We need more drying?

[Zigoos]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I've been playing CDDA for a long time, but I usually never engaged in base building, farming, or even food preservation. In my current session, I decided to role-play and dry tons of meat and fish for sale. However, I discovered that there are two methods for drying, which are not effective on a large scale.

Currently, we have smokers and dehydrators. While smokers are simple and work passively, allowing the player to be occupied with other tasks, dehydrators are represented only by small kitchen cabinets suitable only for personal use and reaching ridiculous numbers in scaling. They are excellent options for early and mid-game. But they are not enough. The absurd amount of coal required for the smoker forces you to burn entire forests.

Solution you would like.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we have several types of industrial electric dehydrators, which are represented as cabinets or even entire rooms for drying.

(I don't have a full understanding of the game's balance and can only assume the working space and energy consumption. The volume values seem large, but they are based on real-world analogues.)

I propose adding several new pieces of electronic furniture:

• Drying cabinet, with a volume of about 200 liters. Energy consumption of 600 watt-hours.
• Full-size dehydrator, with a volume of about 1000 liters. Energy consumption of 2000-3000 watt-hours.
• Smaller models for placement in vehicles are also possible.

Their function is something between a washing machine (autoclave) and a smoker. After loading the products, they will work for 6-8 hours.

Where would this furniture appear?

• Butcher shops: Replace the smoker with a drying cabinet or even a full-size dehydrator.
• Airport: Large dehydrators are used for product sublimation. But in the current map-gen versions, the airport kitchen is not equipped for such devices.
• Nursing home: Do old people love prunes?
• Cannabinoid store: Sometimes you need to dry a whole bunch of herbs.
• Farms: Sometimes products are dried for long-term storage or sale.
• Radiation facility: Maybe they have an alternative way of preserving products?

There are probably other places where industrial dehydrators are used, but I don't know them.

Describe alternatives you have considered.

Alternatively:

• Add a biogas or other fuel-powered smoker/dryer.
• Create a mechanic for drying heated products under "hot air" (I dream of drying fish in lava flows).
• Increase the volume and efficiency of the smoker or add new options (20 liters is too low).

Additional context

No response

[GuardianDll]

It is okay to add such things, it's the very reason we have appliances in the first place. The issue here is that: Making a bigger dehydrator would mean duplicate every recipe that uses dehydrator to scale it's energy consumption properly - attempt to work within existing recipes would result in ludicrously cheap power usage if you make small batches, whereas this things turn into profit in a compete opposite direction, where you have as much stuff to dehydrate as it physically can fit Making a bigger smoker wouldn't work really well, because there is barely good examples of big smokers that do not use electricity Making an industrial smoker would mean duplicating the smoker code, which is not good code and multiplying it would be bad in long term - we seek a proper solution in form of recipe steps and unattended recipes for a long time, but it's a complicated task no one is willing to make

[Zigoos]

Wouldn't dried meat and vegetables theoretically become cheaper due to their easy availability? Survivors probably love dried food as much as Protein Ration™ and will value pickles, canned goods, and other food preservation methods more?

[kevingranade]

The volume values seem large, but they are based on real-world analogues.)

If you're basing it on real world examples, cite your sources. I started looking at https://www.dehydratorsamerica.com but their products start at 10x larger than what you're talking about.

Implementation is a side issue. Ideally we could come up with a way to quantify drying needed and have a recipe usable in different sizes of dessicator.

[PatrikLundell]

There is also the stoking spot for passive drying. However, it's capacity is low and drying is slow (probably realistic in both regards), so it's definitely not something for an industrial scale use.

[Zigoos]

I am from another country and providing sources might be problematic. It would be better to use yours sours, thanx! In this case, it is worth dividing them into 'commercial' and 'industrial'.

"Comercial" If I calculated correctly, 16 trays of 16x16x1.4 inches. The working volume is almost 94 liters. (can be rounded to 100?) The average power consumption is 750 watts, with a maximum of 1500 watts.

"industrial" Working volume: 15 trays, size 25x18 inches, with a spacing of 3.125 inches. Almost 345 liters. (can be rounded to 350?) The average power consumption is 3000-5000 watts, with a maximum of 11650 watts.

These two are quite enough.

[GuardianDll]

it should be a step when the item is added, posting it here would not result in item being added in the game, unless the beforementioned issues will be resolved in one or another way

[zachary-kaelan]

a way to quantify drying needed

Some formula like quench * Y + weight - (calories * X) might give some very rough representation of how much water is in something.

[ADekema]

Are we talking about smoking or drying? They are two distinct methodes of preservation even if smoking often happens alongside drying. There are two ways that a survivor could do drying and smoking could be done at a larger scale besides modern electric dryers. You could do sundrying. This does require optimal weather though. The second methode is simply making larger smokers. Traditionally you have stuff like smokehouses that would give all of the smoke space you could ever need.

[KHeket]

I suggest the same idea a long time ago #58892 I also attached a video of example of foldable dehydrator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vhf-EG0Iq8&ab_channel=AromaHousewares But for now it ok for me, if it will be easy deconstructable or just big dismantled dehydrator, because make charcoal is pain, even in the cata world with no ability to replant/regrow trees Construction of dehydrator is very simple, and a little skillful in electricity, food preparation and fabrication survivor can easily make this structure, what is super useful, when you have lot of green energy from solar panels For example https://www.amazon.com/Cercker-Commercial-Food-Dehydrator-104ºF-194ºF-Dehydrator/dp/B0CX11TB5D?ref_=ast_slp_dp 121 liter of pure volume, but I think, real food volume because of shelf is 30-50 liters

https://www.commercialdehydrators.co.uk/category/commercial-dehydrators or here you can find few very big fruit/vegetable and meat dehydrators

It also can be as big as fridges in game, and we can add to strap mechanic, like you can put freezers or fridges at car by ropes