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Food Efficiency guide: What's the cheapest food to use?

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2024-11-20 10:11:35
Food Efficiency guide: What's the cheapest food to use?

Quick Guidelines

The efficiency of meals is listed in Food / Krown cost ratio.

E.g. a meal that gives 6 food and costs 8 krowns to prepare would result in a 6/8 ratio (0.75)

Generally Basic recipes are the most efficient. Advanced recipes and Feasts are bad for food efficiency but they are valuable for their buffs to your stats (except Apple Pancake and Feasts using Apple Pancake which are actually really efficient). Stat boosts will become more important at later stages in the game. Alternatively, if you have enough food, you may want to rest more frequently to get Confessions more often.

Most Efficient Early Game Food: (2.00) - Cured Meat (using Carcasses or Human Remains):

(1.20) - Any Basic recipe from looted ingredients or ingredients bought on sale: e.g. Pork / Wolf from fights, or caught Fish, not buying these ingredients, only cooking from pre-existing ingredients and just buying Salt. Meaning it's better to craft food from existing ingredients (1.20 efficiency) than it would be to sell those ingredients and buy ingredients for crafting bread or buy dried fish / cured meat (1.00 efficiency)

(1.00) - Crafted Bread or purchased Dried Fish / Cured Meat:

(0.75) - Any Basic recipe from purchased ingredients: Apple Pancake (and Feasts using it): Incredibly cost-effective as it reduces your fatigue, meaning your troop needs to eat less frequently. This means the pancake increases in efficiency the higher your food requirements are and also becomes exponentially (reciprocally really) more effective the more fatigue reduction you have. This means that going from 70% to 75% fatigue reduction is much more effective than going from 0% to 5% (in this case going from 70% to 75% is ~12.7 times as effective as going from 0% to 5%)

At 0% fatigue reduction:

- Apple Pancake reaches 1.00 Efficiency at 17 food requirement

- Apple Pancake reaches 1.20 Efficiency at 26 food requirement

- Apple Pancake reaches 2.00 Efficiency at 62 food requirement

Once you start increasing your Fatigue Reduction, Apple Pancake becomes even more valuable!

See the Apple Pancake section for a detailed graph

Avoid resting at the inn: Always more expensive than resting at camp. Only rest at the inn if you want to delay paying wages, otherwise rest at camp with your own food.

Food Items That Are Always Worth Buying: Salt

Ingredients on sale (Sale: Green highlight OR occasionally traveling merchants will sell cheaper ingredients without the green highlight. Standard price for meat is 6 Krowns, and for fruit/vegetables is 3 Krowns. A traveling merchant will occasionally sell meat for 4 Krowns and fruit/vegetables for 2 Krowns)

Wheat (for Bread & Apple Pancake)

Honey (for Apple Pancake)

Apples (for Apple Pancake)

Dried Fish

Cured Meat

Blueberries & Milk (for Blueberry Tea: available at a later stage in the game, usually food is not a problem at this stage any more. Do not buy early game milk just for this as you won't be able to use it until you get to Drombach and get the recipe)Note that for you to be able to craft a new recipe, you also need to spend a knowledge point to unlock it. I generally wouldn't recommend doing this for basic recipes unless absolutely necessary. You will have Bread, Grilled Pork, and Wolf Sausage available from the beginning. Could consider getting a fish recipe if you happen to have a lot of one kind of fish. I personally avoid Chicken / Venison / Mutton as those are more rare to come by so even if they are on sale, I will avoid them, unless I need them for an Advanced recipe.

Meat Drying RackTry to get Meat Drying Rack early if possible as it provides the most cost-efficient source of food by drying carcasses and human remains. Available for purchase at the Tiltren Tracker Camp (Costs Fangs, you will need to fight lots of animals for fangs or steal it from the camp, which I would recommend to do instead. At least Apprentice Thief recommended as they will generate less suspicion than a Novice. You will likely still get 1 Wanted level so be careful)

Ideally dry carcasses as they produce food faster than human remains. You can use Human Remains to make Traveler's Soup instead (1.12 efficiency). If you don't have the recipe yet, it's probably best to just drop them as they are very heavy and easy to come by.

A prisoner with the Clean Rag belt accessory or a whipped prisoner, will increase the efficiency of Meat Drying rack even further (3.00). However, taking into consideration that the prisoner also needs to eat food, this is less efficient than just having a standard companion do it and keeping the troop smaller. Only use prisoners for drying meat if you need to rest with them on your way to deliver them for a quest or to prison, or if you're keeping them for professions. An argument can be made for high-constitution prisoners or ones with the Stocky trait as they do carry some extra weight (still less efficient than Work Ponies though)

General Tips- Selling cooked food is usually not profitable. Reselling cooked food if you buy the ingredients will only profit roughly 1 Krown assuming you are selling with the Trade Fair banner buff active (Sell price of crafted items increased by 50%)

- Can be good if you want to level up your cooking profession or get rid of excess carry weight

- Cooking ingredients can be quite heavy and usually cooking what you have will lower your carry weight

- With an upgraded Cooking Pot you have a chance of making Delicious recipes. When making feasts, you want to ensure you're using regular and not the delicious versions of your meals. To do this, always put the delicious meals to the left of your regular ones in your inventory layout.

- One of the best ways to increase food efficiency is to lower the rate at which your fatigue stacks. Remember that this scales at a reciprocal rate (similar to exponential), so the more fatigue reduction you have, the more valuable the next 5% is. This will also become very important if you want to keep your food buffs for longer. You can buy Apple Pancake at the Tiltren Inn. You will need Honey to make it, which is usually a bit hard to come and normally the most lacking ingredient for apple pancakes. It is available for purchase at Marheim Market (north of Tiltren in Vertruse province). Occasionally a traveling merchant might sell it. Alternatively you can run to Ludern (East of Tiltren) to get the Beehive blueprint and produce your own honey.

- Buffs from food don't stack on the same stat, only the highest value is taken (e.g. if you eat 2 meals, one which gives 15% strength, and one which gives 20% strength. You will have a 20% strength buff, not 35%

- If you are using a non-delicious Feast which was made with apple pancake (+35% Fatigue reduction), consider adding a Delicious Apple Pancake to your meal (+45% Fatigue reduction) if you intend on having a long day with lots of buffs, especially if you have more fatigue reduction from other sources. (e.g. 85% fatigue reduction provides a 66.75% longer day than 75% fatigue reduction... reciprocal scaling!)

Fatigue Reduction: 5%: Journeyman Cook buff (after a full meal)

10%: ...are used to long walks (starting troop buff option)

10%: Seasoned Travellers: unlock in the Compendium (G). Costs 3 Knowledge points

25%: Banner: Overflowing Motivation (Unlock at level 4 in Mysteries and Wisdom path)

30-50%: Food buff:

30% Apple Pancake

35% Culture Shock / Hill Delights (Feast from apple pancake)

45% (Delicious) Apple Pancake

50% (Delicious) Culture Shock / Hill Delights

Important Locations


Food Efficiency guide: What's the cheapest food to use? image 43

Apple Pancake (and blueprint): Stromkapp Inn (Tiltren)

Meat Drying Rack: Tiltren Tracker Camp (Tiltren)

Honey seller (5 in stock): Marheim Market (Vertruse)

Beehive blueprint: Old Edoranian Outpost (Ludern)

Note that to travel between Tiltren and Vertruse, you will need to pay a one-time fee of 200 Krowns at the border or use a Border-pass which you will get after completing the main story quests in a zone.

To travel between the other zones, you can avoid paying the border toll with a few well-placed Pitons.

You can access Mount Altis from Tiltren easily. Then place a Piton near the Mount Altis arena to get to Ludern.

From Ludern another well-placed Piton from on top of a hill near the border will let you get to Vertruse. There is no piton access between Vertruse and Tiltren so I recommend just paying the toll there unless you want to travel through Ludern and Mount Altis every time.

Complete Food Efficiency Table (base Game)

Produced: means produced at camp (Brewing Vat / Meat Drying Rack)

Some recipes have craftable ingredients. In this case, the efficiency will be different based on whether you're buying or crafting your own ingredients.

RarityRecipeFoodBuy Ingredients costCraft Ingredients costBuy Ingredients EfficiencyCraft EfficiencyProducedCured Meat (Human Remains / Carcass / Ghost Carcass) from buffed prisoner623.003.00ProducedCured Meat (Human Remains / Carcass / Ghost Carcass)212.002.00ProducedDried Fish from buffed prisoner15121.251.25BasicBasic Recipe if you already have Meat or Fish651.201.20AdvancedTraveller's Soup14121.171.17ProducedCured Meat (Rat) from buffed prisoner661.001.00BasicBlueberry Tea661.001.00BasicBread441.001.00BasicHemp Tea670.860.86ProducedDried Fish11.20.830.83BasicBoiled Eel680.750.75BasicBraised Chicken680.750.75BasicGrilled Carp680.750.75BasicGrilled Pork680.750.75BasicMedium-rare Mutton680.750.75BasicPerch Broth680.750.75BasicPike Soup680.750.75BasicRoasted Bass680.750.75BasicSmoked Sardine680.750.75BasicVenison Skewers680.750.75BasicWolf Sausage680.750.75FeastThe Tale of the Wolf and the Hop4061550.660.73AdvancedBeer-infused Wolf Ribs1421200.670.70AdvancedJam14200.700.70ProducedCured Meat (Rat)460.670.67AdvancedLavender Syrup Biscuits14210.670.67AdvancedMead Pike1426210.540.67AdvancedFlambéed Crocswine14220.640.64AdvancedMutton Stew14220.640.64AdvancedRat Stew14220.640.64AdvancedSea Bass Marinated in Hemp Oil14220.640.64AdvancedSeed Sausage14220.640.64FeastCulture Shock4079630.510.63AdvancedApple Pancake14230.610.61AdvancedCandied Fruit14230.610.61AdvancedRoasted Chicken in Blue Sauce14230.610.61AdvancedSeed Biscuits14230.610.61FeastCreature Comforts4078670.510.60AdvancedCabbage Perch14240.580.58AdvancedEel Soup14240.580.58AdvancedMountaineer's Hotpot14240.580.58AdvancedMushroom Sardine14240.580.58AdvancedMutton au Gratin14240.580.58AdvancedPork Stew14240.580.58AdvancedStuffed Cabbage14240.580.58AdvancedSurf and Turf on a Stick14240.580.58AdvancedTrapper's Fondue14240.580.58AdvancedPorridge14250.560.56ProducedBeer120.500.50ProducedCured Meat (Meat) from buffed prisoner6120.500.50FeastThe Broker's Table40108910.370.44FeastHill Delights40109950.370.42FeastThe King's Feast40110950.360.42ProducedCured Meat (Meat)4120.330.33ProducedBrandy130.330.33ProducedCider130.330.33BasicSyrup260.330.33ProducedWine130.330.33AdvancedHomeopills2100.200.20ProducedMead150.200.20

Apple Pancake Efficiency Visualized


Food Efficiency guide: What's the cheapest food to use? image 57
Food Efficiency guide: What's the cheapest food to use? image 58

In relation to fatigue reduction (graph done with 100 food requirements. Different food requirement will result in different efficiency, but the curve will be shaped the same way)

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3368296474

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