Chef Archive

Um i want to be a chef but what does food do to people (not animals)

i am a newbie sorry to waste yr time

Here's the speech I held on Shadowfire when the server and my chef career started:


I'm honest with you: you don't need chefs. You won't die by not eating/drinking.

I think we are among the five least played professions. Mainly because noone knows what we can do for them, most just consider us as a social component of the game for roleplaying purposes. We are to stand behind the bar in the cantina, sell beer and do some conversation. That's it. Those that do know worship us, and I'd like to take this opportunity to teach you novices (and advanced players, too ) how to ascend into this elitist level of existence. :-)

Let's begin with an excursus into the basics of your character: the stats. By choosing your first profession, the Empire has given you the default setting that it thinks will be usefull to you. Maybe you have tweaked them yourself a little before coming down to your starting planet (that "Warning ! Instant stat migration !" sounded serious, didn't it ?). But don't worry, you can change them at any time in the game, but it will take its time. So what are these stats good for ?

You can see them ingame by pressing CTRL C. You will notice 9 values in three colors:

RED: health, strength, constitution
GREEN: action, quickness, stamina
BLUE: mind, focus, willpower

The first column (health, action, mind, aka: HAM) is the most obvious. It says "how many points you have available in your pool", and the values are represented in the HAM bar in the top left corner. Points are used for special moves, e.g. any kind of non-standard attack, but also for sampling, healing or dancing. Damage you take also is deducted from your pools. It regenerates slowly, and health and action points can be healed almost instantly by medics. Mind is your weak spot. It can't be healed, regeneration is your only chance (if you don't have a medic starter stimpack or one of those rare mind healing ones you sometimes find on NPCs, but don't rely on it). That's why almost every PvP player uses a rifle: it's a ranged attack and hits the mind pool. But even if you are not into PvP you should have enough mind points, as some MOBs also hit your mind points.

The second column is about the "cost of special moves". Simply put: the more points you have in here, the less points you will spend when attacking, sampling, healing, dancing,.... Nothing is more annoying than having a weapon that empties your bars faster than the enemies'.

Finally, the third column determines "how fast the HAM pools regenerate". Nothing to add.

You have 1,800 points to distribute among those nine values, and it will be far from enough to maximize all of them, so choose wisely. And yes, Wookiees have higher basic stats, hence higher final values, but they are not allowed to use armor (which reduces damage). Nothing's for free.


Here's where chefs come into action.

Chefs produce food and drinks that can enhance (aka: buffing) one, two, three or all (!) of those nine stats for a few minutes ! Heya. Of course, you can't buff them as high as you like (blame the devs for it ;-) ); there's a point when you are just filled up, and it takes some time until you can take the next bite. At least food and drinks fill you differently, so while you aren't hungry right now, you can still drink. And opposed to real life, you don't become fat by eating to much. :-)

Let's take a closer look at the buffs. Looking at it in your inventory, you will see a small number which indicates the stack sizes, aka how many uses you have left. By examining it, you find out what it actually does and how long the effect lasts (in seconds). Each product has a basic value, and the quality of the final product depends a lot on the quality of the resources used for cooking and the chef's experimentation on it. So when you place an order, tell the chef if you'd like more effect, more uses or longer duration. Unfortunately some goods also have a negative effect on one or two values, but it can also be lowered by experimentation, so don't hesitate to specify your order. Oh, and if you eat two of the same kind at the same time, their effect will stack, not the duration.

For fairness reasons: there are three other methods of buffing.
1.) Advanced doctors can buff your RED and GREEN stats quite impressively. However, when is there a doctor when you need one ?? Right, never. But food, you buy and use it whenever and where you like. Plus it can also affect BLUE stats (which docs aren't able to).
2.) Scouts can forage food. They can find some quite good stuff, however they can't influence what buffing effect to find and its power. And it only comes in stacks of one. Most will forage on demand (in a group) or for own purpose only. It's nice, but not nice enough to base a business on it.
3.) Smuggler spices. Ouch, touché. Kudos, they produce the best buffs in the game (effect and duration), always in a stack of one. Even a master chef will find it difficult to compete. However, spices are illegal drugs, and their use comes at a price. After it wears off, you'll experience a downtime and down-effect: the effect reverses for as long as it originally lasted. It's a good way to prepare yourself for a duel that you know to be over in a few minutes. But you don't want to be out there hunting when suddenly you start to feel sick....

I was gonna say something, but Cal said it better.

All I can say is that eating and drinking is a good thing.

-- YP