Food priorities

[SquirrelTeeth]

There seems to be a 'default' prioritization where dupes will eat the worst food first and leave morale-boosting food sitting in the larder indefinitely.  I would prefer if I was able to tell my dupes to consume the 'good' food in the colony and keep the 'un-tasty' food for emergencies.  Also, when dupes eat from 'left to right,' they can consume the ingredients to make the good food even if the finished product is available (unless you forbid everything except the final product).  And when there's an increase in kcals from preparing food (like turning meat into barbeque) this eating style decreases total calories available to the colony.

I think things would run smoother if dupes would prefer to eat 'the good' stuff first, while still being able to consume 'back-up rations' if it's unavailable.

In my current colony, I've planted just enough mealwood to sustain everyone if there's nothing else available.  It's an 'emergency supply' of low-cost low-quality food to keep people alive. My colony has 30 Mcal available of real food, but it's still in 'starvation mode' because my dupes insist on eating every last bit of meal lice and nothing else!  They're even going to bed hungry, but I think the commutes might also be a factor in that.  They might be going to the bathroom first and not having enough time to eat.

For now I think I'm just going to have to forbid some dupes from eating any meal lice so that they will actually eat my 30 Mcal stockpile of real food.  But if that ever runs out, my dependable old mealwood will be unavailable.

 

 

[Sasza22]

From my experiences it seems like the dupes eat food based on their morale level. High morale -> eat low quality food. Low morale -> eat high quality food. This means that when your dupes have high morale and low stress they will not eat the better food if given a choice.

[Steve8]

Yeah, I don't like the system at all. It's very annoying when you have an irregular supply of eggs and meat or food from care packages and it just keeps sitting there while people eat meal lice

[SquirrelTeeth]

On 8/28/2019 at 5:23 PM, Sasza22 said:

From my experiences it seems like the dupes eat food based on their morale level. High morale -> eat low quality food. Low morale -> eat high quality food. This means that when your dupes have high morale and low stress they will not eat the better food if given a choice.

That does make sense that they wouldn't consume a product if they don't require for morale, but it would be good if they would eat at least 1000 kcals per day so they don't enter starvation range every couple cycles or so.  I just wish they would eat!  I've got piles of food and every night it's "we're out of meal lice!"

[Sasza22]

On 29.08.2019 at 11:40 PM, SquirrelTeeth said:

it would be good if they would eat at least 1000 kcals per day

They seem to pick up 1 food item at a time and each mealood lice is like 800 kcal. I think more downtime fixes it most of the time though. They just waste more time running back for extra food.

[Slvrsrfr]

One tip. The default schedule will work a bit better if you change bathtime in the AM, to Downtime...By having it set to simply Bathtime, they do get to work faster, but they will starve. Esp. if they have long commutes. Changing the bathroom time to downtime, they get the option to eat in the morning. Not just the option to use the bathroom. That has made starvation stop completely, for me. They still are pressed for time, and don't always get enough sleep. The default schedule is not that good.