Food ration
A food ration is the most basic type of comestible that appears in NetHack. It is veggy and considered vegan.
Samurai know them as gunyoki.
Contents
Generation
Food rations are the most common type of comestible item, making up 19⁄50 (38%) of all randomly-generated comestibles.
Several roles can start out with a number of food rations:
- Archeologists and Monks start with 3 to 6 rations.[1][2]
- Barbarians and Valkyries start with 1-2.[3][4]
- Tourists start with a lot of random food, some of which can be food rations.[5]
General stores, delicatessens and health food stores can sell food rations.
Applying a charged horn of plenty has a 301⁄1000 chance (30.1%) of generating a food ration or two.[6]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
Per commit 39a7dc1c, monsters that do not pick up food items will not leave behind any comestibles besides their corpse as death drops - this is done to discourage grinding by reducing the frequency of food rations and other similar items.
Per commit 87f3b480, extra food rations are added to the home level of the Monk quest in order to reduce the difficulty of maintaining vegetarian conduct induced from the previous commit. Similarly per commit ae3e5d28, the room containing the stairway to the Gnomish Mines is likely to contain a food ration.Description
When eaten, food rations provide 800 nutrition, and take roughly five moves to eat. Food rations have a 1⁄7 chance of being rotten when eaten if they are uncursed and older than 30 turns, or else are blessed and older than 50 turns, while cursed food rations are always rotten.
Food rations can be thrown to tame domestic canines and felines and pacify domestic equines.
Strategy
Securing a cache of food rations is often an early game goal for heroes that start with relatively little to no food themselves. Those that make it to the mid-game may start stashing excess food rations or else passing them up, while eating the corpses of monsters they kill as well as any C-rations and K-rations that they nab from the Yendorian army.
A lembas wafer provides similar nutrition while weighing much less (5 aum compared to 20 for food rations), though it may provide more or less nutrition depending on if you are playing an elven or orcish character. Lembas, C-rations and K-rations also take much less time to eat, which can minimize the amount of time spent on nutrition in potential combat or escape situations.
When preparing for the ascension run, it is common to stock up on lembas or other food items such as royal jelly, usually by polypiling standard rations and other food - this is done in order to minimize time spent eating, as well to prepare for the attacks of Famine if they cannot be avoided on the Astral Plane.
History
The food ration first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0.
Origin
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand - a ration is the allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time. There are many forms of rationing, although rationing by price is most prevalent: food rationing is a common type that is often instituted for civilians during war time, and is a commonplace military practice.
Though cooked chestnuts, dried seaweed, and sake are a type of Japanese meal, the term "gunyoki" itself is likely not based on any real-life Japanese term.[7] It is worth noting that the diets of samurai varied with the time period, as it did for many of the various 'castes' and social classes within Japanese society: for example the peasant samurai of the Kamakura period had meals that both emphasized simplicity while being substantial and favored it over refinement, ceremony and luxury; Buddhist vegetarian philosophy also gained strength during this time and spread to the peasantry.
Variants
Some variants introduce new starting races with more atypical diets compared to the standard ones, which naturally impacts the use of food rations for them.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, vampire heroes cannot eat food rations, and will start with potions of vampire blood in place of their role's food rations, though they can still use rations to tame and/or pacify domestic animals.
Upgrading a K-ration, C-ration or lembas wafer will produce a food ration, and upgrading a food ration will produce a lembas wafer.
Killer food rations are a type of evil food monster that can be encountered, and have a 1⁄3 chance of dropping an actual food ration upon death.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, vampire heroes also start with potions of vampire blood replacing their role's typical food rations.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, the following substitutions are made for food rations in starting inventory:
- Incantifiers feed off magic rather than consuming food, and an incantifier hero will have their role's starting food rations replaced with scrolls of food detection, with the exception of Tourists.
- Vampire heroes have their roles' starting rations replaced with potions of blood similar to SLASH'EM—the potions will always be human blood.
- Various races of Anachrononaut start with several protein pills in lieu of food rations—protein pills provide the same nutrition as a ration, but only require one turn to eat and weigh only 1 aum.
notdNetHack
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, Ahazu generates with 4-5 food rations when summoned by an Illithanachronounbinder.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, incantifiers are also a playable race with the same rules as in dNetHack.
Hack'EM
Hack'EM includes the killer food rations from SLASH'EM, along with the playable vampire race and their food rules. Food rations and other comestibles cannot be upgraded.
Encyclopedia entry
Food ration
The little girl stood on tip-toe and picked one of the nicest and biggest lunch-boxes, and then she sat down upon the ground and eagerly opened it. Inside she found, nicely wrapped in white papers, a ham sandwich, a piece of sponge-cake, a pickle, a slice of new cheese and an apple. Each thing had a separate stem, and so had to be picked off the side of the box; but Dorothy found them all to be delicious, and she ate every bit of luncheon in the box before she had finished.
Gunyoki
The samurai's last meal before battle. It was usually made up of cooked chestnuts, dried seaweed, and sake.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 34
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 91
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 47
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 156
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 144
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2219: most comestibles including royal jelly are eligible
- ↑ Etymology of the word "gunyoki" - rec.games.roguelike.nethack @ narkive
