It's time to travel along another long and winding path, this time to XP! Following on from my post on boosting your profits, I'm going to delve into the less murky area of maximising your XP gains.
XP can be obtained in the game by three main methods: cooking recipes, buying content and completing collectibles. The first of these is the most significant and sustainable of them, and so it is with respect to the preparing of food that we will focus our attention.
The leading XP maker across all the appliances can be found on the Basic Oven. The Peking Duck was also the top dog for profit, and its 340 XP is the best in the business. But, like with the profit discussion, we have to consider just how long it takes to realise that XP haul. The duck takes two days to cook, meaning that it's not all that efficient.
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| Peking Duck |
We can certainly do better by searching for a top performer when it comes to XP per hour. The chart topper here is the French Toast (Basic Stove) which despite only yielding 6 XP benefits from its 1 minute duration. With a full complement of 18 appliances and the superhuman ability to tap continually all day and night you could zoom from level 1 to 99 in less than a week!
That's clearly impossible though, so we need to look to longer recipes. The best placed XP dish on a per hour basis that is longer than 1 hour in length is the Technicolor Cake (Basic Oven). It's 258 XP is the fourth highest of any food in the game and its tremendous XP per hour makes it the go to recipe. And because it is 6 hours in duration, there's unlikely to be much concern over it catching flies.
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| Technicolor Cake |
Assuming you can access the game at least once during the day, it is relatively easy to ensure three batches of the cake per day, and indeed it is possible to churn out four batches every 24 hours if you are diligent and punctual. However there will inevitably be a slight lag develops and you will be forced to miss a batch every so often.
The next reasonable option is the Pork Belly (Basic Stove) which weighs in at 3 hours in length with 88 XP. That's an impressive return but is still way off the excellence of the Technicolor Cake.
Essentially if you have a 12 hour window for serving, there is no better choice than the Technicolor Cake. Plenty of 1 hour recipes can beat it for XP per hour, but tuning in on the hour every hour tends not to be plausible - the cake removes that discomfort. However if you are one of those extraordinary beings who can organise the universe around Restaurant Story, then the White Chocolate Berries (Romantic Stove) should be considered if you have access to the Romantic Stove which was part of the Valentine's goals earlier this year. Churning out those berries all day will earn more XP than a couple of cakes will, and you can then set off the Technicolor Cake as the night watchman.
The only other scenario in which it is worthwhile to implement anything else is when you're going to be out of action for a full day. Then the cake won't survive the wait to be served, so the Classic Meatloaf (Basic Oven) comes into play with its 294 XP for 22 hours of work.
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| Classic Meatloaf |
And if you're going to be absent for two days then the Peking Duck should top the billing.
Overall the Technicolor Cake is almost as close to perfection as you could every wish for. Almost. There's one snag, and that's the level of unlock. The cake doesn't lose its padlock until level 73, so there's a long wait to capture its statistical beauty. In the meantime I suggest starting out with the Jambalaya (Basic Stove) which offers 99 XP every 4 hours and is unlocked within the first eight levels. You can't do better than this on a per hour basis for a recipe of equal or greater length until the Technicolor Cake.
In case you get bored of the Jambalaya on the long road to level 73, I'll throw out an alternative which the short dish enthusiasts will enjoy: the Spring Salad (Basic Stove) is accessible from level 8 and is the third best around of at least 1 hour duration (the top two are the aforementioned White Chocolate Berries and another goal dish, the Thick Cut Bacon on the Old West Oven).
Path to...
11/07/15 Profit
Your most suitable overnight option at a low level may not be the Jambalaya if your sleep patterns are anything like mine (there's no place like your bed!) so consider the 108 XP that the Tofu Stew (Basic Stove) produces every 5 hours. This is long enough to deal with most deep sleepers, although does mean sacrificing some XP efficiency. I suggest setting your alarm nice and early to capture a batch of Jambalayas instead!
So there you have it. Basically, slave away until you unlock the Technicolor Cake and then never cook anything else ever again. That's my XP message!
Keep your eyes peeled for the last part of my strategy guide later this month, which will be all about portions.
Even though this was written over a year ago, it's just what I was looking for, very helpful, some good pointers, and humour, thank you.
ReplyDeletePleased to hear it is of help to you!
DeleteIt's worth noting that there haven't really been any notable recipes statistically speaking since I wrote this post so it's all still relevant. :)
Nice guide! But Technicolor Cake might be the best one for sure, but thats locked behind level 73.. i think you can make it better by doing a guide like.
ReplyDeleteFrom lvl 1, cook these til lvl 5:
From lvl 5 this is unlocked,cook til 15:
If you look in the post you'll see that I highlighted the Jambalaya as being the best XP option when going up through the levels until you reach level 73. There's a few alternatives I've mentioned too - it all depends on your 'schedule' and how often you open the game.
DeleteI do like your idea of a guide as to the optimum recipe through the levels though, and it could be adapted for other factors such as profit and portions too. I'll put that on my ever-lengthening to do list! :)