Don't consume good food while unstressed

[Coolthulhu]

Problem: allowing consumption of good food will make dupes eat it even when unstressed, disallowing it will stress the dupes who are forced to eat worse food. The only perfect workaround is microing.

Solution: make dupes prefer food that will keep their stress around 10%.

Example of implementation:

• When dupe is unstressed, they prefer food that will make their expected stress at the end of the next cycle between 0% and 10%. Expected stress should take into account: difficulty, morale, current stress effects (wet, popped ears etc.) multiplied by remaining duration in cycles or 1.0 (whichever is less).
• When the dupe becomes stressed, their preference changes to overshooting stress regeneration by at most the expected value of stress at the end of the next cycle.
• Special case: Barbecue. Dupes should understand that eating it will lower stress by 20% by the end of next cycle.

[impyre]

This is a fantastic idea. I have different dupes with varying morale needs, and managing the food is probably the single most annoying thing I have to do (although it's gotten better since switching to bristleberry/sleet wheat)

[SupremoSama]

Difficulty is what amuses, is a game of strategy. (Translate Google)

[MatthewCline]

I proposed something similar here:

 

 

[Alfons100]

Ehh, I disagree, I think instead there should be more causes to Morale decrease(Poorly temperate bedrooms, lack of availability of Duplicant contact) so there's a better reason for Morale overkill, and a reason to stay at exactly 0% Stress, like mastering jobs faster or increasing Creativity&Learning

[Yunru]

Highly unrealistic.

Dupes, like humans, would go for the tastiest food whether or not they're stressed.

Unless they're watching their weight, and even then maybe...

[Coolthulhu]

30 minutes ago, Yunru said:

Highly unrealistic.

It's just an UI enhancement, nothing more. You can already achieve literally all of this by doing it manually, it's just tedious. All the "unrealism" is already in, it's just that you have to set things manually to separate dupes in castes by their highest job tier. The only time they will ignore the limitations is when they're acting out their binge eater.

7 hours ago, Alfons100 said:

I think instead there should be more causes to Morale decrease(Poorly temperate bedrooms, lack of availability of Duplicant contact) so there's a better reason for Morale overkill, and a reason to stay at exactly 0% Stress

Still no reason to have morale overkill while at 0% stress. Also, morale overkill effect has a cap, so exceeding it by more than x points is pure waste.

[LeftyRighty]

to be fair this could "just be" a behaviour toggle on the "consumable" panel. Best first, worst first, stalest first, closest first etc. they all have their uses depending on the circumstances within the game at the time and sometimes by dupe too. Having one behaviour to fit them all is going to cause problems for someone somewhere at some point.