Food help after occupation patch

[Nicho247]

Hello - I have been loving this game for a little while now. I have been looking forward to the latest patch and now after the patch, all of my colonies are failing hardcore. Seems much more difficult. I am struggling with food production. After 5-6 colonies I cannot make it very far. Any tips? I cannot make it past making mush bars or the wormwood one. Everyone starves and dies.Games seems significantly less fun and cannot make it to any of the new features.

[Man in the Mist]

For starters, check out this thread for ideas on planting Bristle Blossoms.  Especially note the placement around the printing pod.

[Nicho247]

Here is a fresh one. Had one dup die, and only 19 cycles in, starving, stress maxed out.

[Steelflame]

You need to start with spamming Mealwood and Mush bars, and rush a farm setup for Bristle.  You'll swap off of the Mealwood eventually, but it will help sustain you till you can go pure bristle.   If you are not stupidly rushing job maxes (You can't sustain high tier dupes until many cycles in), you can easily function well.  I heavily recommend one of your starting 3 dupes being a super-researcher (8 starting learning skill) so that you can rush the tech tree, and the other two being high strength/athletics general purpose dupes.  Your first dupe priority should be a fairly high base cooking dupe after that, and then a few farming dupes.  Pick up high strength/athletics dupes along the way.   Ideally, your base will probably stabilize around 12 dupes later on, and 6 dupes early.

 

Also, just looking at your farm for bristle, that is so inefficient on the light spam.  You can place 30 something bristles with just 3 lights.   Only the bottom most tile needs to be lit.

 

Finally, optimal use of your starting space makes things easier.  instead of your printing pod being a badly used area, it should probably be a barracks for 6 dupes (3 beds on each side, a painting above each bed later on.  This gives you a high decor starting bedroom to negate a lot of early stress.  Combo with a good bathroom, and you are negating a fair amount of stress, so that all you have to worry about is O2 and food.

[Lacost]

Nah, you don't need Mushbars. My Dupes will never eat dirt as long as I'm around!

 

But still it is quite difficult to set up a stable food production early on. Here a few tips:

1. Don`t tech into Bristle Blossoms. They are a mid to late game food source. Definitely nothing for the first 20 or so cycles.

2. Plant Mealwood and plant it fast. Your top priority after setting up your toilets and research is to get your farm running.

3. Dig specifically for buried objects in the dirt biome. They will give you Mealwood seeds and Muckroots. Both will prevent your colony from starving.

4. Don't print Dupes as fast as possible. More Dupes = more hungry stomachs to fill. Stay at 4-5 Dupes until your food production is big enough to support more.

5. Prepare Meal Lice into Liceloaf. This increases their calories by quite a bit.

6. Forbid the consumption of Meal Lice so your Dupes are only allowed to eat Liceloaf.

7. Remove Hatches from your farm. Those parasites consume huge amounts of foodstuff.

[The Plum Gate]

Looks like you may or may not have sent them to work in a water basin...

This, I generally put off. I'll usually leave naturally growing things alone as well.

Digging for muckroot and seeds is always good.

You can usually batch about 10 or 12 mush bars, and cook them into mush fry. Last resort food. Never let them eat mush bars... This is way to much stress and causes them to have diarrhea. 

[Oozinator]

2 hours ago, Nicho247 said:

Here is a fresh one. Had one dup die, and only 19 cycles in, starving, stress maxed out.

Why you get notice "missing research station", when you have planter boxes researched?
Did you choose a flatulent dupe, i would prevent that. Take loud sleeper (bed some tiles away of others), or narcoleptic.
Stick with 3 dupes, till you have +food production.
Don't plant bristles in planter boxes. Use maelwood for the start, push research to the end. Dig down, to create a save co² pocket for your farm (sterile atmo). Search for natural grown food and don't uproot them. Harvest them.

 

[PhailRaptor]

26 minutes ago, Oozinator said:

Why you get notice "missing research station", when you have planter boxes researched?

Looking at the screenshot, there is a basic Research Station, but no visible Super Computer.  I also see only T1 tech in the image.  So it's likely that a T2 tech is currently queued, but cannot be further researched due to the lack of a Super Computer.  On top of not having a Researcher, based on the other alert.

[Breizhbugs]

1 hour ago, Lacost said:

1. Don`t tech into Bristle Blossoms. They are a mid to late game food source. Definitely nothing for the first 20 or so cycles.

I jump sucessfully into britle blossom as my starter food. Make reseach fast to get planter quick and start growing them. The time they grow you  eat starting ration and the muckroot you dig, and the wild mealwood. They are good for stress too

More advices:

- research super computer very fast

- research "Artistic Expression" fast and add decor around your bed and toilet, that places dupes spend a lot of time and it will help to greatly reduces their stress.

- In this Update, a massage table is needed in the beginning, i set it to priority 9 and to trigger at 40% stress then 20% later on...

- Kill some hatch if you have plenty of them: its food and initial ore (copper) is precious so dont let them eat to much!

- In this update i found that i need to recruit more dupes in the beginning so i quickly go to 6/7 dupes then staiblize until food is going well. This is even more important if you choose bristle berry as initial food cause you need efficient supply to bring water to planter. Also allows you to dig bigger area faster so more muckroot in the beginning

[Oozinator]

3 minutes ago, Breizhbugs said:

- Kill some hatch if you have plenty of them: its food and initial ore (copper) is precious so dont let them eat to much!

The other stuff you suggest is fine. I like to lock hatches down with pneumatic doors and sweep only the tiles, where they are stuck then. They are very good at pooping coal. I like them and so far i have no chance to breed them, i care about everyone of the poopies ^^

[Breizhbugs]

Well i think i suggested that because i usually dont use the coal generator a lot, so i dont need a lot of hatches. And when you have 15+ hatches in the beginning of a game and that the animal trap use the so long to have (for me) plastic, then i just go in a killing spree

 

[Oozinator]

13 minutes ago, Breizhbugs said:

Well i think i suggested that because i usually dont use the coal generator a lot, so i dont need a lot of hatches. And when you have 15+ hatches in the beginning of a game and that the animal trap use the so long to have (for me) plastic, then i just go in a killing spree

 

You need no traps, to lock most hatches down. When you dig one out, trap it with door. When you dig out below trapped hatch, it falls down, into next trap/door. When you plan ahead.. ^^

[Roxanne4018]

you get things right having water easily accessible for your cooks. but your water tank really doesn't need to be that big. This kitchen design is the most efficient that I came up with travel time wise. My farm are inspired by someone else's on the forum. Note that conveyers will be possible except on the highest floor.

 

Notice how in the occupational update, the musher is available without research. It's because it is really hard to go without it now.

Also don't completely dig out your wild plants and harvest them as soon as they are ready. Only remove them when your out of food shortage.

Get to coal generation ASAP. Your dupes time is too valuable to be running on a wheel all the time = more time to farm / dig for muckroots. ( I have 3 circuits of one by cycle 40 to avoid damage)

[Lutzkhie]

also when you have the farm setup try to calculate the number of bristle blossom you need so that you can efficiently manage your water

[Arash70]

here's how it goes:

dig dig dig dig dig -> research farming -> research advanced research -> research agriculture -> plant 16 planters in the meantime -> dig dig dig dig dig -> plant anything you get

 

Also take a look at: 

 

[Lacost]

6 hours ago, Breizhbugs said:

I jump sucessfully into britle blossom as my starter food. Make reseach fast to get planter quick and start growing them. The time they grow you  eat starting ration and the muckroot you dig, and the wild mealwood. They are good for stress too

 

I recommend Mealwood over Bristle Blossoms because they are far easier to cultivate. If you go for Bristle Blossoms on day one you have a huge pressure on your Dupes to keep them watered and to provide constant power for the lights. On top of that Brislte Blossoms burn through your water so you are forced to find new water earlier.

 

With Mealwood you are far more flexible since the only resource you need to supply is dirt which can easily be stored inside the farm. Also, dirt will be sufficiently available for a hundred cycles so there is no pressure on you to find a renewable resource in the early game. On top of that a Mealwood seed seems to drop more frequently from buried objects than a Bristle Blossom seed.

 

I imagine that for newer players which struggle to feed the Dupes for the first 20 cycles, Mealwood is the go to food source. If you are more experienced then a Bristle Blossom build is of course more viable in the long run.

[Argelle]

Roxanne4018

I got to ask, since I'm a noob and your pict is small.

The clever small water reservoir between grills, how do you feed it?

The wash bassin, why only one? and only one way?

[pg13]

Actually I avoided going into Mealwood. I have to say, I've failed two bases already because of different reasons in one I couldn't keep up with my dupes food needs, the other one I could find a water geyser and ran out of water (geysers seem to be further away now than they used to before the update). So I started my current base with getting only 4 dupes, and made sure I take things slowly, and it has worked great, I got into bristle blossom as soon as I could, and now a little over 100 cycles, I have a steady supply of cooled water coming into base and a self cooling oxygen system that is slowly overpressurising? my base. I think the key now is to take things slowly and not take in too many dupes but make a few really powerfull ones (all of mine learned first 2 stages of mining, building and gofer)

[Wing93]

5 hours ago, pg13 said:

Actually I avoided going into Mealwood. I have to say, I've failed two bases already because of different reasons in one I couldn't keep up with my dupes food needs, the other one I could find a water geyser and ran out of water (geysers seem to be further away now than they used to before the update). So I started my current base with getting only 4 dupes, and made sure I take things slowly, and it has worked great, I got into bristle blossom as soon as I could, and now a little over 100 cycles, I have a steady supply of cooled water coming into base and a self cooling oxygen system that is slowly overpressurising? my base. I think the key now is to take things slowly and not take in too many dupes but make a few really powerfull ones (all of mine learned first 2 stages of mining, building and gofer)

This worked for me as well. I kept having food issues in my colonies after the update, so I decided to take in less dupes than I usually do and take things really slow, and it worked wonderfully. I only have 5 dupes on cycle 120~ and having no issues right. It also doesn't cause too much pressure to look for geysers early on, since you can save water and algae by not having too many deoxydizers/bristle blossoms.

[PhailRaptor]

Not my screenshot, but I think I can answer:

5 hours ago, Argelle said:

The clever small water reservoir between grills, how do you feed it?

Can you see the little red alert flag inside that little basin, on the left side?  That is from a Liquid Vent, complaining that it is overpressure.  So it is being fed by his base's water system, but it doesn't overfill because the vent can only expel contents until it becomes obstructed by sufficient standing water in the basin.

5 hours ago, Argelle said:

The wash basin, why only one? and only one way?

I would assume that the kitchen is a "one way" kitchen.  Just like the Basin (which, as a critique, should really get replaced by a Sink connected to the base's plumbing to prevent the creation of P-H2O bottles off-gasing P-O2 in the kitchen...), all Doors can be set to only allow access in one direction.  So in order to access the kitchen at all, the cooking Dupes can only enter from the left, where the Basin is, in order to get to the Grills and Mushers.

[Nicho247]

Hi All - Thanks for all the advice and tips here. You cant see in the screenshot, but I had 16 mealwoods below the bristleberry. Due to the high stress, one of the dupes was running around smashing items, hence a few broken items and research station missing (though it is in the screenshot). I did crack open a few water areas and re-position it. This led to some of the stress and it cascaded very quickly.

[Roxanne4018]

12 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

Not my screenshot, but I think I can answer:

You got it right. It's not super complicated either ^^.

12 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

Just like the Basin (which, as a critique, should really get replaced by a Sink connected to the base's plumbing to prevent the creation of P-H2O bottles off-gasing P-O2 in the kitchen...)

I definitely take mt time to get my base fully functioning. I run  my base without any water sieve at this point on the picture. Since the water temperature  found in the starter biome is a lot colder that the 40 degrees coming out of the water sieve and more importantly colder than the ambient temperature. You can also see on my picture a Small PW reservoir on the left. surrounded by two deoxidisers so there's not PW bottle producing PO2 in the kitchen. I store the germy PW there until I setup a system to boil it off into clean water and cool it. Then I will modify my plumbing system so that the germ free water goes into the small reservoir and create a big sustaining bathroom system ( like crypticfox video but with every bathroom (6) and sink from the main main base connected to it) using insulated pipes made of sandstone.

So maybe my PW reservoir should be on the right, but early game I had a natural water reservoir there and needed an outhouse setup.

[Falcahtas]

Mushroom are the best food until you really have an abundance of water

[Arash70]

26 minutes ago, Falcahtas said:

Mushroom are the best food until you really have an abundance of water

Mushrooms are not a bad idea actually, gets rid of slime fast on early game, 

the only risk is slimelung

[Bael]

On 13/02/2018 at 11:56 AM, The Plum Gate said:

Looks like you may or may not have sent them to work in a water basin...

This, I generally put off. I'll usually leave naturally growing things alone as well.

Digging for muckroot and seeds is always good.

You can usually batch about 10 or 12 mush bars, and cook them into mush fry. Last resort food. Never let them eat mush bars... This is way to much stress and causes them to have diarrhea. 

 

On 13/02/2018 at 9:29 AM, Nicho247 said:

Here is a fresh one. Had one dup die, and only 19 cycles in, starving, stress maxed out.

Yes, I noticed that my food seemed to get low a lot sooner than usual on my start. Most of this has been mentioned before, but to summarise, this is what I did [I now have 15 dupes and mostly do mushrooms, with about 200kj surplus (cycle 245)]

1) I dug everywhere that I could for muckroots. You've got lots of undug hidden objects (you see what looks like dents or fractures in the undug terrain? There are objects there if you go dig there. There are quite a few above your base).

2) I always put my dupes beds near the portal instead of any other buildings. The portal gives positive decor, which is hard to get early in the game (press F8 to check it). This will help lower your stress.

3) Always sweep where your dupes sleep. All that stuff on the floor will raise their stress level. This is very important.

4) I limited my job assignment early on. Job assignment means more stress (more decor requirement).

5) Try not to cram stuff on to where your dupes will be spending a lot of time. All that stuff near your science station adds negative decor, if I recall correctly. Give them space (press F8 or check when the building is selected as to the effect on decor)

6) I didn't take any new dupes for a long while. Wait until your food stabilises, and you get a really nice dupe. Keep checking anyway, and if nothing really shines out, scrap them and look at the next trio once it comes.

7) I got a large farm going with the meal lice. Again, hidden objects can be seeds. Also, if there are wild meal lice below 50%, you may want to dig them up for the seed. They grow a lot more slowly in the wild.

8) If two dupes are working or sleeping next to each other, they produce negative decor on each other. If they are stressed, this can be a problem because their recovery is slower/decline is faster.

 

Some suggestions are:

Put the same amount of washing stations as you have toilets.

If a dupe is stressed, try get them to work somewhere with positive decor, or even unassign all their jobs and move them somewhere with positve decor.

 

Edit: Cooking now adds calories. So I also cooked meal lice for a while. You just have to watch your water, because it uses water.