Cooking

Based on game build 722832 | Last updated: 2026-04-28

Overview

cooking.lua defines the global cooking system that tracks all recipes, ingredients, and cookbook entries for cookers (cookpot, portablecookpot, archive_cookpot, portablespicer). It provides functions to register new recipes and ingredients, query valid recipes for given ingredients, and calculate final cooking results. This file is a configuration source — it is not a component and does not attach to entities; it is required by cooking-related components and prefabs that need to resolve recipe outcomes.

Usage example

local cooking = require("cooking")

-- Check if a prefab is a valid cooking ingredient
if cooking.IsCookingIngredient("meat") then
    print("meat can be used in cooking")
end

-- Get a specific recipe by cooker and product name
local recipe = cooking.GetRecipe("cookpot", "meatballs")

-- Check if any mod cooker foods are registered
local has_mod_foods = cooking.HasModCookerFood()

-- Calculate what recipe will be produced from given ingredients
local product, cooktime = cooking.CalculateRecipe("cookpot", {"meat", "meat", "carrot", "ice"})

-- Access exported tables directly
local all_recipes = cooking.recipes["cookpot"]
local all_ingredients = cooking.ingredients

Dependencies & tags

External dependencies:

• tuning -- global balance constants (imported but not directly used in exported functions)
• prefabs/oceanfishdef -- provides ocean fish definitions for ingredient registration
• preparedfoods -- standard cookpot recipes loaded into cookerrecipes table
• preparedfoods_warly -- Warly's portable cookpot exclusive recipes
• spicedfoods -- portable spicer recipes
• preparednonfoods -- non-food cooking products (e.g., soap, fuels)

Components used: None identified

Tags: None identified

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
official_foods	table	{}	Tracks prefab names of official (non-mod) foods. Used by IsModCookerFood() to distinguish mod-added recipes.
cookerrecipes	table	{}	Maps cooker names ("cookpot", "portablecookpot", "archive_cookpot", "portablespicer") to tables of recipe definitions keyed by product name.
cookbook_recipes	table	{}	Maps cookbook category names to recipe tables. Excludes recipes with no_cookbook = true and portablespicer recipes.
recipe_cards	table	{}	Array of recipe card entries {recipe_name = name, cooker_name = cooker}. Used for cookbook UI display.
ingredients	table	{}	Maps ingredient prefab names to tag value tables. Includes cooked/dried variants when cancook/candry flags are set.
aliases	table (local)	{...}	Maps inconsistent prefab naming conventions (e.g., cookedsmallmeat → smallmeat_cooked). Used internally by IsCookingIngredient and GetIngredientValues for name resolution.
MOD_COOKBOOK_CATEGORY	constant (local)	"mod"	Category name used for mod-added recipes in the cookbook.

Main functions

IsModCookerFood(prefab)

• Description: Checks if a prefab name corresponds to a mod-added cooking product (not in official_foods table).
• Parameters: prefab -- string prefab name of cooking product
• Returns: true if mod-added, false if official food or unknown
• Error states: None.

HasModCookerFood()

• Description: Checks if any mod cooker foods are currently registered in the cookbook.
• Parameters: None
• Returns: true if cookbook_recipes["mod"] exists, false otherwise
• Error states: None.

IsCookingIngredient(prefabname)

• Description: Checks if a prefab name is registered as a valid cooking ingredient (exists in ingredients table after alias resolution).
• Parameters: prefabname -- string prefab name to check
• Returns: true if valid ingredient, false otherwise
• Error states: None.

GetRecipe(cooker, product)

• Description: Retrieves a specific recipe definition by cooker name and product name.
• Parameters:
  • cooker -- string cooker name
  • product -- string product prefab name
• Returns: Recipe table or nil if not found
• Error states: None.

GetIngredientValues(prefablist)

• Description: Aggregates ingredient tags and counts from a list of prefab names. Resolves aliases and sums tag values for matching ingredients.
• Parameters: prefablist -- table array of ingredient prefab names
• Returns: Table with tags (table of tag name to value sums) and names (table of prefab name to count).
• Error states: None.

GetCandidateRecipes(cooker, ingdata)

• Description: Finds all potentially valid recipes matching given ingredients. Filters recipes by testing against ingredient names and tags, then sorts by priority and returns highest-priority candidates.
• Parameters:
  • cooker -- string cooker name
  • ingdata -- table from GetIngredientValues with tags and names fields
• Returns: Array of recipe tables sorted by priority (highest first). Returns empty table if no matches.
• Error states: None.

CalculateRecipe(cooker, names)

• Description: Determines the final cooking result from a list of ingredient prefab names. Gets ingredient values, finds candidate recipes, then uses weighted random selection based on recipe weight values.
• Parameters:
  • cooker -- string cooker name
  • names -- table array of ingredient prefab names
• Returns: product_name (string or nil), cooktime (number or nil). When no recipes match, returns nil, nil (no explicit return in source when candidates table is empty).
• Error states: None.

AddCookerRecipe(cooker, recipe, is_mod_food)

• Description: Registers a recipe definition for a specific cooker. Adds the recipe to cookerrecipes table and optionally to cookbook_recipes and official_foods based on is_mod_food flag.
• Parameters:
  • cooker -- string cooker name (e.g., "cookpot", "portablecookpot", "archive_cookpot", "portablespicer")
  • recipe -- table recipe definition with fields: name (string), test (function), priority (number), weight (number), cooktime (number), no_cookbook (boolean), card_def (table)
  • is_mod_food -- boolean, if true sets cookbook_category to "mod" and skips official_foods registration
• Returns: None
• Error states: Errors if cooker or recipe is nil (no nil guards in source — cookerrecipes[cooker] and recipe.name will nil-dereference).

AddIngredientValues(names, tags, cancook, candry)

• Description: Registers ingredient prefab names with tag values for cooking system. Creates entries in ingredients table and optionally generates cooked/dried variants when cancook/candry flags are set.
• Parameters:
  • names -- table array of ingredient prefab names
  • tags -- table mapping tag names to numeric values (e.g., {meat=1, veggie=0.5})
  • cancook -- boolean, if true creates prefab_cooked variant with precook tag
  • candry -- boolean, if true creates prefab_dried variant with dried tag
• Returns: None
• Error states: Errors if names or tags is nil (no nil guards in source — pairs(names) and pairs(tags) will error on nil).

Events & listeners

None.