Keep perishables on fridge or cooler shelves
The Nomad Drive fridge and cooler stop fresh food spoiling while it rests on their cold shelves, and neither needs power. Refrigerate raw meat, produce and packaged food you want to save; properly cooked steak and drumsticks do not spoil and make useful supplies for a longer journey.
Set up accessible cold storage in your RV
Fridges and Coolers turn up along the road. Bring one back to the RV and use placement mode to put it on a suitable surface. The floor and loading space accept furniture, making them useful places to start arranging your food storage.
Choose a position where you can easily reach the shelves when returning with supplies. You can use either appliance for refrigeration: every Fridge and Cooler has cold shelves, and food can also stay fresh in a stack resting on those shelves. You do not need a battery or generator for this.
Which foods need refrigeration?
In Early Access, packaging does not make food immune to spoilage. Baked beans, cereal and chips still go bad, while cooked food no longer spoils. Sort supplies by whether they still need preservation so your cold storage remains useful when you return with fresh loot.
| Food | Storage choice |
|---|---|
| Raw steak and drumsticks | Keep refrigerated until cooking. Raw meat spoils and becomes poisonous when rotten, so prioritize it when sorting newly collected food. |
| Properly cooked steak and drumsticks | Keep accessible as prepared meals for the journey. Cooked food does not spoil, allowing you to reserve cold shelf space for perishables. |
| Fresh fruit and vegetables | Refrigerate produce you intend to save. Apples, potatoes, tomatoes and watermelons are all subject to spoilage. |
| Packaged foods such as baked beans, cereal and chips | Place these on cold shelves when saving them for later. They still spoil despite being packaged and ready to eat. |
| Mushrooms collected as food | Keep them out of your ready-to-eat meal selection. Mushrooms are poisonous regardless of freshness and cannot be cooked. |
Place food and check that it rests on a cold shelf
- Pick up the food you want to store. Having the item in your hands prepares it for the game's placement controls.
- Select Place using the control shown on screen. This enters placement mode so you can position the food on a surface.
- Aim at a shelf inside the Fridge or Cooler. Items snap onto surfaces, and the cold shelf is the surface that provides preservation.
- Use Confirm Placement to put the food down. This completes the placement instead of leaving the item in placement mode.
- Inspect the food's resting position. It should sit directly on the cold shelf or in a stack resting on it; food elsewhere inside the RV does not receive that refrigeration protection.
Organize supplies before a longer journey
Give uncooked meat a clear place in cold storage until you are ready to prepare it. Put packaged food and fresh produce you are saving on the remaining cold shelves. Keeping those groups easy to recognize helps you find ingredients and ready-to-eat supplies without rearranging everything at each stop.
Cook steak and drumsticks before setting off when you have a pan and stove available. Attach the food to the pan, attach the pan to the stove and start cooking. Remove the food before it burns, then keep the cooked meals somewhere convenient for your next stop.
Use placement mode for meals and other supplies you want to carry in the RV. Items and furniture placed on its floor, shelves, dashboard or roof rack stay put while you drive. Reserve the cold shelves for food that still spoils, and keep prepared meals easy to identify.
Resolve placement problems before leaving
Read the placement message if an item will not fit. The game can report that something is too big for the surface, too tall to fit, too small to stack, or that the stack is already tall enough. Try another position or a lower stack when the message points to a fit problem.
Use the rotate controls while placing an awkward item, or choose Cancel Placement to back out and try again. Follow the controls displayed in your game. After confirming the new position, check that the food rests on a cold shelf or a stack supported by that shelf.