Recipes and Cooking
A recipe turns ingredients into an output — a snack, a piece of gear, or an Avatar material. Each cooking slot runs one recipe at a time. This page helps you decide which recipe to cook (odds vs. reward), whether to substitute higher-tier ingredients for a better result, and whether to gear up a burner before you start.
The app deep-links here from the Recipe Selector. That picker defaults to "Available only" — the recipes you can craft right now with what's already in your Inventory. Turn the filter off to browse everything, including recipes you can't yet make.
- Cooked dishes (Snacks) are activated from the Snacks sub-tab once you've cooked them. A Rare or Mythical dish gives the same buff as its Standard version — the tier just gates whether the dish exists, not how strong the effect is.
- Cook results mint immediately — the output token lands in your inventory in about 5–10 seconds.
- The reveal is two-stage — you see the base rarity, then it morphs up if the Elegance roll bumped it a tier.
Cooking slots — permanent vs. temporary
The Cooking Area has two kinds of slots: permanent (always there) and temporary (7-day rentals on top).
Permanent cooking slots
| Slot # | Unlock |
|---|---|
| 1 | Free at Tune-In L1 |
| 2 | Free at Tune-In L5 |
| 3 | Free at Tune-In L15 (Tune-In cap) |
| 4th permanent | Signal subscriber bonus — a permanent lane carrying +10% Skill / +10% Elegance / +50% Speed |
Tune-In gates the first three lanes. A Signal subscription adds a 4th permanent lane — and it's a strong one, with a built-in +10% Skill, +10% Elegance, and +50% Speed on everything cooked there. Beyond that you stack temporary slots.
Temporary cooking slots (7-day rentals)
Each temporary lane costs a flat 5,000 RSNC / $5 USDSC and lasts 7 days.
- They stack, but with an effective cap of min(3, 6 − permanent slots) — you can never exceed 6 concurrent cook lanes in total.
- After 7 days each temporary lane retracts back to your permanent count.
They're for flash-recipe weeks (24h windows with something you want) and for running multiple leveling cooks in parallel. See the Reference — Slot unlocks summary for the full picture.
A slow, high-value dish like Quasar Quiche (a 4-hour cook that pays 10 Avatar Essence) is worth running several times during its flash window. A 5,000 RSNC / $5 temporary lane is cheap insurance when your permanent lanes are busy with other cooks.
Cook success rate
Every cook either succeeds (you get the output) or fails (the ingredients are spent for nothing). Odds are point-based: you build up cook-skill points and measure them against the recipe's difficulty threshold.
Your skill points are the sum of three things:
| Source | Points |
|---|---|
| Tune-In level | 5 + (2 × Tune-In level) |
| Kitchen Level | 4 × Kitchen Level (worth 2× a Tune-In level, point-for-point) |
| Equipment on that burner | its Skill stat, added on top |
The recipe's threshold rises with its level: 5 + (6 × recipe level). (An L17 recipe needs 107 points — exactly met by a player at Tune-In 17 and Kitchen Level 17, for a 50% cook.)
How points become odds:
- Below the threshold → your rate climbs from the 5% floor up toward 50% as you approach it (low-level recipes get a small early-game lift).
- At the threshold → 50%.
- Above it → 50% up to ~95% over the next threshold's worth of points, then an asymptote toward a 99.99% ceiling.
So you have three levers: raise Tune-In, raise Kitchen Level (the strongest — 2× a Tune-In level), or gear the burner. No cook is ever hopeless (5% floor) or a certainty (99.99% cap).
Cooking a recipe in its matching discipline stall applies that stall's bonus on top — e.g. an Armorer recipe cooked in an Armorer stall gets +10% Skill. This craft-to-stall match is the recipe's affinity. Cooking off-affinity (in a non-matching stall) is simply neutral — no bonus, but no penalty either, so you're never worse off for cooking broadly. See Specializations & Mastery. (Discipline stalls are rolling out operator-first; your per-craft Mastery bonus is already live for everyone.)
Time and rarity come from the burner's equipment
Two things about a cook are set by the equipment on that burner, not by the recipe itself:
- Cook time — better gear finishes the cook faster.
- Rarity-upgrade chance — the roll that bumps a successful output up a tier (Standard → Rare → Mythical).
The recipe snapshots the burner's stats at the moment you press start. Removing or swapping gear mid-cook does not change a cook that's already running — so gear up before you start, not after.
Kitchen XP (kXP) and Kitchen Level
Cooking is how you raise your Kitchen Level (kL), which caps at 90. Every cook pays kXP — even a failure — but it's not a flat multiple of recipe level. It scales with the rarity of the ingredients you burn and the recipe level:
Success kXP ≈ (sum of ingredient tier-points) × √(recipe level) × 2, where each ingredient unit is worth 1 (Standard) / 3 (Rare) / 5 (Mythical) tier-points.
A failed cook pays 40% of that.
So the fastest way to level your Kitchen is high-level recipes cooked with higher-tier ingredients — not grinding cheap low-level cooks. A failed cook still advances you (40%), but success is what hands you the output, so weigh the reward against your odds before committing rare ingredients.
Substituting higher-tier ingredients
A Standard ingredient slot will also accept a higher-tier token of the same chain, and that token adds Elegance points to the cook:
| You slot in | Bonus on that cook |
|---|---|
| Same-chain Rare token | +5 Elegance points |
| Same-chain Mythic token | +10 Elegance points |
More Elegance means a better shot at a rarity-upgraded output — but that chance is capped at 75% (reached when your Elegance is 3× the recipe's baseline). Substitution is worth it when you're chasing a Rare/Mythical result and can spare the higher-tier token; if you only want the base output, cook with Standard ingredients and save your good tokens.
Recipe categories
| Category | Availability | Rotation |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent | Always | Never rotates |
| Flash | 24-hour window | Rotates every 48h |
| Limited | 7-day window | Rotates every Monday 00:02 UTC |
| Brand-exclusive | While the brand's program is active | Per-brand |
| Seasonal | Per Forge season | Aligned to Forge windows |
Cooked dishes (the snack roster)
The cooked dishes are a set of level 70, flash-rotation buff foods — cook one, then activate it from the Snacks tab for its effect. They are not starter cooks: a new player's first cooks are the tutorial cook and the refine/cultivator chains. These are high-level content that rotates in and out on the flash schedule.
| Dish | Lvl | Time | Base success | Ingredients | Activate for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pulse Bread | 70 | 30 min | 80% | 4 Pulse Eggs + 6 Harmonic Herbs | Fill 5% of your weekly AS cap |
| Echo Espresso | 70 | 30 min | 75% | 4 Echo Spores + 2 Stellar Honey | +1 Mailbox roll today |
| Solar Smoothie | 70 | 30 min | 70% | 6 Lunar Lettuce + 4 Stellar Honey + 2 Astral Apple | Fill 10% of your weekly AS cap |
| Photon Soufflé | 70 | 45 min | 60% | 6 Pulse Eggs + 4 Astral Apple + 2 Quantum Salt | +1 Mailbox roll/day for 24h |
| Astral Apple Pie | 70 | 1h | 70% | 8 Astral Apple + 6 Stellar Honey + 4 Harmonic Herbs | A Streak Shield (1 use) |
| Tidal Tartare | 70 | 1h | 55% | 8 Photon Fish + 4 Lunar Lettuce + 2 Quantum Salt | 4 Avatar Essence |
| Truffle Resonance | 70 | 90 min | 50% | 6 Void Truffle + 8 Echo Spores + 4 Resonant Crystals | Fill 15% of your weekly AS cap |
| Nebula Stew | 70 | 2h | 65% | 12 Harmonic Herbs + 6 Echo Spores + 4 Stellar Honey | +25% XP on your next cultivator harvest |
| Quasar Quiche | 70 | 4h | 45% | 10 Pulse Eggs + 6 Echo Spores + 4 Resonant Crystals + 2 Quantum Salt | 10 Avatar Essence |
| Gravity Cake | 70 | 8h | 40% | 8 Stellar Honey + 8 Astral Apple + 6 Pulse Eggs + 4 Resonant Crystals | Skip an A1 ascension cost on a cultivator |
| Spectrum Soup | 70 | 12h | 35% | 2× of all 10 ingredients (20 total) | A random Mythical cultivator |
| Singularity Stew | 70 | 24h | 30% | 4 Quantum Salt + 4 Resonant Crystals + 10 Void Truffle + 10 Photon Fish | 1 Avatar Essence |
The pattern: the quick, cheap dishes give small utility (an AS-cap top-up, a Mailbox roll); the long, low-odds dishes pay the big rewards (Avatar Essence, a Mythical cultivator). Higher-tier substitute ingredients raise your Elegance and your shot at a rarity-upgraded dish. See Snacks for activating them.
Chain recipes (L16+, L40+, L60+)
As you level, recipes themselves become inputs to higher-tier recipes. The full ladder — Refine, Crystallise, Tier-Up, L60+ Apotheosis, Producer Genesis, Convergence, Re-Roll Stone Forge — is detailed in Advanced — Recipe Chaining.
Headline:
- Refine (L16–19) — 8× Standard ingredients → 1× Rare. 85% success.
- L40 Crystallise — 6× Rare → 1× Mythic. 70% success.
- L40 Tier-Up — 3× Rare equipment + Mythic ingredient → 1× Mythic equipment (you pick the slot). 55% success.
- L60+ Apotheosis — 3× Mythic equipment + 5× Mythic ingredient + Mythic cooked food → 1× Legendary equipment. 40% success, soft stat-gate, 24h cook.
Activity Score from cooking
Successful cooks emit AS into a separate 5,000-per-week crafting bucket (parallel to the 10K-per-week chat bucket). Both feed the same weekly bounty settlement.
| Recipe band | AS per successful cook |
|---|---|
| L5 food (existing) | 25 AS |
| L15/L25 equipment/forge | 50 AS |
| L20 Refine (chain) | 100 AS |
| L35/L40 food | 150 AS |
| L40 Crystallise | 200 AS |
| L40 Tier-Up | 250 AS |
| L60+ Producer Genesis | 350 AS |
| L60+ Convergence | 400 AS |
| L60+ Re-Roll Stone Forge | 400 AS |
| L60+ Apotheosis | 500 AS |
Failed cooks earn 0 AS. The ingredient burn is the cost — there's no partial credit.
Rarity-roll bonus: +25% AS whenever the rarity-upgrade mechanic fires on a chain recipe (a tier-up OR a ceiling-tier 2× bonus-piece). Fires once per trigger, not per piece minted.
A maxed-out crafter doing the full ladder weekly hits the 5K cap after ~10 successful cooks (~2 Apotheosis + 5 L40 work + supporting refines). Below the cap, every cook adds. Above the cap, recipes still produce outputs — they just stop adding to the bounty leaderboard for the rest of the week.
Strategy notes
- Permanent recipes are your daily baseline. High base success, useful consumable outputs, no rotation anxiety.
- Flash recipes are for the 24-hour windows. Plan ahead — if Tidal Tartare is up and you want a Rare equipment piece, queue ingredients early.
- The slow, low-odds dishes pay the big rewards. Stack Kitchen Level, Tune-In, and Elegance before attempting Spectrum Soup (a random Mythical cultivator) or Quasar Quiche (10 Avatar Essence).
- Gravity Cake skips an A1 Ascension cost on a cultivator — handy when you're Ascending a Mythical cultivator.
- Chain recipes scale your AS more than your ingredient cost. L20 Refine: 100 AS per success vs. 25 AS for a L5 food. The crafting bucket fills fastest from chain runs, not Permanent grinding.
- Line up cooks with the Cook Queue. You don't have to wait at the Kitchen — queue cooks back-to-back and each starts automatically as a lane frees. It's free for everyone; cancel a waiting cook any time for a full refund.
- A finished cook can stall your queue. If a cook finishes but can't auto-reveal, it keeps holding its burner and queued cooks wait behind it. The Cook Queue then reads "Waiting on a finished cook that's holding a burner — reveal it to free the slot and continue." Reveal the finished dish to free the burner and let the queue advance.
Pay-or-Play
Recipe ingredients are normally produced (free if your cultivators cover all 5 families) but you can also buy ingredients directly with RSNC or USDSC per Pay-or-Play parity.
See also
- Kitchen Quickstart — your first cook walkthrough
- Cook Queue — line up cooks to start automatically as lanes free
- Cultivators — your ingredient supply
- Equipment — modify cook outcomes
- Advanced Guide — point math, chain ladder, variant Elegance
- Reference — cook times, AS table, rotation cadence
- Activity Score — the weekly cap