How to Preserve Meat in a Feeding Trough in Ark: Survival Evolved
Preserving meat in a feeding trough in Ark: Survival Evolved is crucial for maintaining your tamed creatures, especially when dealing with large numbers of dinosaurs or extended periods away from your base. The most effective methods revolve around understanding the game mechanics, employing specific preservation tools, and adopting efficient feeding strategies. While you cannot directly alter the spoil timer of meat within a trough, you can significantly extend its usefulness by maximizing stack sizes and implementing smart management practices. Essentially, you don’t preserve meat within the trough; instead, you take steps before placing the meat there to prolong its lifespan, coupled with strategic trough usage. This includes using preserved forms of meat and managing your food stocks.
Maximizing Meat Lifespan: Strategies and Tools
Pre-Trough Preparation is Key
The first step to preserving meat in a feeding trough is not about the trough itself, but rather how you prepare your food beforehand. Raw meat spoils relatively quickly; it lasts about 10 minutes in your inventory. To overcome this, you need to utilize tools and strategies designed to extend spoilage times. Here’s how:
- Preserving Bin: The Preserving Bin is a fundamental tool for meat preservation. By adding Sparkpowder, it extends the spoilage timer of raw meat to a considerable 100 minutes (1 hour and 40 minutes). It also allows you to produce Cooked Meat Jerky and Prime Meat Jerky from cooked meats. Jerky lasts significantly longer than raw or cooked meat, making it an ideal option for long-term storage and feeding troughs.
- Cooking: Cooking raw meat over a Campfire or in an Industrial Grill transforms it into Cooked Meat, which has a longer spoil timer than raw meat. While not as long-lasting as jerky, cooked meat is a good intermediate step and can be used in conjunction with other methods.
- Refrigeration: Utilizing a Refrigerator is the ultimate method for preserving your meat. It dramatically extends the spoilage time of all foods within. Meat placed in a Refrigerator will last for significantly longer periods, allowing you to store a large supply of prepared meat to use in troughs.
- Stack Management: When placing food in the trough, ensure that you stack items as much as possible. In Ark, 20 is the maximum stack size for most meat. A full stack will decay slower than multiple partial stacks totaling the same amount. This is because the decay rate seems to be per stack, not per individual piece of meat. Having many small stacks will lead to higher waste.
Optimizing Feeding Trough Usage
Once your meat is prepared, you need to maximize its efficiency within the trough itself. Consider the following:
- Regular Replenishment: Regularly check your troughs and replace the food. Take the existing food out, and replace it to refill your stacks to the max.
- Trough Range Awareness: Feeding troughs have a cubic range of 11 foundations horizontally and 15 walls vertically. Ensure all your tames are within this radius. Tames do not need to wander to eat from a trough, as long as they have the trough symbol above them, they can access the food.
- Trough Location: Strategically place troughs in locations where your tamed dinosaurs are concentrated. Avoid scattering troughs unnecessarily, as this can lead to inefficient feeding and unnecessary food waste.
- Tek Trough: If available, the Tek Trough is a superior option, as it has a larger capacity, extended range and requires no fuel. It’s an advanced version of the standard feeding trough, making it significantly more efficient.
Food Choices and Their Durability
Knowing the spoil times of different types of food is vital for effective trough management. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Raw Meat: Spoils in 10 minutes
- Cooked Meat: Lasts longer than Raw Meat, exact spoil time depends on conditions.
- Cooked Prime Meat: Spoils in the same time as cooked meat.
- Prime Meat Jerky: Lasts 2 days in a survivor’s inventory, 8 days in a creature’s inventory, 20 days in a Preserving Bin, and 200 days in a Refrigerator.
- Berries: Generally have a longer spoil timer than raw meat, but are less efficient in terms of food value.
- Other Meats: Specific types like mutton or fish meat can also be cooked or made into jerky, with similar spoilage properties.
By focusing on cooked meats, especially Jerky, and utilizing refrigeration for long-term storage, you can ensure your feeding troughs are stocked with durable options that maximize the time between refills and minimise waste. It is better to use Raw meat for raising because it gives more food, while cooked food is better for just keeping dinos fed, due to the longer spoil timer.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can I store extra food near the troughs to refill easily?
Yes, storing extra food in Refrigerators or Preserving Bins nearby is an excellent strategy. This ensures you can quickly refill your troughs with already-preserved items.
2. Does the game differentiate between stack sizes?
Yes, multiple smaller stacks will decay faster than a single large stack. Always consolidate your food into maximum stacks of 20 to minimize spoilage in the trough.
3. Can I use berries for troughs, or is meat better?
While berries have a longer shelf life, they provide less food value for carnivores. Meat, especially cooked meat and jerky, is generally the preferred option for carnivores in troughs.
4. How does the radius of the feeding trough affect my tames?
The feeding trough has a cubic range of 11 foundations horizontally and 15 walls vertically. All tames within this space can access the food.
5. Do my dinos need to be set to wander to eat from a trough?
No, dinos do not need to be set to wander to eat from a trough. As long as they are within the trough’s range, they will automatically feed when hungry.
6. Is there an advantage to using the Tek Trough?
Yes! The Tek Trough is an advanced version with a larger capacity, extended range, and requires no fuel. It’s the most efficient option for long-term feeding.
7. How long does raw meat last in a feeding trough without any preservation?
Raw meat lasts about 13 hours in a full stack in a trough before spoiling. This assumes a full stack is placed, with many partial stacks spoiling faster.
8. Does cooked meat last longer than raw meat?
Yes, cooked meat lasts longer than raw meat, making it a better choice for feeding troughs.
9. What is the longest-lasting food option for a feeding trough?
Prime Meat Jerky is the longest-lasting food option due to its extended spoil timer when stored in a preserving bin or refrigerator and consumed by dinos.
10. What do I do with unused meat?
You can store it in a Refrigerator to dramatically extend its spoil timer. Alternatively, use it for cooking or creating jerky.
11. Does jerky provide more food for dinos than cooked meat?
Jerky provides the same amount of food as cooked meat, but it has a far longer spoil timer, so it is ideal for troughs.
12. Do dinos prefer raw or cooked meat?
While wild carnivores prefer raw meat, tamed dinos will eat whatever is available in the trough. It’s more efficient to use cooked meat or jerky because they last longer.
13. Does being too hot or too cold affect the rate of food consumption?
Yes, thermal insulation affects food consumption. The more thermally insulated you are, the slower you will consume food. While this mostly affects the player, keeping dinos in moderate temperature conditions may also affect their food consumption.
14. Why does my meat spoil faster in the trough than it should?
Meat spoils per stack, meaning partial stacks will decay faster than a single large stack. Make sure to keep full stacks in the trough.
15. Can I clean the troughs to prevent spoilage?
Unlike real-world troughs, the troughs in Ark do not require cleaning. Spoiling meat is determined by game mechanics rather than hygiene.
By using these strategies, employing preservation tools, and managing your meat effectively, you can significantly improve your feeding trough efficiency in Ark: Survival Evolved, ensuring your tamed dinosaurs are always well-fed and your resources are not wasted.