To food or not to food

[Zefod42 2]

Greetings unicums of the world,

First of all, if this needs to be moved to a different section or deleted altogether because i missed a similar thread about this. (I just came back from break and im bad@forums in general ).

 

So, as a (barely) blue struggling to get into consistent purple levels, I hate that nagging feeling that there is simple things im doing wrong/could be doing better. While gameplay flaws are hard to eradicate, im working on them one by one. What i noticed though is that the top players of the community seem to run food on pretty much anything they play, switching out extinguishers and even medkits, varying from player to player. Ive also seen various variations on premium medkits but regular repair kits and things of the sort, but im mostly interested in food since the large/small kits are just a straight upgrade and are thus a matter of available credits, which for me is not important. (I want to maximise performance in t10/9, especially when grinding moe's. Any credits i have to pay ill grind).

I do run food on some of my tanks, but only on the in my opinion obvious choices (STB, BC etc), so any thoughts/insights on why food is so important and what i should switch out for it on various tanks would be greatly appreciated. A general guideline or just a list of exceptions, anything will do. 

I understand that the opinions on this matter are somewhat split, so what im looking for here is people that really spam food on a lot of tanks as I am interested in their thoughts on it and the tradeoffs they make to run it. Does it require a certain playstyle to get the most out of food? Do I need to learn some exquisite skills to get the most out of it? Hopefully after reading the replies I can make a call on what is best for me.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the wall of text,

Seafood42

[weenis 435]

Hi Zefod,

Although I'm not a purple poster (@WaterWar), I will try my best to answer your question.

I tend to run food on most, if not all my t9 and t10 tanks. Whether that is at the expense of trading away an Automatic Fire Extinguisher (AFE) on tanks that don't often burn, running JOAT and getting rid of the medkit, or using firefighting as a perk (tank dependent).

Although the difference isn't huge, I personally notice the difference a lot. It simply comes down to min/maxing. Sure, you can play just as well (or almost just as well) without food. In some instances, using food over an AFE can even have detrimental effects due to rate of fire (i.e food on IS7 which burns from LFP).

Whether or not to run food depends on a multitude of factors. Does the tank burn a lot? Do crew members get injured often? Will a dead driver/gunner/loader/commander ruin your game despite having JOAT?

As a rule of thumb I use Food + AFE + JOAT only on Russian tanks (140, t62a, 907, IS-7). This is because the tank still works with a dead driver/gunner (who seem to be the only people that get knocked out barring arty shells hitting you).

On things like STB and BC-25t, I go with med kit + Food + firefighting. This is due to the detrimental effect of losing a crew member here. I.e. an STB is useless without a gunner or loader (even with JOAT) and the batchat gets a really shitty reload .

Then there's tanks where you hardly ever catch fire, and just don't give a fuck (No firefighting, no JOAT, just food). I.e. E5, E100, M48, M46, E50M, E50. These tanks only burn from very specific angles, so you tend to not expose those (i.e. E100 + E5 from the rear, E50M from the side near the back of the tank).

It kind of just comes with experience, and having the right crew. Do I occasionally burn for 1400? Sure. Do I still run food? Absolutely.

Final note: Don't expect to suddenly notice a huge spike in performance simply by running food. I know many unicums that only switch to food after they reach 90%+ on MOE's to provide them with that final push. At the end of the day, it comes down to whether or not you want to reload .1 of a second faster than the enemy t62a, thus meaning you conserve 300hp (very specific case), or adding an extra 5 meters to you view range, or the even less noticeable increase in gun handling. 

The tanks that benefit the most out of food are obviously autoloaders, as the long reload is an integral part of playing them.

If you want any guidelines on specific tanks, just let me know and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

[Snoregasm2 646]

1 hour ago, weenis said:

[text]

To expand on your point, have you now become dependent on Food? As you noted, the difference is actually rather small, but do you feel that, psychologically, this gives you an edge that you are worried about missing out on. 

Some tanks, such as an STB-1, are tanks where it is very noticeable if you run food. Others, such as the tier 8 TVP, there is barely any difference. I ran Food for the first 20 games in that tank and, with a hefty amount of premium ammo, I was consistently losing money even in wins. I switched out the Food and didn't notice any difference, at all.

I guess I am basically asking whether Food has become a necessity or a nice added bonus?

[weenis 435]

2 hours ago, Snoregasm2 said:

snip

I wouldn't say I've become dependent on it. As you say, it's a nice addition and if I hadn't stockpiled 800+ of each prem consumable during sales I probably wouldn't use it unless very specifically.

I do tend to play all tanks without food in T10 SH (cus grinding credits), and although I notice the difference, it is marginal.

If given the choice however, I would run food all day every day. Why wouldn't you make the tank as good as possible?

[_Juris 216]

There are three situations/types of tanks on which i'll run food in lieu of one of the other consumables (mostly AFE, as I find that's the easiest consumable to mitigate the lack of - Weenis has an excellent summary of all of these situations upthread).  Those three situations are:

1.  Tanks with very poor gun handling (STB-1, BatChat, IS-7, E100, Obj430)

2.  Autoloaders/tanks with VERY long reloads (BatChat, 50B, 57 Heavy, E100, E4)

3.  Tanks that rely very strongly on sustained DPM (Obj430)

A better player than me can probably give you better examples, but I find that the more jack-of-all-trades a tank is, the less I feel like food is a big win (although unless for some reason I am really low on credits, i'll use it on most tier 9 and 10 tanks).  Since it essentially min-maxes gun-related characteristics, I use it most on tanks where those are the characteristics most in need of help either to mitigate their badness (STB-1 handling) or further increase their goodness (Obj430 DPM).

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

I only use food on tanks which can be played (sort of) safe without firefighting.

If i use food, i also always use prem repair and first aid kit.

Exceptions are the chinese premium tanks and Obj 140, here i use food + prem rep + fire ext (and JOAT on commander) since:

1. Obj 140 needs food, else the supposed ``good dpm`` is barely better as that of the other meds + it burns way too much to play with fire ext
2. Chinese tank have ghetto gun handling, and are a tad slowish, food buffs strengths and fixes some flaws (slow rld and bad handling)

JOAT is imo not worth it, except for very specific cases (rage sold T62 long ago, and never played Obj 430, but on those food + JOAT is also worth it, im also thinking of doing this on Fv 215B)

[Folterknecht 2,257]

Obviously arti is the prime candidate for food. I wonder why nobody mentioned it yet ... .

 

That aside I see no general rule when to use food and when not.

Ofc there are clear candidates like the E50(M) or the AMX50-100 (gun handling is so much better with it + BIA/aiming skills) for using food. These tanks don't burn often to begin with and can't be torched from the front.

The IS7 for example is a tank which really could use food to improve that shitty gun handling, but on the other hand has fuel tanks all over the tank, a gun that even without being damaged or the gunner dead is a pain in the rear. So I tend to play without food there.

[Zefod42 2]

Thank you all for your thoughts, bought the 140 yesterday and aced it on the 6th game with the suggested setup, got killed 3 times out of 6 games but didnt lose a single crewmember apart from radioman once so im sold on it. 

 

Thanks again and may RNG be with you all.

 

[Jerinos 2]

Estimated costs, on 50% discount over 5000 battles:

Food - 50000000 (fifty million)

AFE, one use per 10 battles - 5000000 (five million)

A difference of forty five million credits over a meager sample of 5000 battles for a barely noticeable difference. Therefore, I use AFE.

[Assassin7 4,353]

personally, I run food on only one tank as its primary setup: the STB-1. the reasoning behind that is obvious, the tank needs its DPM best it can get, along with keeping its gun handling as good as possible.

I occasionally run food on my AMX 50B, but I wouldn't on any of my other 10s. I just do not trust getting set on fire, the only reason I run it in my STB is because the thing barely ever gets set on fire. (and only when I expose my ass to people to shoot) but I just wouldn't on a Russian med, or even my E5. I think the tradeoff for getting set on fire is too great to make food viable, also it is extremely expensive (my STB regularly loses 20-50K/game even with a premium account)

[Snoregasm2 646]

13 hours ago, Jerinos said:

Estimated costs, on 50% discount over 5000 battles:

Food - 50000000 (fifty million)

AFE, one use per 10 battles - 5000000 (five million)

A difference of forty five million credits over a meager sample of 5000 battles for a barely noticeable difference. Therefore, I use AFE.

OP was looking to improve performance, not make credits.

On that basis, the OP may decide that spending 50m credits over 5k games is worth it if it helps him become purple.

[Shifty_101st 1,144]

Bit late but might as well throw down my opinion.

I only run food on tanks that absolutely need it.  STB-1, BatChat, T57, 50B, E50M, E50, etc.  There is some flaw there that food will clearly deal with and overcome whether it's poor dpm, poor view range, poor gun handling, etc.

There are other tanks that I will run food on, but I generally don't run food on EVERYTHING you know? If I feel that I'm not getting a benefit in any way, then I just don't run the food.

[Jerinos 2]

5 hours ago, Snoregasm2 said:

OP was looking to improve performance, not make credits.

On that basis, the OP may decide that spending 50m credits over 5k games is worth it if it helps him become purple.

But, since I (and others with better stats than me) have dark purple recent while not running food, he may want to take that into consideration when determining how much of a benefit food gives you.