Food, Water and Air
Land Creatures have two different stats, Food and Water. Aquatic Creatures have two as well, Food and Air. These are filled as you’d expect, by eating the required food for your creature, drinking water, or breathing air. To eat, drink, or breathe requires pressing the Use Key (Default E). Fish are eaten by attacking them. Having full food and water is very beneficial, because your speed of growth is scaled by the sum of your food, water, and comfort, divided by the sum of your max food, water, and comfort
The larger you get, the slower your food will drop (especially with the Food Talents in the Survival Tree), but also the more you have to eat to stay full. This means that, past a certain size, you are going to start struggling to stay fed, especially if there are other herbivores / carnivores around that might take your food. While your size does mean more health, more Talents, and over all a better chance of not being killed by someone, it does come with the drawbacks of higher upkeep on your food and water.
Also, the lower your food and water gets, the slower it depletes.
Over eating will increase your creature’s fatness, as well as give you the “Well Fed’ buff, which provides more health and faster healing at the cost of slower speed, slower stamina regen, and lowered comfort.
There are three different types of food: Fish, Plants, and Meat. These are eaten by Piscivores, Herbivores, and Carnivores.
Land Plants:
Almost every type of plant in game is edible. Your size does determine what you can or cannot eat. For example, a Pachycephalosaurus is going to be limited to small ground plants, while an Apatosaurus can eat entire trees. Certain plants offer more benefits. Special glowing plants provide more food than the average plant and increases your Comfort and can be scented as a green cloud. It is the only plant that has a scent.
Aquatic plants will give food poisoning to land herbivores if eaten, just as land plants will give food poisoning to aquatic herbivores when eaten. There is a talent called Botanist that offests this.
Plants can be picked up by double tapping E, and carried. Your size dictates how much you can carry at once.
Aquatic Plants:
Aquatic plants are seaweed and kelp, and both are edible to all creature, though will cause food poisoning in land animals that eat them. Land plants will similarly poison aquatic herbivores if they eat them, though the Botanist talent can offset this.
Special glowing plants provide more food than the average plant and increases your Comfort and can be scented as a green cloud. It is the only plant that has a scent.
Plants can be picked up by double tapping E, and carried. Your size dictates how much you can carry at once.
Meat:
Meat is obtained in two ways: killing other creatures, or finding the tiny random ones that spawn occasionally on the map. Meat will decay as it sits out, and this is visible by its texture, color, and the sound of flies as it begins to rot. Its scent color will change from red to yellow as well (See Scent Section). Eating rotten meat will poison you with food poisoning. Storing meat in a cave will slow down its decay rate.
Carnivores can eat fish, but they will suffer a negative comfort debuff when doing so. There is a Talent that will allow a Carnivore to more comfortably feed off of fish, allowing a Aquatic life style for a normally Terrestrial predator. That same Talent will also allow the safe consumption of Rotten Meat.
Meat can be picked up by double tapping E, and carried. Your size dictates how much you can carry at once. There is a Talent that lets you carry more at once. Storing meat in caves slows down how fast it decays.
Fish:
Fish are a simple-AI food source that spawns in the ocean and roams. They are the primary food source of Pteranodons, Elasmosaurus, and Icthyovenator. These creatures can also consume meat, and with the Scavenger Talent, even rotten meat.
Water:
Water is filled at a Freshwater source. Saltwater is unable to be drunk at all. Inland lakes will deplete as they are drunk, meaning a large herd at one lake could possibly drain it dry after enough time. Lakes will refill slowly over time, and Rain will increase the rate at which they refill.
Air:
Refilling an Air meter is a need only required by Aquatic creatures. To refill Air, they must surface and place their heads out of the water, pressing the use key to breathe. Breath is not automatic.
While swimming non-Aquatics also have a air need if their head goes underwater, this is refilled automatically by lifting their head above water.