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[Astarch]

This seems like an appropriate time to start talking about changes to the food industry, since the latest release added a ton of new plants.
Not addressed here are issues like food being too valuable, which should in theory be fixed when trade goods become valued based on availability.

In general what I'd like to see:

1) A bit more work done with spoilage vs. preserving food. Fortress mode has some weirdness with how quickly time passes, but in general it would be nice if we could cure, smoke, pickle, or otherwise preserve raw food, and had a good reason to do so.

2) Intermediate foods. We already have a bit of this in that we can press nuts and mill grains, but I want to bake bread and make mayonnaise.

3) Recipes. Obviously if we have intermediate foods we need foods made from those, and while a mayonnaise roast is nicely surreal, I really want to make my fortune exporting high quality sandwiches.

4) Maybe have some drink names besides <plant name> beer/wine.

5) More involved brewing in general, require other materials like water and hops, maybe stills need to have some number of barrels on hand just to brew things in, and those barrels need to be swapped out periodically, dwarves with preferences for booze brewed in barrels of certain materials, hipster dwarves who only drink dwarfish microbrews etc...

6) Probably beyond the scope of a food rework, but historically booze has been a preferred beverage because plain water was unsafe to drink. Something with diseases in certain biomes would be interesting, and add an additional penalty for running out of booze.

7) Skin/Hair Care. What's the point in having all these new nuts if my dwarves can't massage the oils into their lustrous beards?

[Evaris]

This seems like an appropriate time to start talking about changes to the food industry, since the latest release added a ton of new plants.
Not addressed here are issues like food being too valuable, which should in theory be fixed when trade goods become valued based on availability.

In general what I'd like to see:

1) A bit more work done with spoilage vs. preserving food. Fortress mode has some weirdness with how quickly time passes, but in general it would be nice if we could cure, smoke, pickle, or otherwise preserve raw food, and had a good reason to do so.

2) Intermediate foods. We already have a bit of this in that we can press nuts and mill grains, but I want to bake bread and make mayonnaise.

3) Recipes. Obviously if we have intermediate foods we need foods made from those, and while a mayonnaise roast is nicely surreal, I really want to make my fortune exporting high quality sandwiches.

4) Maybe have some drink names besides <plant name> beer/wine.

5) More involved brewing in general, require other materials like water and hops, maybe stills need to have some number of barrels on hand just to brew things in, and those barrels need to be swapped out periodically, dwarves with preferences for booze brewed in barrels of certain materials, hipster dwarves who only drink dwarfish microbrews etc...

6) Probably beyond the scope of a food rework, but historically booze has been a preferred beverage because plain water was unsafe to drink. Something with diseases in certain biomes would be interesting, and add an additional penalty for running out of booze.

7) Skin/Hair Care. What's the point in having all these new nuts if my dwarves can't massage the oils into their lustrous beards?

1.  Yes I want.  Badly. 

2.  I've been wanting bread for quite a while.  Flour already partially has this in not being able to be cooked right away, but yeah.  Having that flour have a bread option instead of just biscuits...

3.  Yep.

4.  Not -really- necessary IMO, but maybe wines could have a bit of 'flair' like coins do.

5.  Hops aren't really necessary aside from changing the flavor, so that would be more of a recipe thing.  Wines also don't need the water inclusion somuch. (at least, not as much, you could use buckets or w/e.) But grain alcohol should need a sizeable water source (maybe over a water tile like magma forges need)  As a thought, to do so split the sill (which would need the water source.) and a winery (which wouldn't) 

6.  Maybe an option / building to water down alcohol in order to give greater quantities of save drinking supplies at the expense of quality / worth?  As an alternate point, underground water sources and aquifer water should generally be safe to drink, as should brooks (since they are near the original source - generally an aquifer or glacier melt, both which are normally safe to drink.)

7.  So very true.  Though this should wait till dwarves drink from mugs, actually play music, and children play with toys, in my opinion.

[GavJ]

Just FYI, most of these can be modded. (Incidentally, I am planning to do most of them when I understand plants a bit more in the new version and things have settled down.) I'm not saying that's a reason for Toady not to consider them. Just letting you know that you don't have to wait around for all of these necessarily. Anyway:

(1) Preservation at the very least should definitely be in the default game.
(6) Also absolutely occasionally diseased water should be in the default game. This is actually much easier than a food rework - Toady would just had to add some extra types of contaminants to natural water bodies with procedurally generated syndromes. Which he already has coded for weird rain in terrifying biomes, and he also has contaminants coded in water (mud, salt, etc.). However, it is a myth that nobody drank water in the middle ages, or that doing so is just always dangerous or whatever. People who could afford it would drink beer more often, but it was simply too expensive for everybody to. It would probably be most realistic to have coin flips for which water sources in game are considered contaminated, with higher likelihoods for downstream and for standing water. Possibly ALSO a coin flip for every drink. So for instance, something like "Stangant water = 100% contaminated. Brooks = 25%, rivers 75%. Aquifers can still pass salt and maybe toxins or even viruses depending on how porous the rock is, so maybe 20%? Whatever, something like that.  Then also like 1-2% per drink on top of that (sometimes a random animal dies or something upstream now and then). This would model reality pretty well, with poor desperate people able to get by, but it being best to have preservable drinks, and some areas simply being contaminated, period.
(5) Yes, it should require water as an ingredient. Really most things in the game should require water... though if so there would need to be a much better system in place for making water reactions way less annoying. How about: either a bucket of water in the reaction OR you can build it over a water source and not need it, just like magma forges work?


(4) Yeah probably would be nice. This one is completely trivial to modify yourself, though. Just go into the "plants_standard" and "plants_garden" etc. raws and find the "alcohol" material definitions, which will include the name of the booze. You can just write in whatever else you want, and have your turnip vodka and whatnot.

Random other comments:
-- Hops are not just for flavor, or even mainly for flavor. They were originally used for their strong preservative qualities, considering that "small beer" was only a couple of percent alcohol at most, which wasn't enough to guarantee clean long term storable drink by itself. 1-2% alcohol + hops is much more stable.  Wines and spirits would not require these additional preservatives.
--Stills seem like they should require fuel as well, at least for some things, maybe all (possibly even magma stills as an option. Seriously). Even for just beers, you generally boil the wort prior to actually beginning fermentation, whether wild or cultured yeast are used, at least in modern times. And definitely, of course, distilled things.  For wine and for medieval beer, I don't know if they actually boiled prior to fermenting or not. Might be worth looking up.

[therahedwig]

Actually, a part of this ties back to the old idea of room-based workshops: Basically you would define a work-shop with a zone like a hospital. Then the abilities of the workshop, and it's capacity are based on the tools you put in.
So, with a still, you could put in a well for in-stand water, or have the dwarves drag it there.

For wine you'd need a fruit-press and for spirits you might need a distillery-set.
That would also bring the player to making some starter choices: Put in effort to get a fruit-press early on, or put in a well? Maybe different civs have different preferences, so one dwarven civ lets you embark with a fruit-press and the other with equipment for a well.

[Evaris]

Just FYI, most of these can be modded. (Incidentally, I am planning to do most of them when I understand plants a bit more in the new version and things have settled down.) I'm not saying that's a reason for Toady not to consider them. Just letting you know that you don't have to wait around for all of these necessarily. Anyway:

(1) Preservation at the very least should definitely be in the default game.
(6) Also absolutely occasionally diseased water should be in the default game. This is actually much easier than a food rework - Toady would just had to add some extra types of contaminants to natural water bodies with procedurally generated syndromes. Which he already has coded for weird rain in terrifying biomes, and he also has contaminants coded in water (mud, salt, etc.). However, it is a myth that nobody drank water in the middle ages, or that doing so is just always dangerous or whatever. People who could afford it would drink beer more often, but it was simply too expensive for everybody to. It would probably be most realistic to have coin flips for which water sources in game are considered contaminated, with higher likelihoods for downstream and for standing water. Possibly ALSO a coin flip for every drink. So for instance, something like "Stangant water = 100% contaminated. Brooks = 25%, rivers 75%. Aquifers can still pass salt and maybe toxins or even viruses depending on how porous the rock is, so maybe 20%? Whatever, something like that.  Then also like 1-2% per drink on top of that (sometimes a random animal dies or something upstream now and then). This would model reality pretty well, with poor desperate people able to get by, but it being best to have preservable drinks, and some areas simply being contaminated, period.
(5) Yes, it should require water as an ingredient. Really most things in the game should require water... though if so there would need to be a much better system in place for making water reactions way less annoying. How about: either a bucket of water in the reaction OR you can build it over a water source and not need it, just like magma forges work?


(4) Yeah probably would be nice. This one is completely trivial to modify yourself, though. Just go into the "plants_standard" and "plants_garden" etc. raws and find the "alcohol" material definitions, which will include the name of the booze. You can just write in whatever else you want, and have your turnip vodka and whatnot.

Random other comments:
-- Hops are not just for flavor, or even mainly for flavor. They were originally used for their strong preservative qualities, considering that "small beer" was only a couple of percent alcohol at most, which wasn't enough to guarantee clean long term storable drink by itself. 1-2% alcohol + hops is much more stable.  Wines and spirits would not require these additional preservatives.
--Stills seem like they should require fuel as well, at least for some things, maybe all (possibly even magma stills as an option. Seriously). Even for just beers, you generally boil the wort prior to actually beginning fermentation, whether wild or cultured yeast are used, at least in modern times. And definitely, of course, distilled things.  For wine and for medieval beer, I don't know if they actually boiled prior to fermenting or not. Might be worth looking up.

On 6:
I'd say the values are a bit high there.  If brook waters were that contaminated, bottled spring water would not be anywhere as popular as it is. 
On Aquifers - unless you are near an ocean, salt content in aquifers will in most every case be comparable to that in rivers - namely being a non-issue.  Furthermore given the natural filtration of sand, it is quite rare for dangerous microorganisms to be present.  Most cases of poor aquifer water come from heavy metals. 

In general however things dying nearby upstream, and especially on the map, would temporarily contaminate a river or brook.  Or if near a well, would contaminate that specific well, and maybe the aquifer in a 3-5 tile radius of it. 

All this however should also come with some option to boil water for safety, as well as the dorfy solution of having a aqueduct run over magma to sterilize the water.  (though this would not prevent heavy water from being well, heavy.) 

[Astarch]

Just FYI, most of these can be modded. (Incidentally, I am planning to do most of them when I understand plants a bit more in the new version and things have settled down.) I'm not saying that's a reason for Toady not to consider them. Just letting you know that you don't have to wait around for all of these necessarily. Anyway:

(1) Preservation at the very least should definitely be in the default game.
(6) Also absolutely occasionally diseased water should be in the default game. This is actually much easier than a food rework - Toady would just had to add some extra types of contaminants to natural water bodies with procedurally generated syndromes. Which he already has coded for weird rain in terrifying biomes, and he also has contaminants coded in water (mud, salt, etc.). However, it is a myth that nobody drank water in the middle ages, or that doing so is just always dangerous or whatever. People who could afford it would drink beer more often, but it was simply too expensive for everybody to. It would probably be most realistic to have coin flips for which water sources in game are considered contaminated, with higher likelihoods for downstream and for standing water. Possibly ALSO a coin flip for every drink. So for instance, something like "Stangant water = 100% contaminated. Brooks = 25%, rivers 75%. Aquifers can still pass salt and maybe toxins or even viruses depending on how porous the rock is, so maybe 20%? Whatever, something like that.  Then also like 1-2% per drink on top of that (sometimes a random animal dies or something upstream now and then). This would model reality pretty well, with poor desperate people able to get by, but it being best to have preservable drinks, and some areas simply being contaminated, period.
(5) Yes, it should require water as an ingredient. Really most things in the game should require water... though if so there would need to be a much better system in place for making water reactions way less annoying. How about: either a bucket of water in the reaction OR you can build it over a water source and not need it, just like magma forges work?


(4) Yeah probably would be nice. This one is completely trivial to modify yourself, though. Just go into the "plants_standard" and "plants_garden" etc. raws and find the "alcohol" material definitions, which will include the name of the booze. You can just write in whatever else you want, and have your turnip vodka and whatnot.

Random other comments:
-- Hops are not just for flavor, or even mainly for flavor. They were originally used for their strong preservative qualities, considering that "small beer" was only a couple of percent alcohol at most, which wasn't enough to guarantee clean long term storable drink by itself. 1-2% alcohol + hops is much more stable.  Wines and spirits would not require these additional preservatives.
--Stills seem like they should require fuel as well, at least for some things, maybe all (possibly even magma stills as an option. Seriously). Even for just beers, you generally boil the wort prior to actually beginning fermentation, whether wild or cultured yeast are used, at least in modern times. And definitely, of course, distilled things.  For wine and for medieval beer, I don't know if they actually boiled prior to fermenting or not. Might be worth looking up.

4) Yeah, I'm actually doing this right now. Just because a change is trivial to mod in doesn't mean it shouldn't be added to the main game though.

Some of this can be modded in the current game, but only to an extent. I can make a workshop that combines the correct ingredients to produce bread or mayonnaise or whatever, but I won't be able to have my dwarves use those items correctly.

[Astarch]

Something else I forgot to put in: Portion sizes. It's pretty weird that a dwarf gets as much sustenance from a single artichoke heart as they do from a dragon roast.

[samanato]

Distilled spirits are actually something I'm working on in my mod (it gives temporary mental stat bonuses to dwarves).  It would obviously have to be produced in more limited quantity, as you're boiling away much of the liquid, and would also require fuel or magma. (Though technically, kitchens should need a fuel-source too)  Putting fire and alcohol near each other also seems like a recipe for !!FUN!!, as are going blind from booze produced by unskilled distillers, though you can't mod in the latter one yet.

It would be an interesting idea for drinks to have quality like food, so that say, ≡whip wine≡ would be luxurious fine wine compared to what the peasants drink.  This would have to come only when the economy is totally reworked though.

[samanato]

Something else I forgot to put in: Portion sizes. It's pretty weird that a dwarf gets as much sustenance from a single artichoke heart as they do from a dragon roast.

Something related to this that I've thought was nutrition. At present are all food items treated the same, which is why living off cavern mushrooms makes dwarves just as healthy as living off forgotten beast intestines.  It would be interesting to give further benefits to having a diverse diet — and likewise, malnutrition in the opposite extreme. It would also create a greater importance on grain plants like cave-wheat and rock-nuts (as a source of protein)

Another issue that I notice is the very frequent problem of food-production being too abundant for this time-period.  That whole "perpetual Holodomor-scale famine" trope of mediaeval fantasy isn't that realistic either, but at present are crops always successful (only quantity gets affected, and that in turn is only affected by skill) and most importantly, things grow way too fast.  More realistic growing times alone would go a long way to salving that problem, possibly with reworking threshing reactions (another thing that's missing from things like wheat).  Again, reworking growing seasons is perfectly doable with modding, and as for things like crop-failure that isn't, I believe Toady mentioned implementing things like weeds and locusts later on.

[Astarch]

I think a nutrition implementation might add too much micromanagement to be feasible.

Lack of any real scarcity is a problem, having vermin and grazers go after crops might help a little, but dwarf farms are able to be placed in much safer locations that real world farms so I dunno how much toady can realistically do in that area.

[GavJ]

On 6:
I'd say the values are a bit high there.  If brook waters were that contaminated, bottled spring water would not be anywhere as popular as it is. 

To be clear on what i meant:

A brook itself would have a 25% chance of being contaminated. As in 1/4 of brookes would be always contaminated, and 3/4 would always be clean. Not per-drink.  Then on top of that, a small 1-2% that *IS* per-drink to simulate random events like animals dying in a brook or whatever.

So your mountain spring water companies would simply choose the clean brooks to set up business at, that's all.

More realistic growing times alone would go a long way to salving that problem, possibly with reworking threshing reactions (another thing that's missing from things like wheat).  Again, reworking growing seasons is perfectly doable with modding

Keep in mind that simply reworking crops is useless on its own, though. If you make them too hard to grow, people will just make meat-only forts. You have to balance all food sources roughly equally if you want to make them harder, which requires more coding and is more difficult to mod.

Meat, fish, eggs, plants, cheese... all must be equally difficult.

[Deboche]

I like these ideas. Nobles would demand better foods like cakes, elaborate roasts and rare and expensive spices.

These things could also be used when inns are introduced to coerce merchants and diplomats. And those hipster dwarves will have to pay good coin for their favourite foods when economy is introduced.

How about soups and regional(procedurally generated) delicacies?

[Scruiser]

Something else I forgot to put in: Portion sizes. It's pretty weird that a dwarf gets as much sustenance from a single artichoke heart as they do from a dragon roast.

Something related to this that I've thought was nutrition. At present are all food items treated the same, which is why living off cavern mushrooms makes dwarves just as healthy as living off forgotten beast intestines.  It would be interesting to give further benefits to having a diverse diet — and likewise, malnutrition in the opposite extreme. It would also create a greater importance on grain plants like cave-wheat and rock-nuts (as a source of protein)

Another issue that I notice is the very frequent problem of food-production being too abundant for this time-period.  That whole "perpetual Holodomor-scale famine" trope of mediaeval fantasy isn't that realistic either, but at present are crops always successful (only quantity gets affected, and that in turn is only affected by skill) and most importantly, things grow way too fast.  More realistic growing times alone would go a long way to salving that problem, possibly with reworking threshing reactions (another thing that's missing from things like wheat).  Again, reworking growing seasons is perfectly doable with modding, and as for things like crop-failure that isn't, I believe Toady mentioned implementing things like weeds and locusts later on.

Faster but more frequent meals would help balance the easy food supply production. 
Idea for nutrition system:  Tags for [FOOD_TASTE:number], [FOOD_CALORIE:number], [FOOD_PROTEIN:number], [FOOD_MINERAL:number], [FOOD_VITAMIN:number] (maybe mineral and vitamin should be one tag like FOOD_NUTRIENT).  Calories determine how hungry the dwarf gets before its next meal (0 calorie meal leaving dwarf hungry but unable to eat), protein gives certain bonuses to healing/stamina/strength in high levels and gives penalties in low level, minerals and vitamins are needed for health, taste determines how much the dwarf likes the meal (absent likes and dislikes).  Cooking gives stats that are at most the higher of the values of the ingredients, and at least the lower of the values.  Recipes and intermediate food would go from interesting flavor to an important way of enforcing a balanced diet.  For example, by selecting recipes the player makes a soup requiring one meat (for protein and calories), one vegetable (for vitamins and calories), salt (for minerals) and spices (for taste).  Ideally, realism allowing, calories and taste would be the dwarfs and players first priority, followed by protein, minerals and vitamins should be just important enough for the player to be able to get through the first year, or a difficult year without worrying about them but essential for the long-term health of the dwarfs.