Lunch Boxes & Thermoses

[Sasuga]

I would like for Dupes to be able to carry Lunch Boxes.

They could be a manufactured item.

They count against carrying capacity.

They maybe even make it so the dupes can't carry anything else, but then I would think they'd be carrying a whole meal basket for a crew and not just themselves.

One mechanism I can think of for it, is having check points like suits and masks, where a dupe has to carry a lunch box with them after a certain point.

A different method would be to assign it to them somehow, maybe in their details, maybe in the priorities (does NOT make the most sense), maybe make it a skill (not preferred).

Dupes with a lunchbox will not go back to a mess hall, eating table, nor great hall to eat (and thus not get the benefit from it).

An even further upgrade to the lunch boxes could insulate them, keeping food fresher, longer.

Upgraded lunch boxes could have 'neat pictures' on them, which give the dupes who carry it a slight bonus.

There could be a whole work station for Cooks, maybe level 2 cooks, or maybe an off-shoot of cooks (like Ranching is to Farmer) or a combination of cook and supply (like Mechatronics) or a combination of cook and tidying, or cooks and doctoring, to get the skill to make lunches at a lunch making station.

The lunch-maker (lunch lady? lunch dude? chef? lunch box stuffer?) could not only require a station to make the lunches, but as an upgrade have a lunch-box rack to store them on so that three or four lunches could be stored in the space of a storage bin, and then another upgrade to that could be a refrigerated one that stores four to six and takes up twice as much floor space, but is the same height maybe, or possibly a bit taller than a storage bin.

Any food should be able to be put into the lunch boxes, and they count as unrefrigerated (unless upgraded, and then, even then, that should only slow it a bit, not as good as a fridge) or unless they're stored in the special upgraded lunchbox-fridge.

The special station would have to be stocked with ingredients just like a grill, and the auto-loader robot thingy could help with it.

A further down the road upgrade could be a robot-lunch-maker, that just needs to be supplied (and of course could be by robots) and will automatically make the lunches.

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An upgrade for space suits could work with the blender, to store smoothies which the dupes can eat without taking the space suit off. It could attach to their backs like rocket packs perhaps, but store smoothies. The lunch person could use the lunch station with specially crafted containers that aren't lunch boxes but are camel packs, or thermoses, or some other name, and put the smoothies into them, and then a special rack that keeps them cool can be placed next to the space suit docs, so a Dupe would put on a space suit, and then passing by the thermos dock, pick up a thermos for the suit, which would attach to their back.

Again, this thermos could count towards the dupe's carrying capacity.

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When dupes are finished eating their lunches, or drinking the thermos, they'll still have to carry their lunch box or thermos, until they return it back to the station, perhaps a whole extra station that anyone can use, to clean the thermoses (but I wouldn't require a lunch box to be cleaned, but maybe they wear down like oxygen masks over time?)

To clean a thermos would require water, maybe 'soap' and water, like a block of chlorine, or liquid chlorine or something, that gets pumped into the station. So the station would have a water input, a chlorine input, and a dirty water output.