Cooking Improvements Update and Patch Notes #58

Disclaimer: This announcement was translated using machine translation. Apologies if some of the terms are incorrect.

Hello everyone!

Another update is here.
This time dealing with improvements to the cooking systems and some related new content.
Mostly quality of life things that we had wanted to implement for a long time!

Before going into the details though, we wanted to take this opportunity to announce that we'll be having a price increase soon, so that those of you that want to get game cheaper can do it now.

Price Increase:

We would like to thank all of our early adopters for supporting our game during this first year of Early Access. It's been quite an adventure and emotional rollercoaster!
We're quite happy with all the progress we've managed together in this past year and how the game is maturing and finding its path. This wouldn't have been possible without all of your feedback and without all the bugs you've helped us find (something that simply wouldn't have been possible for a small team like us).

Starting from the next update (the swamp one) we will be increasing Fantasy Forest's price to reflect our additional year of work and much larger amount of content, as well as to get it a bit closer to its final price.

We still have a long way to go until the game can leave early access (probably around 2 more years) so we hope you'll keep enjoying the journey with us.

The next update will feature the first part of the southern swamps as well as performance improvements. After that we'll release iron working, and then, human NPCs!

And now let's get to the content for this update:

Stew Improvements and the Overboiling System:

Stews, teas and brews now use a new more robust and realistic system. Basically, most edible items will now dissolve into stew if you boil them in water for long enough.
This makes it possible to make stew in bowls and other containers too, but the Cauldron is still the most practical as it has the greatest capacity of all cooking containers.

We've also solved some issues with stews going bland too quickly and made their flavours work more realistically. A few special flavours will now decay slower and will never fully disappear from a stew once they're in (savoury, buttery, sweet).

Teas can now also be made in greater quantities and in any cooking container, but keep in mind that potency is now also relative to liquid thickness.
Important Note: We have currently disabled tea with the new system because of a last minute bug, we will hotfix this tomorrow as soon as we can. ;)

Frying System:

Gone are the days of having to manually heat up and place fat on food items to season them. Fat will now melt into its liquid form when heated and will auto apply to any food items sharing its container, consuming itself in the process.
This system will also be used for oil when we introduce it in the near future.

Barrel Fermenting:

Wines and ales can now be fermented inside Barrels and Sealed Storage Pots which should make the process of making them a lot easier.

Pies:

A new available recipe that acts as a big customizable pastry. Basically you can fill pies with whatever ingredients you want and then bake them. Then you can cut slices out of them and eat them.

Cooking Station Changes:

All cooking and firing stations now work with weight-based inventories (as opposed to slot-based ones). As a result stations now hold more or less items depending on their weight.
Fireplaces for example, can now only hold a single cauldron, but simultaneously, you can now place a lot more food items inside ovens.

Fire Pit:

A new specialized cooking station with twice as much room as the fireplace. It is large enough to hold two cauldrons and is ideal for cooking large quantities of food.
It does come with some disadvantages though, as it is less fuel efficient and can generate a bit of smoke over time.

Container Changes:

We have made all containers weight-based and tweaked their capacities so they can work better with the new overboiling system. As a result of this some of the containers can contain more items than before. The cooking pot for example has 4 times as much capacity as the clay bowl, and the cauldron 4 times as much as the cooking pot.

Version EA_0.63 and hotfixes since the last announcement:

- Wines and ales can now be fermented inside barrels and sealed storage pots.
- Implemented frying system.
- Implemented overboiling system.
- Implemented pies.
- Drying rack can now hold twice as many items.
- Added fire pit.
- Tweaked container and cooker capacities and inventory types.
- Forage actions now take longer if you have a movement penalty.
- Tied boars now have 100% health and keep it when untied.
- Cream no longer drops anything when it spoils.
- Ducks now eat food off the ground just like Partridges do and can be killed by Snare Traps.
- Planting Rye and Wheat Grains in the Garden now shows the proper message.
- Fixed a bug where Bulls were not dropping the right carcasses after starving.
- Added or fixed messages for cow and boar starvation.
- Calf Carcass no longer has boar spirit related magic blueprints.
- Removed outdated interactions with Fire Spirits from the Kiln and Furnace.
- Fixed the trading values for Metal Fishing Hook and Metal Meat Hook.
- Raw Clover no longer gains wetness inside Campfire, Fireplace and Oven.
- Enclosures are now much easier to clean.
- Enclosures are no longer considered indoor locations by the game.
- Enclosure Improvements now unlock only after Enclosure Blueprint is researched.
- Fixed some instances of the game getting stuck when dragging cards around (especially while moving from area to area).

- Fixed the bug with animals not dying and dropping carcasses.
- Fixed the bug that was causing Jars to not be placeable on Shelves.
- Wolf Packs with only 1 Wolf Left in the Pack will now bleed out if they are heavily wounded.
- Fixed a bug that was causing Triggered Traps to speed up carcass spoilage.
- Traps and Triggered Traps are now more consistent with which items they can accept in their inventories.
- Leather Coif is now Dyeable.
- Trout now loses its spirit when you gut it.
- Putting turnroot into stew now gives a tiny bit more calories to make it consistent with how much boiled turnroot gives.
- Eating wild garlic now gives a bit of vegetable saturation.
- Spoon Auger can now be used to create Resin and Sap taps on Birch and Pine Trees in 3 minutes.
- Fixed a bug where the Forest Beast Carcass was showing the wrong art when bleeding.
- Vomiting now removes Stomach Iron.
- Reduced the cost of Deer Spirit Bestial Resilience Spell to make it consistent with the Badger and Boar versions.
- Wind Spirit Summon now gives Alertness Aid just like other sources of Wind Spirit effects do.
- Reduced the amount of eggs required for the Trader Partridge Egg Commission to 15.
- Dry Juniper Needles can now be used to make your Garden Plot soil more acidic.
- Cows now start eating dry fodder and forage on higher satiation levels. They eat the dry fodder in smaller portions and more often than before.
- Fixed a bug where soothing effect was reducing mosquito bites twice.
- Fixed description for Heather Fields description.
- Garden heather plants now lose health on high Hydration.
- Fixed a bug where the Drawknife was wrongly giving a Leatherworking bonus.
- Added Care health recovery bonus to clover and meadowgrass fields.
- Fixed a bug where players would be notified about completion of a non existing quest when crafting a fur coat.
- Soap Blueprint gets unlocked and fully researched if you combine Fat chunks with a clay bowl filled with Lye.
- Wet Soap is now sorted on top of Soap Stacks.
- Added Frost Blessing description.
- Fixed blueprint unlock conditions for cast and forged hunting spear heads.
- Peeling Cattail Roots with a sharp knife now only takes 3 minutes.
- Fixed a bug where traveling south at night from the lake grove could take you all the way to river clearing.
- Fixed a bug which caused heather powder which had highly progressed spoilage to rot instantly when put into a clay jar.
- Damp hollow now uses a Pond Map Icon instead of the lake one.
- Added Rustic Barrel to the Food Filter.
- Fixed a bug where Cabin Fever would sometimes affect stress twice.
- Added Fur Coat description to its blueprint.
- Main Construction Exit can now be renamed.
- Blueprints will now prioritize auto-fill hammering tools which do not lose durability such as Mallet, Forge Hammer and Stone.
- Updated descriptions of Grease Dough and various fillings.
- Added Dairy Saturation to milks, creams, butters and cheeses.
- Fixed partridge egg commission name.
- Fixed a bug where the reason why you cannot do certain actions was not visible (ex: you can't disembowel a carcass when you have too much vessical pressure).
- Fixed a bug where a second trader card with an empty inventory would sometimes appear in the top row.
- Fixed a bug where right-clicking a card in hand or clicking at the top of it would make it disappear into the trader's inventory when inspecting a trader.
- Fixed a bug that caused Cows to ignore dry fodder when players were away.
- Fixed a bug where the Moontouched was sometimes hunting animals in the Spirit World.
- Fixed the sound for drinking milk products and reduced the action duration from 15 to 3 minutes.
- General trader now pays more when buying fairyweed and leather skins, and animal trader now pays more when buying partridge eggs.
- All traders now pay more when buying salt from the player, and they also have some salt in stock.
- Cows happiness has been tweaked (overcrowding has less of an effect and good food has a stronger effect).
- Added a second Partridge to the Forest.
- Fixed a bug where stews would lose flavours when transferred to empty containers.
- Fixed a bug where drag and dropping stew would sometimes get the game stuck.

That's all for now.
See you all for the swamp update! :)

Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there and are likely to undergo balance changes quite frequently! :)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/