Pemmican

Pemmican

A preserved mashed mixture of fat and plant food. Tastes bland, but not offensive. It lasts a very long time without refrigeration. Great for traveling.

Base Stats

Type

Food – Meal

Market Value

1.4 

Stack Limit

75

Mass

0.018 kg

HP

60

Deterioration Rate

2

Flammability

60%

Days To Start Rot

70

Path Cost

15 (46%)

Ingestion

Nutrition

0.05

Taste

Simple

Maximum To Ingest

20

Creation

Crafted At

 /  / 

Required Research

Pemmican

Skill Required

Cooking

Work To Make

700 ticks (11.67 secs)

Resources to make

0.25 Nutrition (meat) + 0.25 Nutrition (vegan)

Product Amount

16

Technical

defName

Pemmican

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.

Acquisition

Pemmican can be cooked at a Campfire, Fueled stove, or Electric stove once the Pemmican research project has been completed. 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, it 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.

There is no Cooking skill requirement, although it does increase that skill.

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

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 requires the pemmican research; 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 coolers 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 meals is identical for New Arrivals, there is little reason to use it.

Comparisions

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 (2.045 vs 2.778), meaning pemmican gives you more nutrition for the same weight (for caravans)
• Pemmican gives exactly the amount of nutrition needed, while (any) meals have a potential for "waste" (see next)

Pemmican vs. a Packaged survival meal

• 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 the Pemmican page 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

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 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.

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 .

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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, Twisted) • 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