Saturation

Saturation is the unseen game mechanic that controls Characters' needs for Food. A character with a higher saturation value has eaten recently, and is more full than another character with a low saturation level.

Levels of Saturation

Characters' saturation level is grouped into four thresholds: Fed, Hungry, Urgently Hungry, and Starving. Each threshold exhibits different effects on a character, especially their Thoughts.

For humanoids, the saturation levels are as follows:

Label	Saturation
Fed	Greater than 30
Hungry	20 to 30
Urgently Hungry	0.01 to 20
Starving	Less than 0.01

Saturation caps at 100.

Saturation Changes

Saturation goes down every tick (1/20000 of a game day) depending on the character's current saturation.

Saturation	Change per tick	Change per day
Fed	-0.004	-80
Hungry	-0.002	-40
Urgently Hungry	-0.001	-20
Starving	-0.0006	-12

Starving

Once a character becomes starving they start a clock to take damage from starvation.

After 5000 ticks (1/4 game day) a starving character takes 5 starvation damage and the clock resets.

This means a character with 100 health (full) will die after 5 days of starvation.

Example

Jones recently became hungry. His saturation is 25. He eats a Packaged Survival Meal which restores up to 100 saturation. His saturation caps out at 100.

Jones will become:

Hungry in 17500 ticks (0.875 game days)

Urgently Hungry in 17500 + 5000 = 22500 ticks (1.125 game days)

Starving in 22500 + 19990 = 42490 ticks (2.125 game days)

Dead in 42490 + 100000 = 142490 ticks (7.125 game days)