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catbert7

Member

Registered: 2018-03-17

Posts: 9

Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

I was curious about whether pies were actually that much better than carrots, so I did the math. If anyone's interested, here's the results!

Carrot food output per seeding row: 45 carrots x 8 food/carrot = 360 food
Cost:
    Compost for seeding carrots (1 Berry bush + 1 Carrot + 1 Reed + 1 Water) / 3* *Compost makes 3 soil, we're only using 1*
    + Water for seeding carrots (1 Water)
    + Water for 9 rows of carrots (9 Water) *Seeding carrots produce 10 seeds, 1 is saved for next seeding row*
Total Cost:
    1/3 Berry bush (6 berries x 6 food/berry / 3 = 36 food / 3 = 12 food)
    1/3 Carrot (8 food/carrot / 3 = about 3 food)
    10 1/3 water
    1/3 Reed
Net food per water = (360-15) / (31/3) = 345 / (31/3) = about 33
   
Rabbit pie food output: 1 rabbit pie x 4 pieces/pie x 15 food/piece = 60 food
Cost:
    Compost for wheat (1 Berry bush + 1 Carrot + 1 Reed + 1 Water) /3* / 3* *Compost makes 3 soil, we're only using 1* *Bowl of dough makes 3 crusts, we're only using 1*
    + Water for wheat (1 Water) / 3 *Bowl of dough makes 3 crusts, we're only using 1*
    + Water for bowl of wheat (1 Water) / 3 *Bowl of dough makes 3 crusts, we're only using 1*
    + Rabbit for pie (1 Rabbit)
Total Cost:
    1/9 Berry bush (6 berries x 6 food/berry / 9 = 36 food / 9 = 4 food)
    1/9 Carrot (8 food/carrot / 9 = about 1 food)
    7/9 Water
    1/9 Reed
    1 Rabbit (11 food)
Net food per water = (60-16) / (13/9) = 44 / (7/9) = about 57

57/33 = about a 72% increase in food efficiency. Pretty darn good! I chose Rabbit pies because they seem the simplest of the 2 effective options to me. Rabbit+Carrot pies are ever so slightly more efficient but only if you have a max food bar (20) and wait until down to a couple boxes before eating. Half the population CAN'T use them effectively and they are much more likely to be inefficiently utilized than Rabbit pies, so I consider the two about even. Berry pies would give basically the same return but at a much higher cost. Carrot pies and Carrot+Rabbit+Berry pies are absolute travesties that aren't even worth considering Thus, do note that the only pies worth making are Rabbit or Rabbit+Carrot.

It does seem very curious that pies with multiple food ingredients give more food than can actually be held in the stomach, particularly the Carrot+Rabbit+Berry pie. I'm wondering if there is a future purpose for these pies that hasn't yet been implemented or if it just wasn't noticed that they are outstripping the hunger meter. If their full potential could actually be met, they would be amazing!

If there are any errors in my calculations, please speak up!

Last edited by catbert7 (2018-03-18 19:55:10)

33Spectre

Member

Registered: 2018-03-11

Posts: 15

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

Exactly my train of thought, thanks for confirming with numbers! There's just no way raw carrots could be more resource efficient food. You combine one food+one non-edible+one water to get 4 more sating portions.

57/33 = about a 72% increase in food efficiency. Pretty darn good! I chose Rabbit pies because they seem the best option to me. Rabbit+Carrot pies are ever so slightly more efficient but only if you have a max food bar (20) and wait until down to a couple boxes before eating. Half the population CAN'T use them effectively and they are much more likely to be inefficiently utilized than Rabbit pies, so I consider the two about even. Berry pies would give basically the same return but at a much higher cost. Carrot pies and Carrot+Rabbit+Berry pies are absolute travesties that aren't even worth considering

And thanks to this I'll stick with rabbit pies, splicing with carrots when the place has surplus. Also consider that most people won't look at the type of the pie, so it won't be efficient to make multiple types for different ages...

catbert7

Member

Registered: 2018-03-17

Posts: 9

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

Exactly my train of thought, thanks for confirming with numbers! There's just no way raw carrots could be more resource efficient food. You combine one food+one non-edible+one water to get 4 more sating portions.

It basically comes down to the dough providing 3 portions. Whereas it takes 1 water for every 5 carrots, the 1 water for the dough gives 3 pies, each roughly multiplying the food ingredient by 4. So, if the dough was only usable once, they'd be pretty similar to carrots but since it's usable 3 times, pies are far more water efficient.

And thanks to this I'll stick with rabbit pies, splicing with carrots when the place has surplus. Also consider that most people won't look at the type of the pie, so it won't be efficient to make multiple types for different ages...

Right! It never pays to overestimate people xD Happy baking to you, sir!

catbert7

Member

Registered: 2018-03-17

Posts: 9

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

Do note that the above calculations are assuming Wild Berry Bushes. If using Domestic, 1 more water will need to be accounted for in the compost cost to keep the bush alive. It won't change the end result by much, though.

Matok

Member

Registered: 2018-03-04

Posts: 66

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

The using wild berries or growing your own makes a huge difference in how viable pies are. Let's look at that closer.

A person can't eat more than 720 food over the course of a single life. This is because of the minimum seconds between food decrements found in the code, which is set to 5. The maximum is 20, so if you're at the perfect temperature you only burn 1 food every 20 seconds, and if you're freezing to death you burn 1 every 5.

So at maximum burn rate you need 3600 seconds / 5 = 720 food over the course of one life. You could assume that the first 4 years of your life you're taken care of by your mother, so you actually only need 56 minutes worth of food at a rate of 1 food every 5 seconds, or 56 * 60 / 5 = 672 food over the course of your life, maximum.

Let's assume you actually do stay cold and freezing to death until age 60.

First, lets look at carrots.

Carrots are 8 food each. You'd need to eat 672 / 8 = 84 carrots to survive, give or take a few on overeating, but let's not worry about those.
To grow 84 carrots you need 84 / 5 = 16.8 harvested farm plots. But you can't plant .8 of a farm plot so let's call it 17.
Those 17 farm plots will need 2 additional farm plots of carrots left to go to seed, giving you enough seed to plant 20 plots. You're up to needing 19 plots of carrots now.
You'll also be needing to replace 2 soil for the seeded carrot plots. That's 1 composting.
And we're going to grow our own berries for all of the composting we do, so we need to grow 1 berry bush plot. It can use the 1 leftover soil from the composting.
We can assume we had an extra carrot for the composting because we only needed 16.8 plots, but we will need to go find some reeds.

That is a total of 21 water. 20 for crops, 1 for compost. Plus you have to find 1 reed.

Let's look at carrot pies.

Carrot Pies are 32 food each. You'd need to eat 672 / 32 = 21 carrot pies to survive.
To make these, you need to grow 21 carrots. That is 21 / 5 = 4.2 plots, which rounds up to 5 carrot plots.
You'll need to grow one more carrot plot and let it go to seed, using up 1 soil.
You also need 21 pie crusts, which for that you are going to need 21 / 3 = 7 wheat plots.
The 7 wheat is going to need 7 water to turn it into dough.
You use up 7 soil to grow the wheat.
To replace the 8 soil that you've used so far, you'd need to compost 3 times, but if we grow our berry bushes, you have to include the soil they use as well.
You'd actually need to grow 5 berry bushes to cover all soil costs and compost 5 times.
The math is 5 soil for berry bushes + 1 soil for carrots + 7 soil for wheat = 13 soil needed. At 3 soil per compost, you get 15 soil if you compost 5 times, which covers the 13 cost.
But since you are doing 5 composts, you need 5 carrots, which is an extra plot. You're now up to 6 carrot plots.
This is 6 carrot, 7 wheat, and 5 berry plots, a total of 18 plots, which is 18 water for the crops.

That is a total of 30 water. 18 for crops, 7 for dough, and 5 for compost.

Now, let's look at rabbit pies.

Rabbit Pies are 60 food each. You'd need to eat 672 / 60 = 11.2 rabbit pies to survive, but let's just call it 12.
To make these you need 12 pie crusts, which is 12 / 3 = 4 wheat plots.
The 4 wheat is going to need 4 water to turn it into dough.
You use up 4 soil to grow the wheat.
To replace 4 soil, you need to compost 2 times. Two berry bushes for the compost uses 2 more soil, for a total of 6, still covered by the two composts.
But, you're also going to need 2 carrots to do the compost, so let's assume you have to do everything to get them and the seeds. That means 2 carrot plots, one for compost, one for seeds.
That costs 1 additional soil thanks to the seeding carrots, which pushes our required soil count up over 6 to 7. You need another berry bush now for another compost, so 8 soil total.

That is a total of 16 water. 9 for crops, 4 for dough, and 3 for compost.
You will also need 12 family rabbit holes.

Some of this could be more efficient if you scaled up to support 2 or 3 people because there are extra fractional amounts that go unused when you assume 1 person.

But the conclusion is a person could use less water living off Rabbit Pie, but your next bottleneck is likely going to be that rabbits only respawn every epoc.

The best answer is in a balance and wise use of resources. If you have a surplus of something, then use it. If you have a ton of raw rabbit sitting around but not much water, make Rabbit Pies. If you have a ton of water and no rabbits, grow carrots. If there's wild berries, use those before growing your own. If you have none of these, why the heck you living there?

And put some pants on. Naked people eat too much.

catbert7

Member

Registered: 2018-03-17

Posts: 9

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

The using wild berries or growing your own makes a huge difference in how viable pies are. Let's look at that closer.

Let's look at carrot pies.
That is a total of 30 water. 18 for crops, 7 for dough, and 5 for compost.

Now, let's look at rabbit pies.
That is a total of 16 water. 9 for crops, 4 for dough, and 3 for compost.
You will also need 12 family rabbit holes.

Some of this could be more efficient if you scaled up to support 2 or 3 people because there are extra fractional amounts that go unused when you assume 1 person.
But the conclusion is a person could use less water living off Rabbit Pie, but your next bottleneck is likely going to be that rabbits only respawn every epoc.

The best answer is in a balance and wise use of resources. If you have a surplus of something, then use it. If you have a ton of raw rabbit sitting around but not much water, make Rabbit Pies. If you have a ton of water and no rabbits, grow carrots. If there's wild berries, use those before growing your own. If you have none of these, why the heck you living there?

That's a nice block of math there but I'm not sure I understand its purpose You said the berries were going to make a huge difference but ended up at the same conclusion (that rabbit pies are far more water efficient than raw carrots). And that's even after you incremented everything to support only one person, which is clearly not the situation I was aiming it.

The point about the need for rabbits is definitely a valid concern as a limiting factor but it just means that you should make rabbit pies when you have the rabbits to do so and when you don't have them... well, then you can't make the pies, so it kinda manages itself xD It is worth noting that non-rabbit pies aren't worthwhile, though. I haven't actually tried making berry pies so I don't know how much food they provide but they would have to give at least 17 per bite in order to be as efficient as raw carrots so I highly doubt they're worth it, especially since they would interfere with composting. I think I'll add a note about non-rabbit pies to the post. Thanks

Matok

Member

Registered: 2018-03-04

Posts: 66

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

Well, the purpose of the math, which maybe I didn't point out well enough, is that the answer isn't simply X is better than Y. It depends on the situation and doing one simple thing, such as growing your own berries or not, can make a big difference in the result. Anyone who's just always doing 1 thing every time they play is being inefficient sometimes. Look around, see what you have, and make the most efficient choice.

Even in the example that I gave, which uses water as the main factor, still doesn't tell the whole story. I've actually seen a civ that had so much water around it that a good number of the ponds just went unused, always staying full. That is wasted potential water, because a pond can't fill up beyond '3' water so that's extra water you never get when it stays full. In that case, the water use doesn't really matter as a bottleneck because there's so much of it, so you should look at how to get more food per growing plot instead and put that extra water to use. In that scenario, it would actually be better to make carrot pies because raw carrots takes 20 plots, but the same amount in carrot pies takes 18.

If you take out the berry growing and go to wild berries, the difference actually increases to raw carrots needing 19 plots, but carrot pies needing only 12 plots for an equal amount of food. It reduces the water needed for the carrot pies by quite a bit too, down to 23, which is still a little bit higher than what raw carrots alone needs, but again, if you have plenty of water, why would you not do carrot pies to get more food out of what you grow?

"Efficiency" matters so long as the resource you're being efficient with is limited in some way and you have to make it last as long as possible. If water production is outstripping how fast you can use it, it is effectively unlimited and therefore, should not be considered for efficiency. Other measures of efficiency might be space (both in how compact each food item is and in how much farming space you need), and time (how much of a person's time is required to create X amount of food, measured as food per minute output).

Water has a hard limit on just how many people can be supported in an area, but if there's so much water around that the hard limit is beyond what the server can even support then it no longer matters.

catbert7

Member

Registered: 2018-03-17

Posts: 9

Re: Pie's efficiency over raw carrots? About 72%!

"Efficiency" matters so long as the resource you're being efficient with is limited in some way and you have to make it last as long as possible. If water production is outstripping how fast you can use it, it is effectively unlimited and therefore, should not be considered for efficiency. Other measures of efficiency might be space (both in how compact each food item is and in how much farming space you need), and time (how much of a person's time is required to create X amount of food, measured as food per minute output).

I get what you're saying but maybe I also was not clear enough about the thrust of this thread. The aim of my calculations was to examine the effectiveness of baking for the purpose of sustaining the greatest population. From this perspective, water is pretty much always going to be the limiting resource. Yes, there may be some rare scenarios where water is crazy abundant but, as the population grows, water is eventually going to be the limiting resource (except maybe reeds but that would be highly unlikely) for food production, due to the rate of production of other ingredients (berries, carrots, wheat, etc.) relying on the un-modifiable rate of water regeneration. I understand that there may be circumstances in which you would be more interested in other efficiencies, particularly when the village is young. The main point was to show that baking is very worthwhile and that rabbit pies (or rabbit+carrot) are the best way to make use of the most commonly limited resource.

Water has a hard limit on just how many people can be supported in an area, but if there's so much water around that the hard limit is beyond what the server can even support then it no longer matters.

Is that even possible? What is the server load?
*Edit: Ah, looks like 40. I had no idea it was so low! That could indeed be a viable concern, then.*

Last edited by catbert7 (2018-03-24 03:32:29)