The Problem

I keep making Bad Soup or getting sick. How do I actually cook something useful?

The Solution

Cooking in Abiotic Factor is a skill-gated system with real consequences for improvisation. The game tracks what you throw into the pot, and bad combinations produce outcomes ranging from useless to lethal.

The Five Cooking Methods Cooking unlocks in stages as your skill levels up:

• Boiling Water (immediate): Purify tainted water at a 4:1 ratio on a powered stove. Foundation for all soup recipes.
• Frying Pan (early): Quick single-ingredient cooking. Simple, safe, limited buffs.
• Chef's Counter prep (mid): Ingredient preparation for complex recipes.
• Soup (Cooking Level 3 — Soupsmith): The main cooking system. Requires a pot filled with 1,000 mL of clean water plus ingredients. This is where buffs and healing meals come from.
• Oven baking (Cooking Level 10+): Endgame cooking with the strongest buffs.

Equipment You Need

• Portable Stove (crafted: 2 Coil + 4 Plastic Scrap + 4 Metal Pipe + 1 Keyboard). Must be placed on a powered surface.
• Cooking Pot: Holds 1,000 mL. Fill it with clean water (from a Cooler or Filter) before adding ingredients — tainted water ruins the recipe.
• Soup Bowl (crafted: 1 Metal Scrap + 1 Stapler + 1 Glass Scrap + 1 Test Tube). Required to consume finished soup.

The Soup System Every soup starts with 1,000 mL of clean water in a Cooking Pot on a powered Portable Stove. Add ingredients, and the game evaluates the combination. Safe, tested recipes produce buffs (XP gain, stamina, hunger/thirst (see water management guide) reduction, radiation resistance, damage bonuses). Random ingredients produce three tiers of failure:

• Bad Soup: Weak restoration, wastes ingredients. Annoying but survivable.
• Toxic Soup: Applies Sickness debuff. Vomiting wastes more hunger and thirst than the soup restores.
• Killer Soup: Instant death or near-death. Glass, Tech Scrap, and certain body parts produce this outcome.

Verified Recipe Categories

• Vegetable soups (Canned Peas, Salt, clean water): Safe, reliable, mild XP or stamina buffs. Best early-game staple.
• Fish soups (Antefish, Salt, water): Caught from the Plaza fountain. Reliable mid-game healing loop.
• Meat stews (Pest meat, MREs, Salt): Combat-oriented buffs (damage, defense) useful before boss fights and raids.
• Radiation soups: Specific recipes reduce or resist radiation. Cook before entering Labs or Containment sectors.
• Alien meat: Radioactive. Store in Hazard Crates only — regular storage spreads radiation to adjacent food.

Skill Progression Higher Cooking skill produces Carefully Cooked variants of the same recipes — better restoration values, longer buff durations, lower failure chance. Cook in bulk to level the skill. Vending machines (found in the Cafeteria and break rooms) accept $1 per purchase, or can be shaken for free items at Strength level 5.

Never Cook These

• Raw alien meat without a verified recipe (radiation poisoning).
• Glass, Tech Scrap, or electronic components (Killer Soup).
• Rotten food or plastic scrap (Toxic Soup).
• Any combination you have not seen a verified recipe for — the penalty for guessing is Sickness or Death, not just wasted ingredients.

Step-by-Step

1. Craft a Portable Stove (2 Coil + 4 Plastic Scrap + 4 Metal Pipe + 1 Keyboard) and a Cooking Pot.
2. Place the stove on a powered surface. Fill the pot with 1,000 mL of clean water from a Water Cooler — tainted water voids the recipe.
3. Start with safe vegetable soups (Canned Peas + Salt + clean water) for reliable XP/stamina buffs. This builds Cooking XP safely.
4. Fish the Plaza fountain for Antefish to unlock fish-based soup recipes — these provide healing over time.
5. Cook Military Stew from MREs before combat expeditions for damage/defense buffs.
6. Cook radiation-resistant soups before entering Labs or Containment sectors.
7. Store all cooked food in a powered Refrigerator to slow spoilage. Store radioactive ingredients in Hazard Crates only.
8. Level Cooking to 3 (Soupsmith) for soup access, then push toward 10 for Oven recipes.
9. Never experiment with unverified ingredient combinations at base where recovery is easy — bad outcomes are recoverable near your bed (see sleep and fatigue guide) and Healing Briefcase (see healing guide). Never experiment mid-expedition.

Common Mistakes

• Using tainted water instead of clean water in the pot — the recipe fails regardless of other ingredients.
• Throwing random junk into the pot and hoping — Bad Soup at best, Killer Soup at worst.
• Storing alien meat in a regular fridge — radiation spreads to adjacent food and ruins the entire fridge worth of ingredients.
• Experimenting with new ingredient combos while mid-expedition with no bed or Briefcase nearby — Sickness or Death far from base is usually unrecoverable.
• Not crafting a Soup Bowl before cooking soup — you cannot consume soup without one.