the resources provide a good base for an efficient Eco experience

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1556520648

Best Food Combos [Updated to 0.9.4]