Food Decay Experiment (Updated First Result)

[BlGpapa 68]

i read/check the wiki often since i have a account on it and i noticed that change to the meal page.

A common myth is that water, salt, or water plus salt will decrease the decay rate of meals in a barrel, but no real data about this could ever be provided.

i was just that was a proven fact that water and salt decrease the decay rate

so i will do a experiment to see.

4 meal in a barrel

4 in another one with water

4 with water and salt

same quality of meat same ql corn use to make the meal

all meal have a QL of 24

each barrel are made of pinewood and have a QL of 31

i will post the result here and repeat the experiment a couple of time.

Edited September 7, 2012 by BlGpapa

[MrGARY 12,421]

I've done some testing myself, and leaving meals in a forge has noticeably the same decay protection as a barrel, and water/salt didn't seem to really do anything. Maybe I was just unlucky in tests, but I also tried the cooking salt in a meal method, a day later that meal with salt in it had 99 dmg while all the salt-free ones had 0 dmg :/

[BlGpapa 68]

i will do a experiment with salt in the food after this one and will update the wiki with my finding

[Tpikol 1,057]

u should tests meals in coffins or in barrels in coffins too

[GoG 59]

About a year ago I did a similar test which included water barrels, coffins, off deed, mine, just about everything. Results... in forge seemed to last longest overall, salt did seem to slow down decay, but there were occasional anomalies in which it decayed normally. Now this was a year ago, don't know if anything has been changed.

[RomaN 890]

Meals left inside frypans in forges, inside caves appear to last the longest for me.

The longest I have personally witnessed is a meal lasting 3-4 days until receiving damage.

[picommander 13]

Someone told me this "common myth" stems from confusing the storage of fish in a bucket with some water (which should actually work, but I never tested this).

Meals seem to last longer with higher ql btw.

[Wulfgar 1,132]

Doing a test with 4 meals, really?

Try doing it with 100 meals 100 times in a row, and it might actually be worth something. Decay ticks in Wurm are very random.

Here is what I know from experience:

My meals last the longest when left inside the frying pan inside the forge where they were cooked. I have 60 frying pans, and meals last from anywhere between few days to 2 weeks from when they were cooked.

All containers provide the same decay protection, so moving them to a barrel does nothing. Adding water to said barrel does nothing either (the meal doesn't check if there is water in the container before it rolls the decay dice.

Salt only lowers the meals decay rate if cooked inside the meal, and that I haven't cared to test if its really true or has a big enough effect that its worth the salt.

I almost forgot, the reason meals decay the slowest inside the frying pan in the forge is because items take more decay hits if they are stored with many other items, so 100 meals in a barrel will not last as long as 1 x 100 meals in each their container.

[Pryath 181]

Put them in a magical chest and forget the tests

[Torgrim 403]

I think Wulfgar nailed it pretty much. I have 200 fryingpans and I've seen similar results. Leaving the meals in the pans seems best.

Also, if you want to cook as seldom as possible, cook many small meals instead of a few big ones. If you put 100 meals in a barrel at least a few will last more than a week. If you cook just 10 big meals there is 10 times bigger risk you will not have any zero damage food at the end of the week.

But sure, I'm all for the tests anyway. But if you do them, do them on 100 meals at a time, not 4.

[Lily 90]

Out of interest, what is the average quality of the forge and frying pans that you store in? Or is that nor really relevant?

[Gaeron 551]

Its not relevant, I use the 200 pans method too and pans can vary from 15 - 90ql, they effect meal ql not decay.

As a side note when not bothering with hfc runs I make ~15 small meals and drop in a saucepan in the oven, the best ones get opulence cast on them. The opulenced ones do appear to last a bit longer.

[Alyeska 2,621]

Put them in a magical chest and forget the tests

Sadly this fits right in with the "lamps everlit" sort of bugs. People have grown accustomed to this, and likes it how it is - but it's technically unintended (reading the description of a magic chest should hint towards this) - I just hope Rolf learned from the last "bug" he "fixed" like this.

[KaiH 1,126]

Just side notes:

• Salt cooked into the meal does not affect the rate of decay ticks, it simply halves the amount of damage on a 'tick'
  
• Water and meals in the same barrel is just convenient, especially when you are on a mining session - one container to drink and eat from
  

[MetalDragon 1,630]

Weight affects decay rate too i believe.

When i made the 220kg meal, it took about 2 months i think to decay while inside an oven. This was many years ago and decay has been fiddled with since.

[BlGpapa 68]

the first to have decay are

one in the barrel with water 45dmg, one is also missing! does it have rot away completely ???

one in the barrel witth water and salt 45dmg

those in the barrel with nothing are still at 0dmg

i will re do the experiement again with fresh meal

Edited September 7, 2012 by BlGpapa

[Garis 210]

Put them in a magical chest and forget the tests

I never did this because of the description in the wiki:

Description: A large chest that prevents non-food decay while having normal decay itself. It can not be repaired or picked up.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Garis

[Garis 210]

• Water and meals in the same barrel is just convenient, especially when you are on a mining session - one container to drink and eat from
  

I keep telling people this, but nobody ever believes me! If I'm not traveling with a Large Cart, I skip the barrel and use a lunch bucket for this purpose.

[Tristanc 570]

I think it is pretty clear that for storing fish, having water in the barrel helps alot.

Fish without water decays pretty fast.

Perhaps as Picommander had suggested, there was some confusion arising from that and people assumed adding water would slow decay of other foodstuffs/meals as well.

[KalinMenajin 100]

Place meals in frypan inside a coffin. Confirmed to last longer. Even more so if u use a cauldron in a coffin.

Salt had some difference in lifespan when meal is carried in your inventory, but anywhere else it decayed faster than non-salted meal.

Meal in cauldron in coffin took up to 5 days to take dmg.

[Sandyar 526]

We just keep meals in the forge its my partner who do the cooking and even she leaves for a week or more I always have undamaged food to eat. Normal decay rule its only the first container that matter I really doubt it matter if its inside a pan or not. Pig and dogs get the low ql meals now most meals are ql70+.

I have noticed small meals seems to decay faster.

[wagghh 0]

tt

Edit: Errm... not sure how I ended up posting "tt"... *backs slowly away*

Edited October 30, 2012 by wagghh

[Postes 5,282]

I found a large magical chest works best. Amazingly they take 0 damage inside it, probably due to the magical part of the chest itself.

[Raybarg 442]

Outside magical chest meals do decay, in your inventory they decay rapidly. Cook new meals often enough to solve the decay/gorging issues.

Batch of 100 meals will have first one to get decay tick in few days, last meals to get first decay tick on them will take up to week or sometimes with luck even longer. Because of decay ticks being randomly spread like this, making any provable test is excessive time consuming. To me, even 100 meals is not sufficient for a clear comparison.. tracking the ticks of even just 100 of each case (you have 3 cases, which would make it 300 meals) would be mindnumbing unless you are comfortable with sloppy result of a comparing average decay of each three cases (for which I would like to point out again that 100x is not sufficient to diminish the random factor).

Edit: Adding to that the spread second decay ticks which will be higher than first ticks, the way wurms decay works. Imagine worst case scenario when two batches of 100 meals each get 50% receive decay tick today and 50% get decay tomorrow in a way that batch 1 would make ALL 100 meals get only the first tick, but second batch would give first and second tick on same meals, the decay rate (by average) of second batch meals would show you a result of alot more decay than batch 1, even though they happened to get same amount of decay hits.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Raybarg

[Ayes 3,715]

My meal decay solution is to just filet 1 cooked meat and add 1 pumpkin to each, making 3 meals. Drop 2 in a small barrel with water and carry the other to eat during online hours. When eaten, grab another from barrel to eat as time goes on. Log off put remaining meal back in water barrel. Any that may have decay the next day or so, throw in trash and cook 3 more. No muss, no fuss. Basically just cook meals as needed in small weights of 3 from 1 filleted cooked meat/veg combo, making this whole decay food experiment moot, heh.

=Ayes=