Rot

This page was last verified for Vintage Story version 1.21.6.

Rot
Stackable	64
Fuel
Temperature	400°C
Duration	12 s
Items

Rot, not to be confused with the disease or plague known as "The Rot", is a form of natural decomposition and is the result of food decay over time.

There are multiple ways to find and create rot.

• lack of proper food preservation

• intentional compost preparation

• locating abandoned cookware in the basements of surface ruins and homes of underground ruins.

Decomposition as 'rot' introduces the player to the impermeance of created goods and foodstuffs as a survival mechanic as much as it is a mirror and foreshadowing of the scourge described in lore books and encountered through story locations.

Food spoilage

See also Food preservation .

Spoilage is an inevitable property of food that, if not countered with sealed crocks, storage vessels kept in cellars, and keeping foodstuffs cool, will produce decay. Cooked meals, raw meats, and vegetables have a set timeframe in which they need to be consumed before they go bad.

Food items that are ground-storable will eventually become piles of rot. This includes food stored on shelves , such as bread and cheese . Liquid that has spoiled in a barrel can be obtained by breaking the barrel. Liquid that has spoiled in a bucket can be obtained by placing the bucket in the input slot of a barrel. If the barrel is empty or already contains rot, the rot from the bucket will be transferred into the barrel.

The following table compares the volume of rot produced across different edibles. For example, every 4 berries will spoil into 1L of rot.

Item type	Rot produced per each item (Liters)
Bamboo shoot	0.55
Berries	0.25
Bread	1
Cassava (dried or raw)	0.5
Cassava (peeled or soaked)	1
Cheese (slice)	1 / slice
Cheese (whole)	4
Cheesemaking byproducts (cottage cheese, curd, etc)	0.2 / Liter
Cooked meals	1 / serving
Dough	1
Eggs	0.5
Fermented liquids (ale, cider, wine)	0.5 / Liter
Flour	0.25
Fruit juice	0.5 / Liter
Fruit mash	1
Grain	0.25
Hide (small)	1
Hide (medium)	2
Hide (large)	4
Hide (huge)	8
Insects (termites/grubs)	0.5
Legumes	0.33
Meat (raw, cooked, or cured)	1
Milk	0.2 / Liter
Mushrooms	1
Pickled food (vegetables / legumes)	0.5
Pie	1
Pineapple slices	0.25
Pumpkin slices	0.55
Vegetables (not including pumpkin, cassava, or mushrooms)	0.5
Whole pineapple	2
Whole pumpkin	2

If a stack of items would produce a non-whole number amount of rot based on the values in the table above, then the amount of rot actually produced in-game by that stack of items is based on the statistical average of the remainder. For example:

• If a stack of 4 berries rots, it will always produce exactly 1L of rot (4 * 0.25 = 1)

• If a single berry rots, it will produce nothing 75% of the time, and 1L of rot 25% of the time (1 * 0.25 = 0.25)

• If a stack of 4 bamboo shoots spoils and turns into rot, it will produce 2L of rot 80% of the time, and 3L of rot 20% of the time (4 * 0.55 = 2.20)

Making compost

Occasionally, a rotted food item becomes a pile of rot as soon as the player picks it up. Piles of rot in a chest, storage vessel, or pot can be picked up and kept in the player's inventory or transferred to barrels for use in compost production.

Large amounts of rot are useful for making compost, which can serve as fertilizer or as an ingredient in crafting fertile soil. Berries are a good source of edibles to let rot as they decay quickly and come in large amounts if picked from multiple bushes.

Creating compost requires a full stack of 64 rot and a barrel. When the barrel is full, the GUI will state how long the process will take and how much will be produced. Click the Seal button to begin the process. No other action is needed until the process has completed. The barrel lid will disappear, and the player can right-click on the barrel to open the GUI and remove the yield.

Removing rot from containers

Rot can be removed from cooking pots , jugs , bowls , crocks , and storage vessels by tossing the given container into a body of water. After a few seconds, the rot will float out and up to the water's surface, whereby the player can collect the rot for use or disposal. The pottery is now ready to be used again.

Sealed crocks need to be unsealed first before they can be cleaned. Taking a portion of rot using a bowl, in the same way you would take a portion of food to eat a meal, unseals the crock.

A note about residue-covered pots : this is not the same as rot, as residue is often the byproduct of using a pot for candle-making. Tossing a residue-covered pot into the water will not result in any rot to be collected, and neither will it remove the residue. In this case, it is best to save the pot for more candles and to clay-form and kiln-fire a new pot for cooking.

Finding rot in ruins

See also Ruins and Cracked vessels

Rot is located in abandoned cookware if it contains what was left of a last meal. This is much in the same way rot will appear in the cooking pot of a trader's caravan, except their pot originally contains cooked food, while pots in ruins have long sat, undisturbed, in silent decay.

Rot can also be found in storage vessels, ruined chests, and other containers, but not in cracked (storage) vessels.

Other uses

As with many items, rot is combustible and can be used as a simple fuel. It cannot burn as hot as charcoal or coal can for use in smelting , but it can help to prep the fire to initially get it going before coals are introduced, thereby letting the coal be conserved.

Notes

Food items have several properties related to spoiling.

• The freshHours property refers to the time that a food item provides its full satiety value. Food that is partially spoiled still provides satiety, but noticeably less.

• The transitionHours property refers to the time that a food item is transitioning from fresh to rot. Most food items have textures hinting at the degree of spoilage. The block info overlay tells the precise percentage that is spoiled.

• The transitionRatio property refers to how many Rot items each food item yields. Items that provide more satiety tend to yield more Rot than the same quantity of items that provide low satiety. Rot item count = perishable item count x transition rate
• Plants (flowers, ferns, saplings) that have been removed from the soil do not decay.

• The player's inventory is set at 18C, see Temperature for further info.