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The game Raft has three bars players can always see in the lower-left corner of the screen: health, food, and water. The health bar constantly regenerates over time, but only as long as the food and water bar aren't empty.
Players need to find food and water to keep these bars full, but not every source is equal. Cooked food fills more of the bar than raw food, and pure water is more refreshing than any fruit. But if Raft players want to find the best food and the best liquids, they'll need to build and use the cooking pot and the juicer.
Setup and Recipes
Both the cooking pot and the juicer are on the initial list in the research table book. This means players can build them just as soon as they gather all the parts they need and use them at the research table. However, while the cooking pot needs planks to work, the juicer requires a simple battery, and so players will also need to research those before they can begin.
Once players have built and placed both tables, and the juicer has its battery, players still have to do one more thing before they can begin. To make something useful, players first have to find recipes for both the cooking pot and juicer. These recipes are one of the random items players can find in crates, but only the crates found on islands and abandoned rafts. However, players can also use recipes they've found online and not just in-game.
With that said, there are some exceptions. First, the developers have changed and removed several recipes from the game. This means that some recipes players find online won't work. Second, players can't cook the special blue recipes found in trading posts unless they first buy them. These recipes also require ingredients only sold at trading posts.
One nice thing about recipes is that players can attach them to the flat boards on the back of both the juicer and the cooking pot. Recipes can also go on walls and pillars once players run out of board space.
The Cooking Process
Every cooking pot and juicer recipe calls for four ingredients. Players must lay out these ingredients on the four white spaces on the table, and once they're ready they can click on the pot to start cooking. Around a minute and a half later, the food will be ready. However, players must have a drinking glass or a clay bowl ready to collect the drinks or food, and these items also need to be researched.
Some recipes list two ingredients side by side. This means that either ingredient will work in any combination. For instance, the vegetable soup calls for four potatoes or four beets. To make it, players can use four beets, two beets and two potatoes, four potatoes, or anything in between.
Something else to consider is that ingredients must be raw. Cooked potatoes don't count as the right ingredient in vegetable soup, and grilled fish don't work in fish stew. In fact, the game won't even let players put cooked foods on the table.
Another important point involves milk. While players keep the bucket when drinking milk directly, using milk for cooking pot and juicer recipes will consume the bucket.
The Benefits
The main reason to spend resources on the juicer and cooking pot is because they do more than just fill the food and water bars. They add a new bonus area to the ends of these bars, and while this bonus area is smaller than the regular bar it also drains much more slowly. Regular food and water can't fill this bonus area (aside from milk and other rare items), and so the only consistent way to get this bonus and fill it up is with cooking-pot food and juice.
Players may notice that sometimes the bonus area overlaps their regular food or water bars. This happens when players are very thirsty or hungry when they consume a special item, and players can restore their full bar length by consuming normal food and drink. Aside from this, normal food and drink consumed while the bonus bar is active is wasted while cooking pot and juicer items will only fill in the bonus bar.
The blue recipes sold by trading posts also provide additional bonuses for several minutes. All five are at the bottom of the cooking pot and juicer recipe lists below.
Cooking Pot:
Recipe | Ingredients | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
Vegetable Soup | Raw Potato or Raw Beet X4 | Small hunger bonus |
Mushroom Omelette | Raw Potato X1 Egg X2 Cave Mushroom X1 | Small hunger bonus |
Simple Fish Stew | Raw Potato or Raw Beet X2 Raw Herring or Raw Pomfret X2 | Small hunger bonus |
Steak with Jam | Raw Potato or Raw Beet X1 Raw Meat X1 Red Berries X2 | Small hunger bonus |
Coconut Chicken | Raw Drumstick X2 Coconut X1 Cave Mushroom X1 | Medium hunger bonus |
BBQ | Raw Meat X1 Raw Mackerel X1 Raw Drumstick X1 Cave Mushroom X1 | Large hunger bonus |
Sushi | Raw Mackerel or Raw Tilapia X2 Egg X1 Silver Algae X1 | Large hunger bonus |
Shark Dinner | Raw Sharkmeat X2 Cave Mushroom X1 Silver Algae X1 | Large hunger bonus |
Head Broth | Raw Potato or Raw Beet X1 Poison-Puffer Head X2 Bucket of Milk X1 | Full hunger bonus |
Catfish Deluxe (TP) | Raw Potato or Raw Beet X1 Raw Catfish X1 Cave Mushroom X1 Chili X1 | Medium hunger bonus Faster running speed |
Salmon Salad (TP) | Pineapple or Mango X1 Raw Salmon X1 Silver Algae X1 Turmeric X1 | Medium hunger bonus Bigger lung capacity |
Hearty Stew (TP) | Raw Potato X1 Cave Mushroom X1 Raw Meat X1 Juniper X1 | Small hunger bonus Immune to attacks, poison, and falling damage |
Juicer:
Recipe | Ingredients | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
Coconut Beat | Coconut X3 Raw Beet X1 | Small thirst bonus |
Red Melon | Red Berries X1 Strawberry X1 Watermelon X1 Coconut X1 | Small thirst bonus |
Strawberry Colada | Pineapple X1 Strawberry X1 Coconut X2 | Medium thirst bonus |
Simple Smoothie | Coconut X2 Pineapple X1 Mango X1 | Medium thirst bonus |
Mangonana | Mango X1 Banana X2 Bucket of Milk X1 | Large thirst bonus |
Silver Smoothie | Banana X1 Mango X1 Bucket of Milk X1 Silver Algae X1 | Large thirst bonus |
Redbeet Shot (TP) | Beet X2 Coconut X1 Turmeric X1 | Small thirst bonus Longer health bar |
Spicy Pineberry (TP) | Pineapple X1 Strawberry X2 Chili X1 | Small thirst bonus Faster swim speed |
Any combination of ingredients not in a recipe will produce "leftovers." These items restore a small amount of hunger or thirst, but not nearly as much as the raw ingredients would have. As such, players should be careful how they cook.
Raft is available now on PC.