The Zone

Food & Drink

Food and drink are perhaps the key concern for all freelancers. Whilst some have the skills to live off the land, it is not a very sustainable lifestyle. Much of the water available in the Zone is contaminated and the ecosystem is inherently unpredictable, making meat something of a risky prospect as well. Packaged food that has not long since gone off is increasingly difficult to scavenge as almost all of it has already been looted. Most survivalists last about a year or so before malnutrition sets in, or the contamination in their diet causes debilitating side effects.

The smuggling gangs bring in supplies of food from outside the Zone. The majority is either canned food or some form of dehydrated food, like noodles, soups or couscous. Small amounts of other goods are brought in, but these are rare and become high priced items for those looking to splash out.

Food

There are several ways a player character can acquire food to sustain themselves.

Players are asked not to consume anything else whilst in character. Please go to your out of character tent to eat anything else you may have brought with you.

Drinks

All of the bars have solar power and water purification systems, so players have access to an unlimited supply of clean drinking water and water to re-hydrate food products. It is suggested players bring an opaque drinking bottle with them. Players should not visibly be drinking anything other than water unless they have purchased it from the bar, but filling up the water bottle with something else whilst out of character and then drinking it in character is acceptable.

The Bar will usually have a small supply of energy drinks, some fruit juice, and any other canned drinks they've come across. These will all have an in character cost in credits.

Booze

All of the bars produce a limited amount of distilled spirits of one form or another. Very occasionally, small amounts of beer are smuggled in. All of the alcohol available behind the bar costs in character credit, but is free out of character.

Anyone with access to suitable crafting facilities, e.g. the Farm, can make a supply of alcohol. They can flavour that in any way they see fit in much the same way the Bar produces its alcohol supplies. producing the alcohol takes a downtime action though. This is obviously not an option for new players.

If you have brought booze with you out of character, please decant it into something opaque so that you appear to be drinking water. Booze, especially bottled spirits, are extremely expensive in character and occasionally go out as high-end loot. Access to alcohol is supposed to be limited by design. Please respect that.

Food

Crafting food has two options, players can use either or both, they each take one week of downtime to feed one person. Option 1 is growing vegetable matter. Characters can speed grow any fruit or vegetable in sufficient quantities to survive for 8 weeks. Option 2 is 3D printing other types of food. Again, one downtime week produces enough to feed one person for 8 weeks. The available items for printing are as follows

Meat. Mince, chicken breasts, steaks are all acceptable. There should be nothing with a bone in it and nothing processed like bacon or sausages.
Cheese. Nothing flavoured or with other ingredients mixed in. A piece of Brie is acceptable, Wensleydale with cranberries is not.
Bread. Relatively plain white or brown bread only.
Dried pasta.
Milk.

Players can work in pairs to combine printed food with fresh vegetables, taking one week of downtime each to produce a full set of all available foods.

Any crafted food should be prepared on open fires outside the main building. Players will not have access to the onsite kitchen.