Microbe Musher

The Microbe Musher is an early-game cooking building used to turn basic ingredients into edible meals when better food production is not yet available. Its recipes can keep Duplicants fed, but relying on it for long periods is inefficient and can hurt both health and morale over time. It is most often used as an emergency food source or as part of a no-plant start such as the Locavore achievement.

The building consumes 240 W while cooking. Most recipes have a base craft time of 50 seconds, while Mush Bar has a shorter base time of 40 seconds. In practice, actual cooking time depends mainly on the Duplicant’s Cooking skill: higher skill means faster production and lower electricity usage. Operating the Microbe Musher also grants Cooking experience.

Several practical details make it a poor long-term food solution. It consumes extreme amounts of dirt and water for its output, provides no morale bonus, and takes valuable early-game labor and power to run. Researching Basic Farming and moving to plant-based food as soon as possible is usually the better plan.

A Microbe Musher can be supplied either by a Duplicant or by an Auto-Sweeper, as long as the relevant recipe has been queued and the ingredients are available. Ingredients stored in the building do not spoil. However, the machine does not sterilize food: germs on the ingredients remain on the finished meal, and the produced food can carry those germs forward. Mush Bar is especially notable because it also generates Food Poisoning germs during production, making it a risky backup option if not handled carefully.

Known recipes include:

• Mush Bar: 75 kg Dirt + 75 kg Water
• Liceloaf: 1200 kcal Meal Lice + 50 kg Water
• Tofu: 6 Nosh Beans + 50 kg Water
• Berry Sludge: 5 Sleet Wheat Grain + 1600 kcal Bristle Berry

Among these, Mush Bar is the least desirable, with very poor efficiency and low quality. Liceloaf is the most basic plant-farming option, Tofu is an intermediate recipe that can be improved further at the Gas Range, and Berry Sludge is one of the strongest mid-tier foods because it never spoils. Even so, the Microbe Musher remains mainly a stopgap building rather than a preferred long-term kitchen.