Nutrient Bar

Nutrient Bar is a packaged food item that provides 800 kcal/kg and is used both as Duplicant food and as feedstock for Experiment 52B (the Resin-producing tree). It appears in several guaranteed or chance sources at the start or during expeditions: the starting Ration Box next to the Printing Pod contains 20 Nutrient Bars (total 16,000 kcal), each Event/ruin Vending Machine yields one Nutrient Bar (800 kcal), and supply packs near Printing Pods or Mini‑Pods can contain five Nutrient Bars (4,000 kcal). The item was formerly called "Field Ration."

As a Duplicant food, Nutrient Bars behave like other simple rations: they supply calories for consumption and can be eaten directly or used as inputs for systems that accept any calorie-rated food. When fed to Experiment 52B, Nutrient Bars are relatively high in calorie density (800 kcal/kg) and thus influence the tree’s Resin production and the tree’s venting behavior. Experiment 52B consumes food at 50 g/s while not venting, produces 1 kg of Liquid Resin per 200 kcal, and pauses food consumption while venting. Because Nutrient Bars contain 800 kcal per kg, each kilogram of Nutrient Bars corresponds to 4 kg of Liquid Resin produced by the tree (in raw kcal-to-resin terms). In practice, due to the tree’s cycle of accumulating 5 kg Resin and then venting at 1.5 kg/s, the tree effectively consumes about 26 kg/cycle of Nutrient Bars and produces about 106 kg/cycle of Liquid Resin (table figures that include production and venting phases).

Practical points for using Nutrient Bars:

• Place Nutrient Bars on the tree’s center-bottom tile; the tree can only grab food from that exact cell.
• Because the tree spends time venting Resin once it reaches 5 kg, higher-calorie foods (like Nutrient Bars) cause more venting and reduce the total mass consumed per cycle, increasing resin yield per mass of food consumed. This makes Nutrient Bars a good compromise between ease of acquisition and resin output compared to lower- or higher-density foods.
• Liquid Resin must be heated above 125 °C to convert into usable Isoresin; heating produces steam/water as a byproduct (250 g Isoresin and 750 g water per 200 kcal worth of resin boiled). Because Experiment 52B’s safe internal temperature can be raised only to 99.9 °C, Resin should be moved off the tree to a separate facility for boiling.
• Experiment 52B exchanges heat only with the cell below its bottom-middle block. Placing a thermally conductive tile beneath that cell or locating the tree over vacuum allows intentional temperature manipulation (for example, to preheat the tree closer to boiling temperature and reduce external energy cost).
• Resin’s boiling point matches the minimum input temperature for Steam Turbines, which simplifies integrating Resin boiling with power generation.

Because Nutrient Bars are common in starting supplies and vending/pack drops, they are a convenient early-game calorie source and a practical feedstock for resin production on isolated asteroids. They remain subject to the same spoilage and cooking/consumption mechanics as other foods when used directly by Duplicants, but when fed to Experiment 52B the tree itself is immune to Food Poisoning.