Cooking rate and risk
A normal Hob automatically cooks food placed on it. Many foods burn if left beyond their final valid cooking stage, so plan removal or a recipe-specific combination before chasing higher speed.
| Appliance | Base Cook rate | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Hob | 1× | Monitor the stage and remove or protect food |
| Safety Hob | 0.75× | Stops at the final valid cooking stage; food does not burn |
| Danger Hob | 2× | Burnt food starts a fire |
At the same workload, time is the inverse of speed. 0.75× speed means about 1.33× time, not only 25% more time. This is a field-based calculation, not a timed test.
Choose for output conditions
A Safety Hob is useful when the player is occupied elsewhere or output may temporarily back up. Its stopping behavior tolerates that pause.
A Danger Hob needs reliable removal, a verified combination that prevents burning, or a recipe that itself does not burn. A cooked Patty combined with a Bun is a documented example; arbitrary plating is not a universal fire-prevention rule. Do not let “customers are not currently eating” back up a line of food that can burn.
Gas Override speeds both cooking and burning. Gas Limiter slows them. Consider both processes, not just the Cook rate.
Research and layout
The first Hob upgrade can be Safety or Danger. Research an upgraded blueprint again to move between the two; purchased hobs cannot be directly upgraded.
A Hob within two tiles of a serving table in the same room reduces those customers’ Waiting for Food patience by 20%, according to the documented field. Short delivery routes can have this trade-off.
Test that the correct food state leaves the hob and that a blocked destination does not cause a fire under the stated recipe conditions.