Pacus overeat, benefit from micromanagement

[Coolthulhu]

Pacus need to eat to stay happy. The problem is, their lifetime is so short, that they are unlikely to ever starve. Instead, the calorie storage only makes them gorge on algae when it becomes available, making them wasteful.

Pacus and shinebugs are unique in that they aren't converters (pacu polluted dirt is waste, not a product) and they only eat to stay alive. The extra calories they consume go to waste. Their lifetimes are short enough that their stored calories at birth last a relatively long time. This means that feeding pacus is optimal when they eat exactly 10kg of algae per cycle. This is not achievable without micromanagement.

Suggestions:

• Instead of having pacus be naturally glum from lack of contact with other living beings, make them naturally happy and only get glum when starving.
• Drop their calorie storage to make them start starving faster. Their lifecycle is 25 cycles, it makes sense for them to starve faster than 100 cycle critters.
• Drop the happiness bonus from eating from feeder. It won't be needed if feeder no longer needs to be a substitute for contact with other living being.

Alternatively:

• Make the feeder effect have a duration proportional to eaten mass and have it extend the duration if re-applied. That is, 10kg only provides the effect for 1/14 of a cycle, but 200kg in 20 separate feedings would stack up to 20/14 of a cycle.

[Juicearific]

For context, this is the kind of idea being referenced: (link because it's pretty long)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Oxygennotincluded/comments/8optnx/pacu_farming_suggestions/

I don't know if I necessarily dislike that it exists, but it does feel like a bit of a cheese. Feeding an animal little food so that it breeds quickly then dies, and you do it with the next wave. Reducing the amount of food you use on it drastically, but not drastically reducing the food it produces.

[abud]

From fish feeder description: "Dispenses once per day"

Either that was a big lie, or I use them in very wrong way

[Alfons100]

They should also not eat 140kg of Algae each cycle as well, it requires around... err, 25 or more pufts to sufficiently feed a single pacu. Thats insane. 

[thewreckedangle]

combined with the fact the feeder only holds a measly 200kg, it doesn't make any sense