Difference between revisions of "Pemmican"

Revision as of 01:25, 2 February 2023

Pemmican is a low-tech long-lasting food, ideal for caravan trips.

Acquisition

Pemmican can be cooked at a Campfire, Fueled stove, or Electric stove once the Pemmican research project has been completed. There is no Cooking skill requirement, though it does use the cooking skill.

Each batch of 16 requires a mixture of 0.25 nutrition from meat and 0.25 nutrition from vegetables and 700 ticks (11.67 secs) of work. Alternatively, pemmican can be made in batches of 64 at the cost of 1 nutrition of each type and 2,800 ticks (46.67 secs) of work. Campfires have a ×50% work speed multiplier; it takes twice as long to cook pemmican at a campfire.

It can also be purchased from traders, or occasionally recovered from tribal raiders.

Summary

Unlike most cooked meals, each unit of pemmican is worth 0.05 nutrition. 18 units of pemmican are as filling as a single simple meal, fine meal, or packaged survival meal (which all worth 0.9 nutrition per item).

As you get 16 pemmican for 10 units of raw food, pemmican has a nutrition efficiency of 160%.

Benefits of discrete nutrition

Pawns will eat just before they become hungry. With larger meals, this can result in a significant amount of overeating.

Simple meals and fine meals give 0.9 nutrition per meal. Humans can store up to 1.0 nutrition, but will try to eat when they have around 0.25 nutrition in their stomach. Therefore, under normal circumstances, colonists will waste 0.15 nutrition for every meal. So while simple / fine meals have a superior nutrition efficiency (180%), this often ends up being wasted by overeating.
In contrast, each unit of pemmican is only 0.05 nutrition. Pawns will take the pemmican they need. At 0.25 hunger, they'll bringing 0.75 - 0.80 nutrition of pemmican rather than a full 0.9 nutrition meal. This results in a much lower rate of overeating - a maximum of 0.05 nutrition per meal is lost.

Smaller animals will overeat more. Chickens only have capacity for 0.30 nutrition, so making full meals for your coop is a waste.

Discrete nutrition is also helpful when pawns undergo frequent vomiting. Food poisoning will slow eating speed, and if they vomit, the entire meal is interrupted. With pemmican, pawns will consume each unit of pemmican separately. So when a pawn vomits, they won't lose progress for the entire meal.

Analysis

Pemmican's main purpose is to preserve food. This is useful for two independent purposes.

New Tribes start with Pemmican researched, but lack the ability to freeze food. Pemmican can be used to preserve meat and other perishables like berries before they spoil.

Most food crops last a long time, even without pemmican. Rice takes 40 days to spoil, while corn takes 60 days to spoil. By the time they rot, you would've had the time to harvest multiple other batches of crops. Most likely, if you let rice rot, then you didn't need to grow that rice in the first place. (However, pemmican requires a vegetarian ingredient. It's fine to use rice to preserve your meat.)

Caravans. Most cooked meals only last for a few days, so pemmican can be used for long trips on the road. Pemmican faces direct competition with packaged survival meals, which New Arrivals can research for the exact same cost as the pemmican research. An in-depth comparison can be viewed below.

As pemmican takes a long time to create, it is not recommended for "usual" daily consumption. If food storage isn't an issue, then simple meals or fine meals should be made instead, as they are quicker to prepare.

Comparison to PSMs

The packaged survival meal serves a very similar purpose to pemmican. They are both foods that can last for a long time.

Pemmican is more nutritious than packaged meals (160% vs 150% nutrition efficiency). In addition, pawns won't overeat with pemmican nearly as much, as described in the summary section. Finally, pemmican is roughly +8% better for weight, a small but relevant bonus for any sort of caravan trip.

The most apparent advantage of packed survival meals is that they last forever. They never spoil, but pemmican spoils in 70 days. However, the actual use of this is questionable. Unless you are playing with 100% coverage, even the Ship to the Stars is unlikely to last more than a RimWorld year. During the journey, you'll likely be able to trade for food, using silver, gold, or any other material. Silver never spoils. Finally, you can settle on a new, temporary colony to restore your food reserves, which is useful if the journey would last more than a year.

PSMs have a few other advantages. They are drastically more efficient in storage space - storing ×240% nutrition / tile when compared to pemmican. PSMS also require ×60% the work to make.

Gallery

One pemmican meal
Partial stack
Full stack

Food

Meals: Chocolate • Fine meal (Carnivore, Vegetarian) • Kibble • Lavish meal (Carnivore, Vegetarian) • Nutrient paste meal • Packaged survival meal • Pemmican • Simple meal • Baby food
Raw food - Animal: Meat (Human, Insect) • Insect jelly • Milk • Hemogen pack
Raw food - Eggs: Cassowary egg (fert.) • Chicken egg (fert., unfert.) • Cobra egg (fert.) • Duck egg (fert., unfert.) • Emu egg (fert.) • Goose egg (fert., unfert.) • Iguana egg (fert.) • Ostrich egg (fert.) • Tortoise egg (fert.) • Turkey egg (fert.)
Raw food - Vegetarian: Agave fruit • Berries • Corn • Hay • Potatoes • Raw fungus • Rice • Toxipotatoes

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-{{rewrite|reason=Cleanup, expansion, possibly summary.}}
 {{Infobox main|food
 | name = Pemmican
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 | use hit points = true
 }}
-{{Info|'''Pemmican''' is a low-tech long-lasting food, ideal for [[caravan]] trips. It is produced from 0.25 nutrition each of meat and vegetables (0.5 total), producing 16 pemmican with 0.05 nutrition each, for 0.8 nutrition total. No Cooking skill is required.}}
+'''Pemmican''' is a low-tech long-lasting food, ideal for [[caravan]] trips.
-Pemmican will [[deteriorate]] when left outside.
+== Acquisition ==
+Pemmican can be [[Work#Cook|cooked]] at a [[{{P|Production Facility 1}}]], [[{{P|Production Facility 2}}]], or [[{{P|Production Facility 3}}]] once the [[Research#{{P|Required Research}}|{{P|Required Research}}]] research project has been completed.  There is no [[Cooking]] skill requirement, though it does use the cooking skill.
+Each batch of {{P|Product Amount}} requires a mixture of 0.25 nutrition from meat and 0.25 nutrition from vegetables and {{Ticks|{{P|Work To Make}}}} of work. Alternatively, pemmican can be made in batches of 64 at the cost of 1 nutrition of each type and {{ticks|2800}} of work. [[Campfire]]s have a {{Bad|x50%}} work speed multiplier; it takes twice as long to cook pemmican at a campfire.
+It can also be purchased from [[trade]]rs, or occasionally recovered from [[tribal]] [[raider]]s.
+==Summary==
+Unlike most [[meals|cooked meal]]s, each unit of pemmican is worth 0.05 nutrition. 18 units of pemmican are as filling as a single [[simple meal]], [[fine meal]], or [[packaged survival meal]] (which all worth 0.9 nutrition per item).
-== Acquisition ==
+As you get 16 pemmican for 10 units of [[raw food]], pemmican has a nutrition efficiency of 160%.
-Pemmican can be [[Work#Cook|cooked]] at a [[{{P|Production Facility 1}}]], [[{{P|Production Facility 2}}]], or [[{{P|Production Facility 3}}]] once the [[Research#{{P|Required Research}}|{{P|Required Research}}]] research project has been completed. Each batch of {{P|Product Amount}} requires a mixture of 0.25 nutrition from meat and 0.25 nutrition from vegetables and {{Ticks|{{P|Work To Make}}}} of work. Alternatively, it can be made in batches of 64 at the cost of 1 nutrition of each type and {{ticks|2800}} of work.
+=== Benefits of discrete nutrition ===
+Pawns will eat just before they become [[Saturation#Levels of Saturation|hungry]]. With larger meals, this can result in a significant amount of overeating.
-There is no [[Cooking]] skill requirement, although it does increase that skill.
+* [[Simple meal]]s and [[fine meal]]s give 0.9 nutrition per meal. Humans can store up to 1.0 nutrition, but will try to eat when they have around 0.25 nutrition in their stomach. Therefore, under normal circumstances, colonists will waste 0.15 nutrition for every meal. So while simple / fine meals have a superior nutrition efficiency (180%), this often ends up being wasted by overeating.
+* In contrast, each unit of pemmican is only 0.05 nutrition. Pawns will take the pemmican they need. At 0.25 hunger, they'll bringing 0.75 - 0.80 nutrition of pemmican rather than a full 0.9 nutrition meal. This results in a much lower rate of overeating - a ''maximum'' of 0.05 nutrition per meal is lost.
+Smaller [[animal]]s will overeat more. [[Chicken]]s only have capacity for 0.30 nutrition, so making full meals for your coop is a waste.
-It can also be purchased from [[trade]]rs, or occasionally recovered from [[tribal]] [[raider]]s.
+Discrete nutrition is also helpful when pawns undergo frequent vomiting. [[Food poisoning]] will slow eating speed, and if they vomit, the entire meal is interrupted. With pemmican, pawns will consume each unit of pemmican separately. So when a pawn vomits, they won't lose progress for the entire meal.
 == Analysis ==
-Producing pemmican takes 0.5 units of nutrition in ingredients and yields 0.8 units of nutrition as a result - a 60% net nutrition gain. Up to 20 can be consumed in one sitting.
+Pemmican's main purpose is to preserve food. This is useful for two independent purposes.
+* [[New Tribe]]s start with Pemmican researched, but lack the ability to [[cooler|freeze]] food. Pemmican can be used to preserve [[meat]] and other perishables like [[berries]] before they spoil.
-Pemmican requires the [[Research#Pemmican|pemmican research]]; [[Scenario_system#New Tribe vs New Arrivals|New Tribe]] colonies start with it, but New Arrivals need to research it before it can be produced. It thus can be very useful for long-term food storage as a tribal before you get freezers, as it lasts 70 days unrefrigerated before rotting, has no minimum Cooking requirement, and you start with the technology already researched. For New Arrival colonies, the immediate availability of [[cooler]]s makes this less useful for food storage, and given the need to research it, and the fact that the research required for pemmican and [[packaged survival meal]]s is identical for New Arrivals, there is little reason to use it.
+:Most food [[crop]]s last a long time, even without pemmican. [[Rice]] takes 40 days to spoil, while [[corn]] takes 60 days to spoil. By the time they rot, you would've had the time to harvest multiple other batches of crops. Most likely, if you let rice rot, then you didn't need to grow that rice in the first place. (However, pemmican requires a vegetarian ingredient. It's fine to use rice to preserve your meat.)
-=== Comparisons ===
+* [[Caravan]]s. Most cooked meals only last for a few days, so pemmican can be used for long trips on the road. Pemmican faces direct competition with [[packaged survival meal]]s, which [[New Arrivals]] can research for the ''exact same cost'' as the pemmican research. An in-depth comparison can be viewed below.
-; Pemmican vs. a Fine Meal:
-* The exact same ingredients (both .25 meat + .25 vegetables)
-* Pemmican takes 50% more work to produce (12 vs. 8)
-* A fine meal provides ~11% more nutrition (0.9 vs. 0.8)
-* A fine meal provides a +5 [[mood]] boost
-* A fine meal spoils ''much'' faster (4 days vs. 70 days)
-* A fine meal can store more nutrition in a full stack (9 vs 3.75)
-* A fine meal has a lower nutrition density ({{#expr:{{Q|Fine meal|Nutrition}}/{{Q|Fine meal|Mass Base}} round 3}} vs {{#expr:{{P|Nutrition}}/{{P|Mass Base}} round 3}}), meaning pemmican gives you more nutrition for the same weight (for [[caravan]]s)
-* Pemmican gives ''exactly'' the amount of nutrition needed, while (any) meals have a potential for "waste" (see next)
-; Pemmican vs. a Packaged survival meal:
+As pemmican takes a long time to create, it is not recommended for "usual" daily consumption. If food storage isn't an issue, then [[simple meal]]s or [[fine meal]]s should be made instead, as they are quicker to prepare.
-* Packaged survival meals have slightly worse nutrition per ingredient (50% vs. 60%)
-* Packaged survival meals do not have the nutritional flexibility that pemmican has, only offering a single chunk of .9 nutrition vs. the precise .05 bites of pemmican. See [[#Benefits of discrete nutrition|below]] for details.
-* Packaged survival meals are ''slightly'' more efficient in terms of carry weight (3 nutrition/kg vs. 2.78 nutrition/kg, or ~8% more/kg carried).
-* Packaged survival meals are drastically more efficient in storage space (9 nutrition/stack vs. 3.75 nutrition/stack).
-* Packaged survival meals require 1/3 less work to make (8 vs. 12).
-* Packaged survival meals never expire, while pemmican expires after 70 days if not refrigerated or frozen.
-* Packaged survival meals are slightly less valuable in terms of wealth (0.038 nutrition/$ vs. 0.036 nutrition/$).
-=== Benefits of discrete nutrition ===
+=== Comparison to PSMs ===
-While pemmican technically has a lower net nutrition gain than fine / simple meals, it is slightly more efficient while eating. Colonists try to eat just before actually getting [[Saturation#Levels of Saturation|hungry]], so they will typically eat at about 0.7-0.8 hunger. A set meal restores a fixed 0.9 nutrition in one single piece, so a pawn will often waste about 15% of it. Because pemmican comes in smaller pieces, colonists will take only as much as they need, and on average only waste about 2.5% while eating. These differences are small and nearly cancel each other out, but may be important/interesting to some players. It can also be relevant when feeding animals - small animals can waste a large amount of the nutrition of a meal, making pemmican (or [[kibble]], which works the same) an ideal option for feeding them high nutritional efficiency food.
+The [[packaged survival meal]] serves a very similar purpose to pemmican. They are both foods that can last for a long time.
+Pemmican is more nutritious than packaged meals (160% vs 150% nutrition efficiency). In addition, pawns won't overeat with pemmican nearly as much, as described in the [[#Benefits of discrete nutrition|summary]] section. Finally, pemmican is roughly {{+|8%}} better for weight, a small but relevant bonus for any sort of caravan trip.
+The most apparent advantage of packed survival meals is that they last ''forever''. They never spoil, but pemmican spoils in 70 days. However, the actual use of this is questionable. Unless you are playing with 100% coverage, even the [[Ship to the Stars]] is unlikely to last more than a RimWorld year. During the journey, you'll likely be able to [[trade]] for food, using [[silver]], [[gold]], or any other material. Silver never spoils. Finally, you can settle on a new, temporary colony to restore your food reserves, which is useful if the journey would last more than a year.
-This technique can also prove beneficial when a colonist is affected by an [[ailment]] or [[disease]] which causes frequent vomiting, such as [[food poisoning]] or [[gut worms]]. Vomiting interrupts the process of eating a full meal, but a colonist can quickly down a few bites of pemmican between "attacks", and so more easily avoid [[malnutrition]].
+PSMs have a few other advantages. They are drastically more efficient in storage space - storing {{Good|x240%}} nutrition / tile when compared to pemmican. PSMS also require {{Good|x60%}} the work to make.
 == Gallery ==