Tough Meat

Tough Meat is a raw food item produced when certain Critters die or when excess biomass is ejected during predation. It is not directly edible by duplicants and functions primarily as a cooking ingredient and as feed for specific creatures. Tough Meat appears in stacks measured in kilograms and is handled like other raw meats in storage, cooking, and feeding chains.

Tough Meat is produced in fixed quantities by Critters on death: some Critters drop 12 kg of Tough Meat, while others drop 5 kg. Baby Critters yield the same amount of Tough Meat as adults upon death. If such a Critter is consumed by a predator and the prey contains more calories than the predator can ingest, the surplus calories are expelled and appear as Tough Meat.

Tough Meat cannot be eaten raw. It can be transformed into edible, high-calorie food by cooking. The primary known recipe converts 6000 g Tough Meat into a cooked product at a Smoker, providing +16,000 kcal and +3 quality. The cooked result is described as a marinated, slow-smoked preparation that tenderizes the meat. This makes Tough Meat a valuable bulk ingredient for large-scale food production when smokers are available.

Tough Meat also has non-dining uses: it can be fed to certain animals (for example, feeding Tough Meat to Rhexes) to trigger creature-specific production — in the cited case, supplying Rhexes with Tough Meat yields Brine Ice. Because of these interactions, Tough Meat is useful both for creating high-calorie food and for running certain creature farms or resource loops.

Practical notes and tips:

• Store Tough Meat in refrigerated or chilled storage to slow spoilage if you plan to stockpile it for smoking or feeding.
• Use the Smoker to convert Tough Meat into a high-yield food source; the recipe requires large batches (6 kg per cooked item) but returns a very high calorie payoff, making it efficient for sustaining large colonies.
• When using predators to harvest Critters, be aware that predators will drop excess Tough Meat if the prey’s calories exceed their consumption; this can be used to indirectly farm Tough Meat by letting predators partially consume prey.
• Feed Tough Meat to compatible creatures where applicable (such as Rhexes) to obtain creature-specific products rather than cooking it, if that yields resources you need more.
• Because Tough Meat is bulky, consider using automation and conveyors or high-capacity storage to move and process it efficiently.