The Meat Report

I was buffing a friends island and as I was putting a steak sandwich on his Deerstalker I had the thought, Is this actually worthwhile doing?
I mean... the steak buff consumes meat and then you use it to make back more meat - is that worth while ? Is it economical ?

So I did what any intelligent adult would do and asked my kid to work it out for me.

It turns out that Yes it is worth while doing, at any level, except level 1, even if you self buff you are still going to generate more meat back than you use to create the buff.

So then we asked, Is it better to perhaps use a Feast rather than a Steak Sandwich - since you use less meat to make this buff.

The answer was, no not really.
If you take into account that you need to have a butcher to make the sausages, and that you will no doubt have that buffed, then the cost of the meat involved, and the down time that will occur between buffing.... the best best is to just stay with the steaks.

We found that the real gain in making meat isn't to do with buffing however.
It is to do with what buildings you use to make your meat.

Unlike coal and fish production the special building for creating meat (Deerstalker) does NOT have the same production time as its licensed counterpart. The Deerstalker is 8 mins while the Hunter is 6 mins.
This represents approximately 10 more meat per hour per building unbuffed.

Over the duration of one steak buff applied by a premium friend it works out that you will get about 900 more meat from a lvl 6 Hunter than you will from a lvl 6 Deerstalker. I have 8 Deerstalkers so if i was to replace them with Hunters I could gain 7k per meat per buffing - which is a significant amount.

Obviously license issues need to be considered.

I hope this helps you plan your islands.

Don't forget to include the cost of refilling the meat deposit which is not necessary with the deerstalker :)

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Originally Posted by Xibor

Don't forget to include the cost of refilling the meat deposit which is not necessary with the deerstalker :)

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Very much this.

Although if more ppl would sell their Deerstalkers and use hunters instead all the better for my meat-refill emporium. So please do! It's not a bad way to help us lower level players gain some extra cash. Trickle down economics!

Also I'd point out, only looking at meat kinda misses the point. For a true value you need to include all the resource that go into making the buffs.

For me the point of buffing with steak is the duration. When my nice guildies buff me steak lasts for 3 days, 3 days and 10 hours if on premium.

No way I am going back to using buffs with shorter durations, no matter what the economy in it is.

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the cost of refilling the meat deposit

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Insignificant. My meat deposits have a million in them. Fish are not used for anything else so yours should be too.

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Originally Posted by SnowBlizz

only looking at meat kinda misses the point. For a true value you need to include all the resource that go into making the buffs.

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Meat is the only resource required for the Steak Sandwich buff.

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the steak buff consumes meat and then you use it to make back more meat

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No way I am going back to using buffs with shorter durations

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Me either, but I have problem making enough meat to buff my whole island, which is why I looked into this.

Yeah I worked out the same things as you pretty much.
Steaks are cheaper than feasts (especially if your friend buffs for you (3d without prem)). But I do not agree regarding the hunter>deerstalker.
Yes I still have more hunters(9) than deerstalkers (3) but I produce more than enough steaks to buff 110 buildings every 3 days.
The real pain is making the steaks in rph, because you can only make so much and you need the rph for other things as well.

entertaining read :)

All this talk of steak is making me hungry .....

Another thing to throw into the calculations is the 'cost' of buffs that are acquired through explorers and using those instead of generating meat to make steak. If you are inundated with 2x/3x (and in my case 4x) buffs from explorers, you may find that more economical to burn off (err..use).

Also it is worth noting, that as you progress through the game/levels, you need to adapt your expectations and strategies. What seems great now may be less valuable when you are 50+. Or, when you are lazy like me and consider buffing every 2 days a chore :P