Packaged survival meal

Packaged survival meals, sometimes abbreviated as 'PSM', are a high-tech never expiring food option. Note that they can still deteriorate.

Acquisition[edit]

Packaged survival meals can be cooked at a fueled stove or electric stove once the Packaged survival meal research project has been completed. It requires a Cooking skill of 8 to be made.

One packaged survival meal requires 0.30 nutrition from meat and 0.30 nutrition from vegetables and 450 ticks (7.5 secs) ticks. Alternatively, it can be made in batches of 4 at the cost of 1.2 nutrition of each type and 1,440 ticks (24 secs) of work.

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

Additionally, some scenarios give packaged survival meals on startup. The ingredients used on each depend on the starting ideoligion's precepts, with cannibalism: preferred and above containing human meat ^{[Needs testing]}.

The Crashlanded scenario gives 50 .
The Rich Explorer scenario and the Mechanitor scenario each give 40 .
The Sanguophage scenario gives 30 .

Summary[edit]

As most cooked meals, each unit of packaged survival meal is worth 0.90 nutrition. As each one requires 0.6 units of raw food, packaged survival meals have has a nutrition efficiency of 150%.

Packaged survival meals do not rot, but can still deteriorate.

They have no innate mood impact, but if made from insect meat, human meat, or twisted meat, the usual mood penalties apply. Any ideoligion related ingredients will also take effect. With the Ideology DLC packaged survival meals have three colors, red if containing meat, green if containing solely vegetables and yellow is default and can be created if the meal solely uses animal products.

Analysis[edit]

As packaged survival meals have a lower nutrition efficiency than most other cooked meals in exchange for not requiring refrigeration, its regular colony use is not recommended. Instead, its use lies as emergency rations, long-range caravans unable to forage, and as a trading good.

Packaged survival meals will always be accepted by trade caravans and orbital traders in trade. Their market value is not affected by their ingredients; insect meat and human meat can be converted into packaged survival meals to sell at full value.

Comparison to pemmican[edit]

When packaged survival meals are compared to pemmican :

have slightly worse nutrition per ingredient (50% vs. 60%)
lack the nutritional flexibility that pemmican has, only offering a single chunk of 0.9 nutrition vs. the precise 0.05 bites of pemmican. See the Pemmican page for details.
are slightly more efficient in terms of carry weight (3 nutrition/kg vs. 2.78 nutrition/kg, or ~8% more/kg carried).
are significantly more efficient in storage space (9 nutrition/stack vs. 3.75 nutrition/stack).
require 43% less work to make.
never expire, while pemmican expires after 70 days if not refrigerated or frozen.
are slightly less valuable in terms of wealth (0.038 nutrition/$ vs. 0.036 nutrition/$).
are accepted by all traders; pemmican may not be.

This makes researching and producing packaged survival meals a good choice for long-term travel or emergency rations, once a colony has both the required stove and cook.

Money making[edit]

See also: Money making guide

Packaged survival meals are a useful and sustainable way to make money:

They don't rot, useful for both long term storage and caravanning to faction bases.
They're easy to store (especially compared to raw food).
They have a high work/profit ratio, but a high material cost.
They can be sold to any trader.
Any stored stock also acts as an emergency food supply.

Each PSM needs 6 units of meat and 6 units of vegetables, and has a market value of 24 . This makes hunting animals and gathering berries to make PSMs is a fast way to earn money, though it's not worth it if the ingredients must be purchased.

The use of human meat, insect meat, raw fungus, or twisted meat doesn't lower the value of the PSM. This is useful for colonies that don't approve of those ingredients otherwise, though keep in mind the potential mood penalties for butchering humans or eating the PSMs if the stock is also used as an emergency food supply.

Since PSMs use a lot of raw food, care must be taken to convert and/or sell more food than is sustainable. Outside of specific emergency purchases, focus should be placed first on maintaining the colony's food supply, with excess vegetable production scaled to excess meat and animal product production capacity. Keep in mind that even if production is misscaled, the nutrition losses versus normal meals are minor and a colony can always swap to eating the meals rather than selling them until an equilibrium is found.