System to implement Soup -> (Umami)

[sakiji]

Porridge should be a thing, yes. The question perhaps being how soups and whatnot should be handled.

Originally just wanted to reply in another thread, but thought it might deserve its own topic, despite similar having been made, as they lack ways of implementation.

• Soups accept all kinds of crops, foragables, meat and fish.
• Crafting soup is done in a cauldron, you add water and the ingredients up to 9 (with 9 cauldron slots), and press "make soup" on the cauldron interface, to differentiate it from regularing cooking/crafting.
  
  • Could also provide new utility variations, like a large soup cauldron, providing a few more slots for ingredients (or just liquid) and a smaller traditional medieval soup cauldron, hanging from a suspension rack, and can be utilized by simply placing it ontop of a fire or fireplace making it quicker to use (4-6 slots).
• For FEP-Boni stats of all ingredients will at first be summed up and flattened down, possibly only the top 3-4 stats remain, penalty will be applied on using the same ingredients.
• Soup dillution - how many ingredients are used for how much liquid?
  
  • You can dillute a few tubers into a 30 liter pot soup to feed the workers, satiating a bit of their hunger and giving them energy to work again, but don't expect sustained bodily improvements from it (low cost, large mass, low FEP food to fill energy for building projects, as commonly suggested before for soup utility)
  • A lot of ingredients, little liquid, basically a stew. -More hunger satiated, more FEP gain, but less servings, more similar to other crafted foods.
• Each food resource will have a certain amount of "Umami" value assigned to it (or lack it).
  
  • Umami is a "savory" reaction that occurs when foods containing a mix of glutamate (most food), inosinate (meat/seafood) and guanylate (vegetables/mushrooms, often dried/fermented beforehand) comes into contact with salt or potassium.
• Now here we have mutltiple options to work with these values:
  
  • #1 A simple multiplicator on FEP gains. -If you want more soup you will need to find more variation in ingredients with high umami, otherwise go with less liquid and ingredients.
  • #2 Puzzle matching umami foods, a glutamate ingredient needs to be matched with either a inosinate or guanylate ingredient, only relevant matching pairs get their FEP boosted, this would allow for less popular stats like psyche to be boosted by smart matching.
    - Could also be used to alleviate penalty on same ingredients, i.e. matching wheat(glutamate) with pork(inosinate) and another portion wheat(glutamate) with a carrot(glutamate/guanylate) so dishes can center around some easy basic foods when variety is lacking
  • #3 Critical multiplier, upgrading FEP to +2 when some thresholds are reached - not unlike the new variable ingredient system, infact the whole umami harmony might be quite similar to it.
  • #4 (#2 & #3 combo) Glutamate x Inosinate = FEP bonus, Glutamate x Guanylate FEP+2 upgrades
  • #5 Less hunger filled, no FEP changes - Because it tastes so good you don't want to stop eating.(unrealistic)
• In reality salt is needed to trigger the umami reaction, could also be a necessity in game to balance the additional bonuses you (may) get, and gives salt a more advanced purpose (with a hint of gamble in it, as it's a rare resource you wouldn't want your ingredient harmony to fail.)

As I don't know how the new variable ingredient system works currently (simply randomization? Sub-components and harmonies? Manual tweaking??) it's hard to make connections, but in theory it could belong to more or less the same system, ingredients could not only have positive multiplicators (like umami) but also negative relations (like most fruits with most vegetables)

Umami values probably shouldn't be displayed, so it requires a lot of experimentation and going with your gut feeling.
With 9 (or more) possible ingredient slots people would probably try to gravitate more to local optima recipes they found instead of looking for the global optimum, most efficient cheapest food (like cheese and wurstmaking).
Though when need be and near exploitative recipes have been found umami values of single ingredients could still be nerfed for balance.

Most traditional main dishes that have developed in cultures around the world are harmonies of umami ingredients

More eloborate info on umami and ingredients:
http://www.umamiinfo.com
Mini Foodchart

Umami is, if anything, a fringe benefit of civilization. Cooking, curing, and fermentation all unleash waves of umami—supercharging many other flavors in the bargain. There’s far more umami in our diets than in those of early humans, or even diets just prior to the birth of civilization, which is when people began making fermented foods in a systematic way. This was fantastic for early connoisseurs: These new foods were, as a whole, many times better-tasting than stuff their immediate hunter-gatherer predecessors could whip up. Now, 12,000 years later, we’ve entered a new and still richer stage of umami immersion.

For some ingredients research might be missing, and to make it a more game-y feature some artistic license should probably be taken.

Got some different viewpoints, ideas or critique?
Because it's always a tricky subject when multiplication happens on semi random things.

[jorb]

Thank you for the effort post! Definitely agree that we can do similar things for an involved soup system!

[MinionTwo]

this idea has great potential! the one issue that realy jumps out at me is salt. people kill for it now(or so i'm told). I do have a potential fix for this. rename salt as it is now to Pure Salt. then you could add a method of deriving salt from water(no oceanic type bodies of water make this iffy?), or make a salt bearing stone that you have to process somehow. I could see being able to mine out salt crystals that have to be ground up, or maybe take that salt bearing stone and boil it in a cauldron and like the smelting mechanic you either get a rock or a salt crystal. the crystal can then be placed into a pepper mill to grind on your food, or ground in a quern to be used in other cooking.