Food, Water, and Medical Items

Intermediate40-60 minutesWindowsUnity EditorBlenderNotepad++

Consumable items are among the most frequently authored item types in the 57 Studios™ modding cohort. Every survival scenario — from a custom map's opening loot table to a server's economy — depends on consumables that are correctly configured and sensibly balanced. An improperly authored food item that restores 100% hunger in one use is not a survival mod; it is a vending machine. An incorrectly wired medical item that claims to stop bleeding but does not is a guarantee of player frustration and server-owner support tickets.

This article is the cohort's canonical reference for the four consumable asset types in Unturned™: Food, Water, Medical, and Drug. It covers every .dat field in each category, explains the status-effect mechanics that the fields drive, documents the cooking and water-purification systems, walks through bleeding, bones, and infection mechanics in detail, and provides pro-variant patterns for modders authoring premium consumables.

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with the Unturned™ item .dat format. See Project Folder Structure and GUIDs.
• Notepad++ or an equivalent plain-text editor. See How to Install Notepad++.
• A local Unturned™ install for in-game testing.
• Approximately 1–3 hours of authoring time per consumable item.

What you will learn

• How the four consumable asset types (Food, Water, Medical, Drug) differ structurally.
• Every .dat field available per type, including purpose, type, and cohort-recommended default.
• How status-effect triggers (bleeding, broken bones, infection, vitamins) work at the runtime level.
• How to configure a cookable food item and a purifiable water source.
• How to balance consumable values against vanilla references.
• How to author pro-variant items with stacked beneficial effects.
• How to test every consumable field in single-player and diagnose the most common authoring errors.

How Unturned's consumable system works

Unturned™ consumables are driven by the ItemConsumeableAsset base class. When a player uses a consumable, the runtime reads the item's .dat fields and applies delta values to the player's survival stats. The delta system is additive: if a player's hunger is at 60% and the food item's Food_Delta is 40, the player's hunger becomes 100% (capped).

The sequence above applies regardless of item type. The difference between Food, Water, Medical, and Drug is which subset of fields the runtime reads and which status effects are eligible to trigger.

Understanding delta signs

Positive delta values restore the corresponding stat. Negative delta values deplete it. A food item with Food_Delta -20 will make the player hungrier, not less hungry. This is intentional for poisoned food variants. Confirm the sign on every delta field before testing.

Asset type: Food

Food items represent any consumable that primarily addresses player hunger. The runtime asset class is ItemConsumeableAsset with Type Food.

Food .dat identity fields

Field	Type	Example	Purpose
ID	uint16	4001	Unique item ID. Must not collide with vanilla or other mod IDs.
GUID	uint128	a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6	128-bit globally unique identifier.
Type	enum	Food	The item category. Must be exactly Food.
Name	string	MyBerries	The internal name.
Rarity	enum	Common	Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythical.
Size_X / Size_Y	uint8	1 / 1	Inventory grid footprint. Most food items are 1×1.
Slot	enum	Any	Inventory slot. Food uses Any.

Food .dat consumable fields

Field	Type	Range	Cohort default	Purpose
Food_Delta	float	−100 to 100	25	Hunger restored (positive) or added (negative).
Water_Delta	float	−100 to 100	0	Thirst restored as a secondary effect. Used for watery foods (watermelon, soup).
Vitamins	float	0 to 100	5	Vitamins stat restored. Contributes to the player's immune system via the sickness mechanic.
Experience	uint32	0+	0	Experience points awarded when the item is consumed. Useful for RPG server economies.
Disinfectant	flag	present/absent	absent	When present, the food item also disinfects the player (removes infection progress).

Negative Food_Delta

Setting Food_Delta to a negative value creates food that makes the player hungrier when eaten. This is the correct pattern for modding rotten or poisoned food items. It is a deliberate design tool, not a sign of an authoring error. Use a negative value with intention.

Food .dat model fields

Field	Type	Example	Purpose
Useable	enum	Consume	Must be Consume for any item the player eats or drinks.
Use_Audio	string	Use_Food	Audio category to play on use. See audio field reference below.

Example Food.dat

ID 4001
GUID a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6
Type Food
Name MyBerries
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Food_Delta 20
Water_Delta 5
Vitamins 3
Experience 0

Vitamins and the sickness mechanic

The Vitamins field does not heal the player directly. It restores the Vitamins stat, which the runtime uses to slow the accumulation of the Sickness status effect. A food item with high Vitamins will help a player resist infection over time. It does not cure an active infection; that requires a Medical item with the Vaccinated flag.

Asset type: Water

Water items restore the player's thirst stat. The runtime class is the same ItemConsumeableAsset; only the primary field and the purification mechanic differ.

Water .dat consumable fields

Field	Type	Range	Cohort default	Purpose
Water_Delta	float	−100 to 100	50	Thirst restored (positive) or added (negative).
Food_Delta	float	−100 to 100	0	Optional hunger restoration. Used for thick liquids like protein shakes.
Vitamins	float	0 to 100	0	Vitamins restored as a secondary effect.
Disinfectant	flag	present/absent	absent	When present, also disinfects the player.

Water purification system

Raw water sources in Unturned™ (rivers, ponds, rain collectors) are represented by Water items with Is_Salty false or by dedicated Lake asset entries. A raw water item can be purified into a safe water item using one of two methods:

1. Purification tablets — applying a Purification Tablets item to a water container promotes the Unsanitary_Water item to a Clean_Water item. The purified version is a separate item ID defined in the .dat as Purified_Item.
2. Cooking — see the cooking system section below.

Authoring purifiable water

To make a custom water container purifiable, add Purified_Item <purifiedItemID> to the raw water's .dat. The purified version is a separate item you also author, with a higher Water_Delta and without any infection risk.

Example Water.dat (raw)

ID 4010
GUID b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7
Type Water
Name MyCanteenUnsafe
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Water_Delta 40
Food_Delta 0
Vitamins 0
Purified_Item 4011

Example Water.dat (purified)

ID 4011
GUID c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8
Type Water
Name MyCanteenSafe
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Water_Delta 50
Food_Delta 0
Vitamins 5

Asset type: Medical

Medical items are the most configuration-dense consumable type. They can restore health, halt bleeding, mend broken bones, disinfect wounds, and vaccinate the player against further infection — all from a single item, or any combination of those effects.

Medical .dat consumable fields

Field	Type	Range	Cohort default	Purpose
Health_Delta	float	−100 to 100	0	Health restored (positive) or removed (negative).
Food_Delta	float	−100 to 100	0	Hunger restoration as a secondary effect (e.g., energy drink).
Water_Delta	float	−100 to 100	0	Thirst restoration as a secondary effect.
Vitamins	float	0 to 100	0	Vitamins restored.
Bleeding	flag	present/absent	absent	When present, stops active bleeding immediately on use.
Bones	flag	present/absent	absent	When present, repairs broken bones immediately on use.
Disinfectant	flag	present/absent	absent	When present, removes active infection progress.
Vaccinated	flag	present/absent	absent	When present, grants temporary immunity to future infection.
Experience	uint32	0+	0	Experience points awarded on use.

Health_Delta sign

A positive Health_Delta heals the player. A negative Health_Delta damages the player. This is the correct field for authoring items that cause harm (poisoned syringes, corrupted stims). Confirm the sign. An unintentional negative Health_Delta on a healing item is a critical authoring error that will produce player-killing "health kits."

Status-effect flags in detail

Each flag is a line in the .dat with no value — the flag's presence enables the effect, its absence disables it. A line reading Bleeding in the .dat means the item stops bleeding when used. A .dat without a Bleeding line means the item has no effect on bleeding.

Bleeding mechanic

A player accumulates bleeding when struck by projectiles, melee weapons, or barbed wire. Active bleeding depletes health at a continuous rate until stopped. A medical item with the Bleeding flag removes active bleeding when consumed. The flag does not prevent future bleeding; it only clears the current status.

Bandage vs. tourniquet pattern

The cohort's recommended pattern for a first-aid kit mod with multiple wound states is:

• Bandage item: Bleeding flag only. Stops bleeding; does not heal.
• Disinfectant wipe item: Disinfectant flag only. Clears infection; does not heal.
• Painkillers item: Health_Delta 15. Heals a moderate amount; does not stop bleeding.
• First Aid Kit item: Health_Delta 35, Bleeding flag, Disinfectant flag. Comprehensive recovery tool.

This pattern gives players meaningful choices and keeps individual items at a balanced cost.

Broken bones mechanic

Broken bones occur when a player takes fall damage above a threshold or is struck by a vehicle. A player with broken bones moves at reduced speed and cannot sprint. A medical item with the Bones flag repairs broken bones immediately on use. Without the Bones flag, the item has no effect on bone status regardless of its Health_Delta value.

Bones flag does not heal health

The Bones flag repairs the broken-bones status effect, but it does not restore any health lost during the injury. A player who took 30 damage falling and broke their legs needs both a Bones-flagged item and a Health_Delta item (or a combined item with both).

Infection and Vaccinated mechanic

Infection in Unturned™ progresses through the Vitamins/Sickness system. A player with low Vitamins accumulates Sickness. A player whose Sickness reaches maximum receives increasing health drain. The Disinfectant flag removes current Sickness progress. The Vaccinated flag grants temporary immunity to Sickness accumulation.

The Vaccinated flag works as a timer. While the immunity is active, the player's Sickness stat does not increase regardless of Vitamins level. The duration of the immunity is defined by the server configuration, not the item .dat.

Example Medical.dat (bandage)

ID 4020
GUID d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9
Type Medical
Name MyBandage
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Bleeding
Health_Delta 0

Example Medical.dat (first aid kit)

ID 4021
GUID e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0
Type Medical
Name MyFirstAidKit
Rarity Uncommon
Slot Any
Size_X 2
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Health_Delta 35
Bleeding
Bones
Disinfectant
Vitamins 15
Experience 10

Example Medical.dat (vaccine)

ID 4022
GUID f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1
Type Medical
Name MyVaccine
Rarity Rare
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Vaccinated
Disinfectant
Vitamins 30

Medical timing window

The runtime applies all flags from a single medical item simultaneously. A first aid kit that stops bleeding, repairs bones, and heals health applies all three effects in the same use tick. There is no sequencing delay between effects.

Asset type: Drug

Drug items share the consumable framework with Food, Water, and Medical but add a hallucination or vision-distortion effect to the player. They are most commonly used for RP-server mechanics (drug economy, intoxication roleplay) and for map scripting (proximity-triggered vision effects).

Drug .dat consumable fields

Field	Type	Range	Purpose
Food_Delta	float	−100 to 100	Hunger change on use.
Water_Delta	float	−100 to 100	Thirst change on use.
Health_Delta	float	−100 to 100	Health change on use.
Vitamins	float	0 to 100	Vitamins change on use.
Bleeding	flag	present/absent	Stops bleeding if present.
Hallucination	float	0+	Duration in seconds of the hallucination vision effect.

Drug items for RP servers

Drug items are frequently used in Unturned™ RP servers to create economy items with game-mechanical effects. A cannabis item with Hallucination 30 and Food_Delta 10 produces a 30-second vision distortion and a moderate hunger restoration. The cohort recommendation for RP server drug economies is to assign distinct IDs in a reserved block (e.g., 41000–41099) to keep drug items grouped and easy to manage in server configs.

The cooking system

Unturned™ provides a cooking system that allows raw food items to be converted to cooked food items at a campfire, oven, or other heat source. To author a cookable food item, you author two separate items: the raw version and the cooked version. The raw item's .dat references the cooked item by ID.

Cooking .dat fields

Field	Type	Purpose
Cooked_Item	uint16	The item ID of the cooked result. Points to the cooked variant's ID.
Cooked_Temperature	enum	The heat source temperature required. Valid values: Warm, Hot, Inferno.
Charred_Item	uint16	Optional. The item ID of the overcooked/charred result if the item is left in heat too long.

Cooking workflow

Cooking item IDs must be distinct

The raw item, cooked item, and charred item are three separate .dat files with three separate IDs and three separate GUIDs. They are linked at runtime via the Cooked_Item and Charred_Item fields, not via shared data. Reusing the same ID for two cooking states will cause a runtime collision.

Example cooking pair

Raw meat (4030)

ID 4030
GUID a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1d2
Type Food
Name MyRawMeat
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Food_Delta 10
Water_Delta -5
Vitamins 0
Cooked_Item 4031
Cooked_Temperature Hot
Charred_Item 4032

Cooked meat (4031)

ID 4031
GUID b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1d2e3
Type Food
Name MyMeat
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Food_Delta 40
Water_Delta -10
Vitamins 8

Charred meat (4032)

ID 4032
GUID c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1d2e3f4
Type Food
Name MyCharredMeat
Rarity Common
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Food_Delta 15
Water_Delta -15
Vitamins 0

Raw food negative effects

The cohort pattern for raw food items is to give them a low positive Food_Delta with a negative Water_Delta and zero Vitamins. Eating raw food should provide minimal nutrition with a hydration cost, incentivizing cooking. Cooked versions receive the full Food_Delta and Vitamins benefit.

Water purification system (detailed)

The water purification system is a subset of the cooking system. A water container item marked as purifiable is converted to its purified version when Purification Tablets are applied, or when the container is placed on a heat source (campfire boiling).

Purification .dat fields

Field	Type	Purpose
Purified_Item	uint16	The item ID of the purified (clean) version.

Heat-purification configuration

A water item that can be boiled clean uses the same Cooked_Item and Cooked_Temperature fields as food. The result item is the purified water item. The cohort pattern is:

Item	ID	Water_Delta	Note
Unsanitary water	4040	40	High thirst restoration but carries infection risk.
Purified water	4041	50	Full thirst restoration, no infection risk.

Purification Tablets pattern

The cohort recommendation is to author unsanitary water items with a Purified_Item field and a moderate infection risk (low Vitamins, no Disinfectant). The purification pathway (tablets or boiling) is the player's reward for investment. Skipping purification should have a meaningful downside — typically Vitamins drain leading to Sickness accumulation.

Balance reference: vanilla consumables

When authoring custom consumables, the cohort recommendation is to reference vanilla item values as a baseline. The table below provides the cohort's extracted balance anchors from vanilla Unturned™.

Item	Type	Food_Delta	Water_Delta	Health_Delta	Vitamins	Special
Granola Bar	Food	25	0	0	5	—
Military MRE	Food	50	10	0	15	—
Canned Beans	Food	35	−5	0	8	Cooked version +15 food
Cooked Steak	Food	60	−15	0	20	Cooked from raw steak
Bottled Water	Water	0	50	0	0	—
Tainted Water	Water	0	40	0	−10	Infection risk
Purified Water	Water	0	55	0	5	—
Bandage	Medical	0	0	0	0	Bleeding
Painkillers	Medical	0	0	15	10	—
Medkit	Medical	0	0	75	30	Bleeding, Bones, Disinfectant
Vaccine	Medical	0	0	0	50	Vaccinated, Disinfectant
Dressing	Medical	0	0	5	0	Bleeding, Disinfectant

Cohort extracted, not datamined

The balance values in the table above are the cohort's field-validated observations from in-game testing with vanilla items. They are not extracted from vanilla .dat files directly. Small discrepancies may exist between these values and the exact vanilla values. Confirm against the official Smartly Dressed Games documentation at docs.smartlydressedgames.com for precision balance work.

Pro-variant patterns

A pro-variant consumable is an item with stacked beneficial effects that exceeds the single-effect scope of a base item. Pro variants are the cohort's term for premium consumables authored for server economies where progression-gated items need to feel significantly more powerful than base items.

Pro-variant design principles

1. Stack multiple positive effects — a pro food item might have both Food_Delta and Water_Delta along with high Vitamins.
2. Use Rarity to communicate value — pro items should be Rare or higher. Players recognize Rarity color coding as a value signal.
3. Use Experience to support XP economies — server operators running XP systems benefit from consumables that award experience on use.
4. Gate by loot table — pro items should appear only in high-tier loot contexts (military crates, airdrop rewards) to preserve economy balance.

Example pro-variant: Military Combat Stim

ID 4050
GUID d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1d2e3f4a5
Type Medical
Name MilitaryCombatStim
Rarity Epic
Slot Any
Size_X 1
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Health_Delta 50
Bleeding
Bones
Vitamins 25
Experience 25

Example pro-variant: Field Ration Pack

ID 4051
GUID e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1d2e3f4a5b6
Type Food
Name FieldRationPack
Rarity Rare
Slot Any
Size_X 2
Size_Y 1
Useable Consume

Food_Delta 80
Water_Delta 20
Vitamins 30
Experience 15

Pro-variant balancing

The cohort recommendation for pro-variant balance is to ensure that the sum of all positive effects does not exceed what a player could achieve by using three to four base items. A Field Ration Pack that provides 80 food, 20 water, and 30 vitamins is roughly equivalent to three granola bars, a bottled water, and a vitamin supplement. The pro item's value is convenience and inventory space efficiency, not raw superiority.

Audio field reference

Value	Behavior
Use_Food	Short eating audio cue. Used for solid foods.
Use_Water	Drinking/swallowing audio cue. Used for liquids.
Use_Medical	Medical application audio. Used for bandages, syringes.
Use_Pill	Swallowing tablet audio. Used for pills, vitamins, vaccines.

Custom audio

Custom audio for consumables is packaged in the master bundle and referenced by string name in the Use_Audio field. The audio system reads the string as a bundle path, not a category enum. See the cohort's Audio Packaging article for the packaging workflow.

Testing checklist

Before publishing any consumable item, validate every field in single-player using the in-game console.

Status-effect testing procedure

Effect	How to trigger	How to verify resolution
Bleeding	Take hits from a zombie or barbed wire until bleeding starts	Use item, confirm bleeding icon disappears
Broken bones	Fall from height sufficient to break legs	Use item, confirm sprint is restored
Infection	Drink unsanitary water without purification	Use Vaccinated item, confirm sickness does not accumulate
Disinfectant	Allow infection progress to build	Use item, confirm sickness bar reduces

Server-side configuration notes

Consumable behavior in Unturned™ is partially controlled by server configuration files, not only by item .dat fields. The following server-side variables interact with consumable items and should be understood before publishing consumables to a multiplayer server.

Relevant server config fields

Config field	Effect on consumables	Location
Max_Player_Health	The health ceiling that Health_Delta cannot exceed. Default 100.	Config.json
Player_Damage_Multiplier	Scales all incoming damage, which affects how meaningful Armor values are on non-clothing items.	Config.json
Infection_Rate	How quickly the Sickness stat accumulates without Vitamins support.	Config.json
Bleeding_Rate	How fast health drains from active bleeding. Affects bandage urgency.	Config.json

Calibrate consumables against server config

A bandage that stops bleeding on a server with Bleeding_Rate 1.0 (default) feels adequate. On a server with Bleeding_Rate 3.0 (aggressive), the same bandage is still sufficient but the urgency of applying it is much higher. Author consumables for the default server configuration and note in the workshop description if the item was tuned for specific server configs.

Loot table integration

Consumable items are registered into server loot tables via the spawntable system. Each consumable item must be added to at least one spawntable entry to appear in the world. The cohort recommendation:

Item tier	Loot context
Common food (Granola Bar tier)	Civilian buildings, residential spawntables
Uncommon food / water	Gas stations, grocery stores
Bandages	Medical cabinets, first aid spawns
Painkillers	Medical spawntables
First aid kits	Military medical spawntables
Vaccines	Hospital spawntables, airdrop tables
Pro-variant items	Airdrop, military elite spawntables only

Add the Spawn flag to the item's .dat if you want the item to be eligible for world spawn. Items without a spawn entry can still be given via console commands (@give) and purchased through Tebex integrations, but will not appear naturally in loot.

Consumable economy design for custom maps

Custom maps that include a consumable economy require deliberate pacing decisions. The density of consumables in the world, the caloric value of available food items, and the availability of medical items all shape the survival difficulty of the map. The following principles are the cohort's validated approach to consumable economy design.

Hunger and thirst drain rates

Unturned™ hunger and thirst drain at a configurable server rate. At default rate, a player fully depletes hunger in approximately 20 minutes of active play. When designing a consumable economy for a custom map, calibrate Food_Delta values relative to the expected drain rate.

Map difficulty	Target food availability	Food_Delta guidance
Casual	1 food item per 3 min of exploration	Mid-high delta (30–50) items should be common
Survival	1 food item per 5 min of exploration	Mid delta (15–30) items at moderate spawn rates
Hardcore	1 food item per 8+ min of exploration	Low delta (5–15) items; cooking required for full benefit

Medical scarcity curve

Medical item scarcity shapes how dangerous combat feels on the map. The cohort's recommended scarcity curve:

Consumable crafting recipes

Crafting recipes allow players to combine components into consumables, adding a progression layer beyond loot-finding. Crafting is defined in the map's spawntable and blueprint system, not in the item .dat itself. However, the consumable item's ID must be stable and correctly referenced in the blueprint. The cohort recommendation is to finalize item IDs before defining crafting blueprints to avoid ID-drift issues.

Thematic consumable sets

Custom maps with a defined theme benefit from consumable items that reinforce the theme. A post-apocalyptic urban map might feature scavenged canned food (low delta, no cooking required), improvised medical wraps (Bleeding flag, low Health_Delta), and contaminated water (negative Vitamins). A military compound map might feature MREs (high delta, military rarity) and combat stims (pro-variant medical). Thematic consistency in consumable item design makes the world feel authored rather than assembled.

Consumable naming conventions

Consistent internal naming across a mod's consumable item library prevents confusion when items are referenced in spawntables, blueprints, and Tebex store configurations. The cohort's recommended naming convention:

Category	Pattern	Examples
Food	[Adjective][Noun]	CookedBerries, FieldRation, MilitaryMRE
Raw food	Raw[Noun]	RawMeat, RawFish, RawMushroom
Charred food	Charred[Noun]	CharredMeat, CharredFish
Water (unsafe)	[Container]Unsanitary	CanteenUnsanitary, BottleUnsanitary
Water (purified)	[Container]Purified	CanteenPurified, BottlePurified
Medical (standard)	[Material][Function]	ClothBandage, CottonDressing
Medical (advanced)	[Tier][Type]	MilitaryMedkit, CombatStim
Drug	[Name]	Cannabis, CombatStimulant

Using internal names that reflect the item's function and tier makes .dat file management significantly more tractable when a mod grows beyond a handful of items.

Best practices

• Set Useable Consume on every consumable item. Omitting this field prevents the item from being used.
• Use positive Food_Delta for nourishing items and negative Food_Delta for poisoned or rotten variants — the sign is intentional design, not a mistake.
• Author raw and cooked variants as separate item IDs linked by Cooked_Item. They are not the same item at different states; they are distinct items.
• Confirm Purified_Item IDs are correct before publishing water items. A wrong Purified_Item ID produces a purification result that spawns the wrong item.
• Write accurate English.dat descriptions. Inaccurate descriptions that do not match the .dat field configuration are the most common source of player support tickets.
• Test every status flag (Bleeding, Bones, Disinfectant, Vaccinated) individually in single-player before testing combined items.
• Use the Rarity field to communicate item power. Common items should have modest delta values; Legendary items can carry stacked effects.
• Assign IDs in the cohort-recommended blocks (40000–41999 for 57 Studios™ items) to avoid ID collisions with vanilla and other mods.

Common authoring errors

Symptom	Most likely cause	Resolution
Item does not appear in inventory	ID collision or mod path incorrect	Confirm ID is unique, confirm mod in Bundles/
Item appears but cannot be used	Useable field missing or wrong value	Set Useable Consume
Item used but hunger does not change	Food_Delta misspelled or zero	Check .dat field name and value
Item heals but does not stop bleeding	Bleeding flag missing	Add Bleeding line to .dat
Raw food does not cook	Cooked_Item ID points to wrong item	Confirm Cooked_Item ID matches cooked variant
Charred item never appears	Charred_Item not set	Add Charred_Item pointing to charred variant ID
Vaccine does not prevent infection	Vaccinated flag missing	Add Vaccinated to .dat
Item grants negative health on use	Health_Delta negative by mistake	Fix sign on Health_Delta
Water item does not purify	Purified_Item field wrong	Confirm Purified_Item ID matches purified variant
Drug hallucination duration wrong	Hallucination value in wrong unit	Value is seconds; confirm integer or float value

Frequently asked questions

How do I make food that restores both hunger and thirst?

Set both Food_Delta and Water_Delta to positive values in the same .dat. Soup, stew, and fruit items commonly use this pattern. The water-restoration amount should be lower than a dedicated water item to preserve gameplay distinction.

Can a medical item also restore hunger and thirst?

Yes. Medical items support Food_Delta and Water_Delta fields in addition to Health_Delta and status flags. This is the correct pattern for items like energy drinks or military stims that are classified as medical consumables but also provide nutrition. Set all applicable fields; unused fields do not need to be listed.

Does the Vitamins field directly increase the Vitamins stat or is it a multiplier?

It is an additive delta, not a multiplier. Vitamins 20 adds 20 points to the player's Vitamins stat directly. The Vitamins stat is on a 0–100 scale matching other survival stats.

How do I make a food item that poisons the player?

Set Food_Delta to a positive value (the item is still technically edible) and Health_Delta to a negative value. Optionally set Vitamins to a negative value to drain the Vitamins stat. The result is an item that fills hunger but damages health and depletes vitamins — classic poisoned food behavior.

Does the Bleeding flag also heal health removed by bleeding?

No. The Bleeding flag only clears the bleeding status effect. Health lost while the player was bleeding is not automatically restored. If the design intent is for the item to stop bleeding and restore some health, include both the Bleeding flag and a positive Health_Delta.

Can I have a raw food item that is dangerous to eat?

Yes. A raw food item with a negative Vitamins value and no Bleeding or Disinfectant flag represents food with an infection risk. Players who eat it without cooking lose Vitamins, which causes Sickness to accumulate faster. This is the cohort's recommended pattern for raw meat items.

What temperature setting should I use for Cooked_Temperature?

Temperature	Heat source
Warm	Campfire at low fuel, warming by proximity
Hot	Active campfire, oven
Inferno	Furnace, high-heat industrial sources

Most food items use Hot. Warm is for foods that only need warming (canned goods). Inferno is reserved for special crafting mechanics.

Is there a maximum value for Health_Delta?

The field accepts a float. There is no hard maximum enforced by the .dat parser. However, the player's health cap is 100 by default. A Health_Delta 200 item will restore health to the player's cap; the excess is discarded. The cohort recommendation is to cap Health_Delta at 100 and to use item Rarity to signal expected power level.

Can I make a consumable that grants all positive effects (hunger, thirst, health, no bleeding, no infection, vaccinated)?

Yes. List all applicable fields in the .dat. There is no structural limit to how many positive effects a single item provides. The balance constraint is design intent: an item with every possible benefit is a catch-all that eliminates player decision-making. The cohort recommendation is to gate such items at Legendary rarity in high-tier loot tables only.

How do I confirm the cooking system is working in single-player?

Spawn the raw food item with @give <rawID>, place it on a campfire, wait for the cooking threshold, and confirm the item converts to the cooked variant. Verify the cooked item's ID matches Cooked_Item in the raw item's .dat. If the item converts to a different item, the Cooked_Item field is pointing to the wrong ID.

Where are the official consumable asset fields documented?

The Smartly Dressed Games documentation at https://docs.smartlydressedgames.com/en/stable/ is the authoritative source for all asset field definitions. The cohort's documentation augments the official documentation with cohort-validated defaults, common error catalogues, and pattern guides.

What is the difference between Disinfectant and Vaccinated?

Disinfectant clears current infection/sickness progress. Vaccinated prevents future infection/sickness accumulation for a timer duration. They address different states of the infection lifecycle. A fully featured medical item may include both: Disinfectant to clear existing infection and Vaccinated to prevent immediate re-infection.

Can I author a consumable that only awards experience without providing any stat benefit?

Yes. Set all delta fields to 0, omit all status flags, and set Experience to the desired amount. The item will award experience on use without any gameplay-stat effect. This pattern is used in XP-economy servers for items like "training tokens" or "mission rewards" — items that exist purely to transfer experience to the player through the consumption mechanic.

How do I prevent players from exploiting food items by eating large quantities quickly?

Item use cooldown is a server-side configuration, not a .dat field. The server can configure a global use cooldown that prevents rapid sequential consumption. On the .dat side, the cohort recommendation for balancing high-delta items is to increase the inventory Size_X × Size_Y footprint (making the item take more space) and to use higher Rarity to limit loot-table frequency, rather than relying on use rate. A Legendary field ration that takes 4 inventory slots and spawns rarely is self-limiting by scarcity without needing a use cooldown.

Appendix A: Complete field reference by type

Food fields

Field	Type	Required	Default behavior if absent
Food_Delta	float	Recommended	0
Water_Delta	float	No	0
Vitamins	float	No	0
Experience	uint32	No	0
Disinfectant	flag	No	Not present — no disinfectant effect
Cooked_Item	uint16	No	Not cookable
Cooked_Temperature	enum	No	Not cookable
Charred_Item	uint16	No	No charred result

Water fields

Field	Type	Required	Default behavior if absent
Water_Delta	float	Recommended	0
Food_Delta	float	No	0
Vitamins	float	No	0
Purified_Item	uint16	No	Not purifiable
Cooked_Item	uint16	No	Not boilable

Medical fields

Field	Type	Required	Default behavior if absent
Health_Delta	float	No	0
Food_Delta	float	No	0
Water_Delta	float	No	0
Vitamins	float	No	0
Bleeding	flag	No	No bleed-stop effect
Bones	flag	No	No bone-repair effect
Disinfectant	flag	No	No infection-clear effect
Vaccinated	flag	No	No immunity grant
Experience	uint32	No	0

Drug fields

Field	Type	Required	Default behavior if absent
Hallucination	float	Recommended	0 — no hallucination
Food_Delta	float	No	0
Water_Delta	float	No	0
Health_Delta	float	No	0
Vitamins	float	No	0
Bleeding	flag	No	No bleed-stop effect

Appendix B: Consumable ID allocation guide

The cohort recommends a reserved ID block for consumable items to avoid collision with vanilla items and other mod categories.

Range	Category
1–2000	Reserved — vanilla Unturned™ items
2001–9999	Community mod legacy range — avoid
40000–40499	57 Studios™ food items
40500–40999	57 Studios™ water items
41000–41499	57 Studios™ medical items
41500–41999	57 Studios™ drug items
50000+	Open community mod range (cohort-preferred minimum)

ID collision checking

Before publishing, run a search against the Unturned modding community's maintained ID registry at the Smartly Dressed Games documentation portal. IDs that collide with widely used community mods will produce undefined behavior when both mods are loaded on the same server.

Appendix C: Localization (English.dat) for consumables

Every consumable item requires an English.dat file in the same directory as the item's main .dat. The localization file provides the display name and description shown in inventory tooltips.

English.dat fields

Field	Purpose
Name	Display name in inventory and tooltips.
Description	Flavor text shown in the tooltip.

Example English.dat entries

Bandage

Name Field Bandage
Description Stops active bleeding. Does not restore health.

Military Combat Stim

Name Military Combat Stim
Description Restores 50 health, stops bleeding, repairs broken bones, and restores vitamins. High-tier medical consumable for combat use.

Raw Meat

Name Raw Meat
Description Provides minimal nutrition. Cook before eating to maximize food value and avoid infection risk.

Description accuracy

The item description is the player's primary source of information about what the item does. Write accurate descriptions. A bandage described as "heals health" when it only stops bleeding will produce player confusion and server-owner support requests. Match the description to the actual .dat field configuration.

Consumable item prefab: when is one required?

Most consumable items do not require a Unity prefab. The runtime renders a 2D icon in the inventory UI using the item's icon texture, not a 3D prefab. The exception is if the consumable item has a 3D world representation — a can that sits on a shelf, a box that spawns on the ground — in which case a minimal prefab with a MeshRenderer and the item's model is packaged into the master bundle.

For the majority of Food, Water, Medical, and Drug items authored for a survival context, the item bundle contains:

File	Required	Purpose
Item .dat	Yes	Field configuration read by the runtime.
English.dat	Yes	Display name and description.
Icon texture	Yes	2D image shown in inventory.
3D prefab + mesh	Optional	World-dropped model when item is on the ground.

The icon texture is a square PNG (typically 256×256) displayed in the inventory UI. It does not need to be a rendering of a 3D model; painted or illustrated icons are functionally equivalent. The cohort's workflow for icon textures is to render a simple 3D asset in Blender with a transparent background and to save as a PNG, but a hand-painted icon at the same resolution is equally valid.

Icon resolution

Icons below 128×128 appear pixelated in the Unturned™ inventory UI at standard zoom. The cohort recommendation is to author icons at 256×256 as a minimum. Larger icons (512×512) are accepted but do not improve perceived quality at the UI scale they are displayed.

Closing note

Consumable items are deceptively straightforward to author: the field set is smaller than a gun or vehicle mod, no prefab rigging is required, and the runtime feedback loop (spawn the item, eat it, observe the stat change) is immediate. The complexity surfaces in the interactions between fields — the sign on Health_Delta, the calibration of Food_Delta against drain rates, the pairing of Cooked_Item IDs, the stacking of status flags on medical items, and the balance of pro-variant items against the server economy.

The cohort's experience across hundreds of consumable items produced for 57 Studios™ mods and Horizon Life RP is that the most expensive authoring mistake is not a technical error — it is a design error published to production. A food item that restores too much hunger is balanced with a loot-table edit; a medical item that provides no-cost invincibility through stacked flags requires a server-side patch and a player communication. Author conservatively, test in staging, and iterate.

Cross-references

• Project Folder Structure and GUIDs — item folder layout and GUID authoring.
• Caliber Asset — the previous article in the items series.
• Clothing Asset Reference — the next article in the items series.
• Steam Workshop Submission — publishing workflow after authoring is complete.
• Smartly Dressed Games Modding Documentation — the authoritative asset field reference.
• Unturned on Steam — the base game page; install and version history.

Document history

Version	Date	Author	Notes
1.0	2025-05-18	57 Studios™	Initial publication. Full consumable asset reference.