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Better Food Conservation

Enhancing food conservation gameplay through meaningful recipes and crafting mechanics combining farming and cooking skills.



This mod comes from a discussion with a few friends while we were playing through a run. We realized that, with someone focusing on cooking and farming at the main base of a survivor group, the possibilities and gameplay mechanics were a bit limited. After a bit of brainstorming, I had the idea, thinking of my grand-parents, to use old ceramic pots they were using to make Sauerkraut as a way to add a similar mechanic as the jars. This also became a way to make the farming and cooking perks more interesting : you don't only spend your time watching seeds growing, you can also craft clay, cork, clay pots... and level up your skills. You won't feel like a farmer that has forgotten almost every survival skills after a zombie outbreak.

The main goal of the mod is to allow better conservation of the food through recipes, crafting and perks levels. The balancing is done by limiting the access of these recipes behind perks levels.



To create food ceramic pots, you will have to do through several steps.

1. Craft Clay, you'll need dirt and water. No perk level is required, this might be a solution to level up your farming skill.

2. Craft a Clay pot, you'll need 4 clay and water. This recipe requires your farming perk to be a level 3 and cooking at level 1.

3. Cook your clay pot in a oven. Cooking time is pretty long but well... cooking ceramic is long!

4. When the cooking process is done, you got your ceramic pot. Keep it on the side and craft a cork for it. You'll need twigs and a farming level of 1.

5. You now have everything, gather some vegetables, get your ceramic pot, your cork and some water, and you can create your first pot with vegetables. This recipe requires your farming perk to be a level 1 and cooking at level 3.

6. Store it somewhere, it will remain fresh for a whole year.

7. When you're hungry, get your ceramic pot, a knife... open it, and cook something nice for your fellow survivor friends!

TLDR: To craft your first food pot, you'll need to be level 3 farming and cooking. From there you can search for recipes in Cooking and Farming categories of the crafting menu.

Keep in mind that there is two types of pots : tiny and big. You will need to be level up both perks to access big ones.



First, the initial recipes were simple to open the pots. But we thought it would be funnier to make it a bit... more interesting.

Opening a ceramic pot with food in it only requires you to have the pot you want to open and a knife. But! The overall process of opening a pot is based on your cooking perk level and other parameters like :

• Your success rate at opening the pot will be between 95 and 99% under level 6. And even at max level there is always a 1% to break it.
  
• Under level 6, there is an heavy negative modifier if your character is between 60 and 70% fatigue. At level 1 you have less than 50% chance to open it in this case. If you are tired, either sleep before trying to open it or wait to be at least level 3 in cooking (over 75% chance).
  
• With a fatigue over 70% you won't be able to open a pot no matter how high are your cooking or farming perks.
  
• If you fail to open the pot, you might injure yourself. There is a 10% chance to scratch your hand.
  
• If you succeed to open the pot, you might break the cork. The cork might break depending on the age of the pot... at the beginning there is only 15% chance to break it. If the pot is over 310 days old, you will break the cork no matter what.

The mod currently allows creation of pots for : Bell Peppers, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Potatoes, Lettuce, Red Radish, Tomatoes. This will most likely be updated in the future with new recipes and mechanics.


Coding: __MaX__
3D Assets and textures: Fwouedd
Thumbnails / cover art: nitoo
Design, ideas, balancing and tests: __MaX__, Fwouedd, Lirian, Vasquaal, nitoo

A huge thank to the modding community of Project Zomboid. This mod has been made possible thanks to all the awesome resources and mods available.

Workshop ID: 2714223470
Mod ID: ozBfc