Food in Flight Rising replenishes your dragons' Energy, and comes in four types: Insects, Meat, Seafood, and Plants. Each breed of dragon eats one or more types of food, but can only eat its listed foods no matter how hungry it is (listed from most preferred to least preferred):
| Breed | Food(s) |
|---|---|
| Fae | Insects |
| Guardian | Meat, Seafood, Plants, Insects |
| Mirror | Meat, Seafood |
| Tundra | Plants |
| Pearlcatcher | Plants, Insects |
| Ridgeback | Seafood |
| Snapper | Plants, Seafood |
| Spiral | Insects, Meat |
| Skydancer | Insects, Plants |
| Imperial | Seafood, Meat, Plants, Insects |
| Nocturne | Meat, Insects |
| Coatl | Seafood |
| Wildclaw | Meat |
| Bogsneak | Plants, Meat |
Obtaining Food
Food items can be obtained through Gathering or by fighting in the Coliseum.
Gathering
- Insects can be obtained by going Insect Catching.
- Meat can be obtained by Hunting.
- Seafood can be obtained by Fishing.
- Plants can be obtained by Foraging.
As your level in an area of gathering increases, the variety and potency of food items you receive will also increase.
The Coliseum
When you fight creatures in the Coliseum, they have a good chance to drop food items when they are defeated. Experienced players with enough time and interest can keep all their dragons fed exclusively via Coliseum food. This is a popular approach because it allows you to spend your Gathering turns in pursuit of things besides keeping dragons fed: Scavenging for unhatched eggs, Fishing for a rare familiar, Hunting for items for a Swipp exchange, etc.
Different venues yield more or less of different food types. For instance, the Arena yields more insects while the Waterway yields more seafood. Higher-level venues drop items individually worth more food points than lower-level venues. For instance, Training Grounds enemies may drop a Meat item worth 2 food points while Mire enemies may drop a Meat item worth 4 food points.
Feeding Your Dragons
Feeding is a two-step process: make sure you have food points, then use the Feed button in your Dragon Lair to feed all your dragons at once.
Food points and converting food stores
When you collect food items from Gathering or the Coliseum, you need to convert it from an item in your Hoard to food that your dragons can eat. This is done by going to your Hoard, selecting the Food tab, selecting the items that you want to convert to food, and pressing the Convert button at the bottom. (If you want to convert all of your food items to food, you can simply click the Select All button at the bottom and then press Convert.) Food item types convert into equivalent food point types: a Meat food item will convert into Meat food points, a Plant food item will convert into Plant food points, etc.
Feeding your dragons
Clicking the Feed button doles out food points to every dragon in the lair until all dragons are at maximum energy or you run out of food points.
- One food will replenish one Energy. If your dragon needs to recover 1 Energy, it will eat 1 food point; if it needs to recover 5 Energy, it will eat 5 food points. If your dragon is at full Energy, it won't eat! There is therefore no benefit in waiting to feed your dragons; you should feed them whenever you see their Energy drop.
- If a dragon can eat more than one kind of food, it will prefer the type of food listed first in its description, and go down the list if you don't have its first choice. For instance, a Guardian dragon likes "Meat, Seafood, Plants, Insects". When you feed a Guardian dragon, it will eat meat if you have any; if you don't have any meat, it will eat seafood; if you don't have any seafood, it will eat plants; and if you don't have any plants, it will eat insects.
Feeding order
If a player has a surplus of all preferred food types, every dragon will simply eat its fill of its favorite food and then be done. However, under more strained conditions a player may wish to micromanage which dragon eats what foods-- for instance, convincing a Guardian to eat some plants. The following rules govern food distribution behavior:
- Food is first distributed by breed. For instance, seafood will be handed out to all Snappers in a lair before all Imperials. Consult the table below for the orders.
- Within a breed, food is distributed from oldest to youngest. For instance, if a lair contains three Snappers, the oldest (as judged by dragon ID number) will eat first, then the middle one, then the youngest.
| Insects | Meat | Seafood | Plants |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Fae | 1. Wildclaw | 1. Ridgeback | 1. Tundra |
| 2. Pearlcatcher | 2. Mirror | 2. Mirror | 2. Pearlcatcher |
| 3. Spiral | 3. Spiral | 3. Snapper | 3. Snapper |
| 4. Skydancer | 4. Guardian | 4. Guardian | 4. Skydancer |
| 5. Guardian | 5. Imperial | 5. Imperial | 5. Guardian |
| 6. Imperial | 6. Nocturne | 6. Coatl | 6. Imperial |
| 7. Nocturne |
Note that the lair position of a dragon has no effect on food distribution. A very young Snapper positioned at the front of a lair will still eat after its Snapper elders. Similarly, how long a dragon has resided in that lair has no impact. A very old Snapper that has only just arrived will still eat before a middle-aged Snapper that has been there its entire life.