Tripe ration
A tripe ration is a type of comestible item that appears in NetHack. It is fleshy and not vegetarian or vegan.
Contents
Generation
Orcish Rangers start with a stack of 4-8 tripe rations in place of the role's standard cram rations;[1] all orcish heroes in non-Wizard roles may also start the game with 1-2 tripe rations as one of their random food items.[2] Any cram rations or lembas wafers will be replaced with tripe in both cases.[3]
Tourists can start with tripe rations among their initial stacks of food.[4]
Tripe rations make up 14% of all randomly-generated comestibles, which is the second-highest probability among their item type. General stores and delicatessens can sell tripe rations.
Applying a charged horn of plenty has a 129⁄1000 chance (12.9%) of generating a tripe ration or two.[5]
Description
When eaten, tripe rations provide 200 nutrition, but taking a bite of non-rotten tripe also has a 1⁄2 chance of giving the hero nausea along with a single experience point.[6] If the hero is a Caveman, started the game an orc, or is a non-humanoid carnivorous monster (e.g., they became a canine through lycanthropy), then nausea does not occur.[7]
Tripe rations are a treat for carnivorous pets such as dogs and housecats, and increases the pet's apport when fed to them. Throwing tripe to a hostile or peaceful domestic canine or feline will tame it, as will other forms of meat save for corpses; carrying a tripe ration in the open inventory will make a carnivorous pet try to stick closer to to the character.
Strategy
Tripe rations are primarily useful in the early game for taming hostile domestic animals that can otherwise do serious damage, allowing you to preserve more dependable sources of nutrition. They can also be instrumental in stealing from early shops, especially when money is scarce. Entering a shop that has tripe before your pet does can be useful even if you don't plan to buy the tripe: allowing your pet to eat tripe that you've recently handled raises apport, making the pet more likely to pick up items - doing the same for tripe outside of shops is similarly useful, and keeping tripe in your open inventory also makes pet management slightly easier.
Non-orcish heroes can reliably use tripe as a source of confusion for reading scrolls, similar to eggs. The experience point gained from eating a tripe ration can also be used by any hero to regain a recently drained experience level, especially for pacifist conduct.
History
The tripe 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.
NetHack 3.3.0 introduces starting races, and orcish heroes (except for Wizards) can start the game with tripe among their random extra food items[8]—there is code intended to also give them tripe rations in place of cram rations and lembas wafers, which is properly implemented in NetHack 3.6.2.[9][10]
In NetHack 3.4.3 and previous versions, including some variants based on those versions, horses can be pacified with a thrown tripe ration.
Origin
Tripe is a type of edible food made from the stomach linings of various farm animals such as cattle, pigs and sheep, with the mucosal lining removed. Beef tripe is typically the most common, and is made from a cow's stomach; other suitable animals include deer, antelope, goat, ox, and giraffes.
"Dressed tripe" or "washed tripe" is prepared by cleaning the stomachs and trimming the fat off before boiling and bleaching, which turns it a white color; this color is more commonly associated with the tripe seen in market stalls and butchers' shops. Dressed tripe was a popular, nutritious and cheap dish for the British working classes from Victorian times until the latter half of the 20th century, but has since come to be regarded as a pet food - this is the basis for its portrayal in NetHack. Dressed tripe remains a popular dish elsewhere in many parts of continental Europe, such as Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy.
Messages
- Yak - dog food!
- You ate a non-rotten tripe ration and your base race is not an orc; you gain 1 experience point and have a 1⁄2 chance of becoming nauseous for 1d14 (more) turns, unless you are a Caveman or in the form of a carnivorous non-humanoid.[6]
- That tripe ration was surprisingly good!
- You ate tripe as a carnivorous non-humanoid.
- Mmm, tripe... not bad!
- As above, but you are an orcish hero.
- Tastes great! Less filling!
- As above while also hallucinating - this is a reference to the slogan of the Miller Lite brand of beer.
Encyclopedia entry
If you start from scratch, cooking tripe is a long-drawn-out affair. Fresh whole tripe calls for a minimum of 12 hours of cooking, some time-honored recipes demanding as much as 24. To prepare fresh tripe, trim if necessary. Wash it thoroughly, soaking overnight, and blanch, for 1/2 hour in salted water. Wash well again, drain and cut for cooking. When cooked, the texture of tripe should be like that of soft gristle. More often, alas, because the heat has not been kept low enough, it has the consistency of wet shoe leather.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 119
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 852: Extra food for orcs
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 222: Orcish food substitutions
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 144
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2219: any comestible that can be randomly generated is eligible
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1818
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1807
- ↑ u_init.c in NetHack 3.3.0, line 806
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.2, line 222
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.2, line 1055
