Tip Guide 5: Food Crafting At Lower Levels

 

Cooking Station at Aaronholt Farm

Many of the most beneficial food and drink recipes in Fallout 76 require several ingredients to make, and these are often widely scattered around the map. For the role-player, fast-travelling all over the map just to pick up ingredients that will boost a SPECIAL category, heal hit points, or provide added resistances or buffs is not realistic. It doesn't fit with the mood of this style of play. 

However, there are many simpler foods that can provide useful buffs that are worth crafting. Note that food buffs of the same type do not stack, so if you try to eat two foods that provide disease resistance, for example, only the most recently consumed food's buff will apply, even if that buff is weaker than the one consumed first. The newest food will simply overwrite the older one. 

Although hunger and thirst no longer have negative side effects in the game, there are some great advantages to staying well-fed and well-hydrated. When your character is well-fed, they gain a point of Strength (which adds 5 lbs of carry weight and better melee damage), 35 additional hit points (about 14% more than baseline), and 35% disease resistance. When well-hydrated, they gain a point of Endurance (which brings five additional hit points), +35% AP regeneration, and 35% disease resistance. So being well-fed and well-hydrated at the same time provides 40 additional hit points, faster AP regeneration, and 70% disease resistance. These benefits make it worth paying attention to food, drinks, and how often you consume them.

My goal here is to discuss a few of the beneficial foods that might be useful to a character between Levels 1 and 10. The discussion will be limited to foods for which the materials are available in the parts of the map most likely to be encountered during the first ten levels - in this case, the Forest Region. From Flatwoods north and to the west of Interstate 59 until the Interstate intersects with Highway 64, then north of Highway 64 where it turns horizontal around Morgantown. Sutton and Helvetia are excluded, as is the area of the forest down around Charleston, because most characters will probably not move into those areas until they are higher level. Recipes requiring materials from opposite ends of this area will not be discussed, because the ingredients are likely to spoil (without fast-traveling) before they could ever be crafted into something useful.

Some Consumables Require No Recipe

Most individual ingredients can be cooked into something as soon as they are discovered without the need to learn a recipe. When a character emerges from Vault 76 and approaches their first cooking station, they will likely find that they already know how to cook some foods. This knowledge is dependent on the ingredients that the character has already picked up before reaching the station. For example, a character might pick up Glowing Fungus on the stairs leading down from the Vault, and with some wood and boiled water, be able to make Glowing Fungus Soup once they find a cooking station.  

Knowledge about how to cook other individual ingredients will be gained as those new ingredients are discovered. Some items, such as cranberry cobbler or starlight berry cobbler, are also craftable without acquiring and learning a recipe, and despite their complexity in real life, only require the main ingredient and wood. 

There is a cooking station at the Moonshiner's Shack, another at the Isolated Cabin, and one near the Wayward at the Overseer's CAMP. As noted in a previous tip guide, you can also use these cooking stations to craft Vegetable Starch for making Adhesive, and the forest version of Disease Cure without having to learn how. 

Fallout 76 Player Vending Machines

More complex foods composed of multiple ingredients usually require a recipe to craft. There is some luck involved in terms of which of these recipes happen to drop, but they can also be purchased from the vending machines of other players, and from special vendors in game. Many of the ingredients for these recipes may not be available in the Forest Region, so further exploration of the map may be necessary to use them.

Some of the raw foods likely to be found during the trip down the hill from Vault 76 to the Wayward include the following: 

Glowing Fungus - On the stairs leading down from the Vault, and at the river near the covered bridge

Soot Flower - All over the forest region

Corn - On a table outside the Moonshiner's Cabin near the cooking station, and in a garden plot beside the Wayward.

Tatos - West side of the Moonshiner's Shack.

Mutfruit - Down the hill from the Moonshiner's Shack toward Gilman's Lumber next to a rocky outcrop, and west of Wixon Homestead near the metal fencing.

Snaptail, Bloodleaf, & Firecap - Possible spawns around the edges of the Gilman Lumber Company pond.

Pumpkins - Behind the Wixon Homestead main house near an overturned wagon.

Carrots, Wild Melon Blossoms - In the garden on the north side of Wixon Homestead.

Starlight Creeper - Beside the Isolated Cabin.

Firecap Mushroom - West and Across the River from Slocum Joe's

Most vegetables and fruits can be cooked into a soup or tea with the help of just boiled water and wood. You can get dirty water at the Gilman pond, or from a pump at Wixon Homestead, or from the river behind the Wayward, and boil it at a cooking station. Most of the juices and teas made from individual ingredients will heal 10 points of health and slake thirst to the tune of 15%. Boiled water alone has the same effect, but one of the advantages of making a juice or tea instead is that you get dosed with five (5) Rads when drinking boiled water but only two (2) Rads with juices and teas. 

Another advantage is that you get the same healing and thirst-quenching effects from juices and teas while having to carry less weight. Boiled Water weighs a quarter pound more for the same effect. Crafting a juice or tea also nets you some experience points. Not many points, but they can add up over time, especially in the early game. Cooking of raw ingredients into another form also slows the spoilage rate, so Mutfruit Juice will last longer than raw Mutfruit, and cooking also removes the disease risk compared with eating the raw ingredient. Excess juices or teas can be sold for caps to Duchess or other vendors, whereas Boiled Water alone has no value. You won't generally earn any more caps for a juice or tea than for the raw ingredient by itself, but those ingredients will last longer before they spoil, increasing the chances that you make it to a vendor in time to earn some caps. 

Most of the juices and teas you can craft have an additional effect that generally lasts for 30 minutes of gameplay. You can check the effects, and the time remaining, under STAT and EFFECTS in your Pip-Boy once the item is consumed. A list of these effects can be found here. Mutfruit Juice temporarily increases Agility by one (1) point, for example, which increases Action Points (AP) by five (5). Soot Flower Tea and Tato Juice increase maximum Hit Points (HP) by 10 points in addition to providing healing, and Bloodleaf Tea provides an additional 5% disease resistance.

Perhaps the most valuable juice in the early game is Tarberry Juice. This drink increases AP by 120, and there are two ponds behind the Vault Tec Agricultural Research Center with Tarberries (next to the greenhouses), so the supply is reliable. 

Liberator Attack

The simple soups are slightly better, because they tend to provide both food (10%) and water (15%), and often heal more hit points than juices or teas. Additional effects are usually a little more worthwhile as well. 

Firecap Soup only heals 10 HP but temporarily provides 25 energy resistance, which is excellent against Liberators and Robots. This amount of energy resistance is better protection from lasers than you would get from a full set of Level 1 Boiled Leather Armor, for example, so it can be quite an effective boost during the earliest part of the game.

Corn Soup heals 12 hit points and gives +3 AP point regeneration, a 50% increase over the base regeneration of 6 points. This buff can cut 5 or so seconds off the time it takes to restore AP from zero to 100%. 

Glowing Fungus Soup heals 12 HP and provides 20 Rad resistance, and Carrot Soup heals 12 points and provides +2 Perception. 

Pumpkin Soup and Razorgrain Soup both heal 30 hit points (about 12% of the base hit points at Level 2). Pumpkin Soup also provides +2 Perception and Razorgrain Soup gives 10% disease resistance.

Further afield in the Forest Area you are likely to find other ingredients to make into soups, such as Brain Fungus Soup (12 healing, +2 Intelligence for extra experience) and Silt Bean Soup (30 healing, +2 Endurance which translates into +10 hit points). There are also normal cranberries at Aaronholt Farm that can be made into Cranberry Cobbler (25 healing, +5% experience). Mothman eggs can be found in Point Pleasant around the Mothman statue, and in some cultist locations. They can be cooked into a Mothman Egg Omelette that will provide 45 points of healing and add two points to Charisma. Extra charisma lowers purchase prices at vendors.

Radstag at the Tent Camp in Flatwoods

Meats tend to do more to satisfy hunger per serving than juices, soups or pre-war foods. The range for most cooked meats is 25-60 hit points of healing. At the lowest level, when a character has only 255 hit points and an Endurance of one (1), a grilled meat that heals 45 hit points is almost as effective as a healing salve (18% of hit points vs. 20%). A cooked meat that does 60 points is better (24%), and almost as good as a Diluted Stimpak (30%) but not nearly as good as a regular Stimpak (60%). Increases in Endurance will add to hit points and slightly decrease the relative impact of foods on healing as a percentage of total hit points. However, high Endurance is not generally an issue at the lower levels. 

Grilled Radstag is a particularly useful meat to cook because it provides excellent healing (60 hit points), significant extra carry weight (20 lbs), and is relatively plentiful. On the way down the hill from Vault 76, there is reliable Radstag hanging at the Moonshiner's Cabin, if your role-play rules allow you to take it. You may also encounter live Radstag near Gilman's Lumber or Wixon Homestead, but they may be difficult to kill (before they run away) until you get better weapons. I've seen chickens in the Wixon Homestead fields occasionally, which can be made into Chicken Noodle Soup (25 healing, 10% disease resistance) and fox between the road in front of Wixon Homestead and the Isolated Cabin. Fox Jerky provides 45 points of healing and an Agility boost of 2 points (or +10 AP).

Flatwoods (South) Viewed from the Church Steeple

After reaching the Wayward, there are a number of new food options in the Flatwoods area. Brahmin wander freely in Flatwoods and can be found in a pen beside the Wayward. My role-play rules don't allow me to take advantage of the Wayward Brahmin, but the ones in Flatwoods are fair game.  

Brahmin produce Ribeye Steak with 45 hit points of healing and +20 lbs of carry weight. They can also be milked (Brahmin Milk = 10 healing and -25 Rads). 

On the road between the Wayward and Flatwoods, you are likely to encounter Wild Mongrels that can be cooked up into Mutt Chops (45 healing and +2 Endurance).  

The Green Country Lodge has Mole Rats in the parking lot (Mole Rat Chunks = 25 healing and +1 Strength) as well as Opossum (Awesome Possum Bacon = 45 healing and +2 Luck). There are Radroaches in the bus stop across from the Lodge (Grilled Radroach = 25 healing and +1 Endurance). 

Further afield in the Forest Area of Appalachia you may encounter a Deathclaw on the appropriately named island (Deathclaw Steak = 60 healing and +2 Strength), Squirrels (Crispy Squirrel Bits = 25 healing and +2 Agility), Radtoad (Grilled Radtoad = 25 healing and +10 carry weight), and Wolf (Wolf Ribs = 45 healing and +2 Perception).

Useful Forest Area Recipes   

Many of the recipes you might purchase from another player or find in the Forest Area may not be useful in the early game, either because the ingredients are not common in the forest, or because you cannot collect everything needed for them without fast-travelling to keep the ingredients from spoiling. There are a few items, however, that may be worth trying to acquire and cook up into a prepared food. All prepared foods listed below require one or two Boiled Water and Wood in addition to the main ingredients listed. The recipes can drop at a low probability from a number of events, but the ones most likely to be undertaken by a low level character are the Fertile Soil (Flatwoods), Path to Enlightenment (Landview Lighthouse), Leader of the Pack (Tyler Fairgrounds), or Collision Course (Morgantown Airport) events.

Tato Plants at Aaronholt Farm

Radstag Stew can be made from 2 Radstag meat, 1 Spices, and 2 Tatos. Two Radstag hang in the tent camp near the Red Rocket Station in Flatwoods. There are Tatos behind Delbert's house, and you can sometimes find spices in the parking lot with the two cooking stations next to the Flatwoods Tavern. 

Radstag Stew heals 60 hit points and provides 35 energy resistance, or about the same protection as a full set of Level 5 Boiled Light Leather Armor. This is the perfect food to consume if you are in the midst of a battle with a group of Liberators or Protectrons and need to heal and get added protection simultaneously. The problem is that you are unlikely to find the recipe for this while still a low-level character. The same is true for many of the recipes mentioned below. But if you are lucky enough to find one, they can be very beneficial.

Glowing Fungus Puree offers the same protection against energy damage as Radstag Stew but with less healing (20 points). This one might be best to use when you know a big battle with laser-wielding robots is about to begin. It requires two Firecaps, two Glowing Fungus, and Pepper. The Firecap is the limiting ingredient, but two or three can be found near the crossroads by Slocum's Joe Coffee Shop up the street from the Wayward. Try going west from Slocum's Joe first and across the river. There are often Firecaps in the Vault Tech Agricultural Research Center basement as well. Be sure to equip the Green Thumb perk, if you have it, to double your haul.

Ground Mole Rat heals 60 hit points worth of damage and increases Agility by 3 points. It requires two each of Mole Rat Meat, Pepper, and Silt Beans, all available in Flatwoods. 

Snaptail Reed - Used to Craft Sugar

Sweet Tato Stew heals 60 points of damage and offers Hit Point regeneration at a pace of about 1-2 points per second. It is a good way to recover from a serious fight.  Ingredients are fairly easy to acquire around Flatwoods - Mutfruit, Sugar, and Tatos. Sugar can be crafted from Snaptail. One of my characters managed to acquire this recipe early as a random drop.

Bloatfly Loaf heals 60 points of damage and provides 30 Rad resistance. Bloatflies are usually easy to find at Aaronholt Farm. The recipe requires two each of Bloatfly Meat, Glowing Fungus, and Salt. Rad resistance is only useful when you know you are entering an area with radiation, such as deep water or a location with radiation barrels. Not such a common issue in the early game, but if you are collecting plants along the streams leading into Flatwoods, it might be worth taking some just to limit radiation exposure from the water as you cross back and forth.

Fried Radtoad Legs heal 60 points of damage and add +20 carry weight. It requires two each of Radtoad Legs, Razorgrain, and Pepper to make. Radtoads are most commonly seen during the Path to Enlightenment Event in this part of the map. 

Razorgrain Flour is a strange one. It was introduced with the Wastelanders DLC and it does not require a recipe. It is the combination of four (4) Razorgrain and one (1) Concrete!  It provides +60 Action Points, which can be really helpful in the midst of a battle when using VATS, or when trying to run long distances (or to run from enemies).  However, you can get the same benefit from Sugar or Honey or Sugar Bombs. Honey is easy to find at the broken down shed on Aaronholt Farm below the outcrop with the metal windmill. Honey doesn't need any processing.

Beehives in the Broken Down Shed at Aaronholt Farm

Vegetable Medley Soup doesn't have a recipe, but you have to find some and consume it before you can know how to make it. It requires two Tatos, two Carrots, and one Salt. I don't know if it is available as a drop in the Forest Region, but if so, it heals 60 points of damage and provides 20% disease resistance. If you are also well-fed and well-hydrated, that would be 90% disease resistance while the soup's effect is active.

How to Use Food Buffs

Some foods are situation specific, while others can be placed in the clickwheel for emergency use, especially in the early game when you have fewer items that need to be accessible. It can be challenging to remember what all of the different foods do, and which ingredients are important to make them, so my recommendation is to identify one or two foods for each function you may be interested in, and jot notes about them that can be accessed quickly while you play. That is the rationale behind my suggestions below.

You should have a list of ingredients that you generally try to collect whenever you find them, in case they can be made into a useful food item (or adhesive). My recommended list is as follows:

Meat:  Radstag, Brahmin, Mole Rat

Plants:  Firecaps, Razorgrain, Silt Bean, Tatos, Mutfruit, Corn 

Other:  Brahmin Milk, Spices, Pepper, Salt

In the early game, I would try to avoid using Mutfruit, Tatos, and Corn for food buffs unless you have leftovers after making Adhesive from them. As I've noted many times, Adhesive is very important in the early game, and you don't want to waste the ingredients on anything else, unless they are about to go to waste otherwise.

Soot Flowers - A Common Forest Area Plant

1.  Healing - Once you have the Healing Salve recipe after becoming a Responder, you don't really need to craft food specifically for healing. Healing salve is easy to craft, and requires only Soot Flowers, which are abundant, and Bloodleaf, which is common along the waterways around Flatwoods. Put Healing Salve in the click wheel for quick healing during combat and don't worry about using foods for emergency healing.

You may want to use food after the battle to regenerate hit points and preserve your healing salve or Stimpaks, but if the battle is over, you can look through what you have at your leisure and consume them based on whether they are about to spoil, or whether you need the additional buffs they offer.

2.  Defense - A few of these food items provide considerable energy resistance and would be worth having in the clickwheel for emergency use when ambushed by Liberators or when fighting robots during the Fertile Soil event. Firecap Soup is the logical one to focus on because it offers fairly high energy resistance (+25) and doesn't require a recipe to make. Whenever you have Firecap Soup, consider reserving a spot for it (or one of the other energy defense foods) in your clickwheel for emergency use. 

If you have a recipe for Glowing Fungus Puree, you might substitute that instead of Firecap Soup, but the Puree requires two Firecaps while the Soup only requires one. To maximize value, Firecap Soup is probably the better choice. Radstag Stew is another option, but the recipe is not a common early drop and it requires Radstag, which is very valuable for increasing carry weight.

3.  Carry Weight - Some foods increase carry weight, while others increase Strength, which affects carry weight (1 point = 5 lbs extra carry weight). The best foods to enhance carry weight are Grilled Radstag (+20) and Ribeye Steak (+20). Grilled Radtoad provides the same buff as Grilled Radstag but is only readily available during the event at the Landview Lighthouse. Deathclaw steak increases carry weight by 10 lbs because it provides +2 Strength, but low level characters should be very careful trying to kill one of these.

Two-Headed Brahmin at Flatwoods

4.  Radiation - Radiation resistance is not terribly important in the early game, so long as you don't spend much time in the water. I wouldn't worry about carrying around foods that reduce resistance. More important is the ability to cure Rads once you have them. The only option other than Radaway is Brahmin Milk. This is relatively easy to get in Flatwoods, but it doesn't last long.  Still, collect it when you can and use it to reduce the number of Radaways you need, at least until you have an abundance of them.

5.  Agility Buffs - Agility is very important if you rely on VATS for targeting or spotting enemies, and has value for running while encumbered as well. The best way to buff agility is to stay well-hydrated so you get the 35% improvement to AP regeneration. This can be boosted with Corn Soup (+50% to base AP regeneration). AP regeneration is probably more valuable than any of the food buffs that increase agility directly. Because of the importance of corn in crafting Adhesive, I would use Tarberry Juice (120 AP), Sugar or Honey (both 60 AP) instead of Corn Soup to boost AP, unless you have an excess of corn.  

If you have the recipe, Ground Mole Rat is an interesting choice as well, because it increases Agility by 3, which is 15 additional action points. A second level character would have 70 or 80 action points total, so 15 additional points would be a considerable buff (ca. 20% of the total). 

6.  Other SPECIAL Buffs - Intelligence can be useful to boost if you are interested in leveling up faster. Extra intelligence increases experience points for every activity done in the game. Brain Fungus Soup provides +2 Intelligence. None of the other SPECIAL buffs are probably important enough to worry about curating foods specifically for them. Strength buffs may be useful if you are a melee build. In that case, be sure to stay well-fed for a +1 to Strength, and consider making Mole Rat Chunks a staple of your diet.

7.  Disease Resistance -  The best way to get solid disease resistance is by staying well-fed and well-hydrated. This provides a 70% resistance. Diseases only last for about an hour, and with the Pharma Farma perk, Disease Cures are fairly common. Personally, I wouldn't worry about trying to increase disease resistance further, but if it becomes a perennial problem that you contract diseases and don't have any Disease Cure handy, then frequent consumption of Razorgrain Soup (10% resistance) or Vegetable Medley Soup (20% resistance), if you know how to make it, might be worthwhile.