Nutrient Paste Dispenser (NPD) has a problem right now.
It needs damn hopper. The problem can be explained in two broad ways.
1. hopper works as independent stockpile zone, so colonists continuously try to fill it every moments when someone eat it with NPD. Colonists waste their energy and time just fill a fistful of rice.
2. Most of the raw food need to be frozen but hopper is usually exposed. It's waste of cooler to freeze the hopper. NPD need much more electricity then it looks.
Solution : NPD needs a new mechanism such as 'charge system', like chem-fueled generator or fueling workbenches. Charge them with raw food source and it doesn't need to be attached with hopper anymore. If the NPD run out of food source, let colonists fill it in at that moments. No more waste of cooler and electricity power.
Agreed. I never use these things. They waste time, they take resources, they need power, the food's bad, they create even more meaningless back and forth for my pawns. Never ever do I use them. Unless they get some serious upside that makes them worth it, I'm not using them. I never even see the need to use one, and it feels so out of place. It makes me think Tynan made this to fit with his undeveloped space idea of RimWorld and then later it got smeared across ideas. It's stupid. :P
The mod RimWorld Search Agency comes with a submod called which used to be called Hauling Hysterics. On every stockpile zone you get a search window, and also at the bottom you have a "Don't refill until below X%" slider. So you could make it so the hoppers only refill when they are at 0%, and just put a fridge from RimFridge right next to it, so the food never, ever spoils before going in the hopper, and raw veggies probably won't if you have it set to never refill until at 0%! ;)
What about this.
Remove the hoppers, or increase what they can carry, otherwise they're oxymoronic because they make the pawns move around anyway.
Instead of hoppers, have it instantly consume whatever food your pawns bring to it, and have it fill up an internal variable that's equivalent to nutrients, for example 10.
Like this.
You bring 20x some food of a nutrient value of 0.05, and your NPD will have 1 nutrient in it. You can't get this nutrient out of it. It produces nutrient paste meals on the spot when used and takes the corresponding amount of nutrient from the NPD. You could have research that gives you different kinds of paste, so that the entire thing would be more relevant than it is right now. I don't use it /at all/. Never. Every time I build it, I immediately regret it.
It only takes power when you want to produce a nutrient paste.
How about it?
Quote from: tmo97 on January 09, 2018, 06:48:54 PM
What about this.
Remove the hoppers, or increase what they can carry, otherwise they're oxymoronic because they make the pawns move around anyway.
Instead of hoppers, have it instantly consume whatever food your pawns bring to it, and have it fill up an internal variable that's equivalent to nutrients, for example 10.
Like this.
You bring 20x some food of a nutrient value of 0.05, and your NPD will have 1 nutrient in it. You can't get this nutrient out of it. It produces nutrient paste meals on the spot when used and takes the corresponding amount of nutrient from the NPD. You could have research that gives you different kinds of paste, so that the entire thing would be more relevant than it is right now. I don't use it /at all/. Never. Every time I build it, I immediately regret it.
It only takes power when you want to produce a nutrient paste.
How about it?
How about checking out the REPLIMAT System! https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=35146.0
I agree with NPDs just having a percentage bar, just like chemfuel/wood generators, and the behaviour which would make pawns not constantly refill them. If there's concern about balance, since all material would fill the same guage, I propose different dispencers. Maybe one that can handle vegetables and regular meat (cheapest, earliest), one that can handle insects (research?), and one that can handle human meat. They all produce different meals, with the appropriate food debuffs.
I'm for improvements to the NPD, not because I think they're useless, but because they're actually quite useful, but filled with annoyances. Pros: fast prep time per food unit, no skill requirements, no food poisoning, huge boost to total nutrients (60% I believe). Cons: constant refilling behaviour negates the fast prep time and looks ridiculous, fiddly to set up cannibal vs normal restrictions (need zones, multiple NPDs, plus individual hopper settings).
Quote from: Morrneyo on January 08, 2018, 07:36:56 PM
1. hopper works as independent stockpile zone, so colonists continuously try to fill it every moments when someone eat it with NPD. Colonists waste their energy and time just fill a fistful of rice.
This is a legit problem. Should be fixable if devs extend the storage area options and give us options to fill tiles only if the maximum stackable amount decreases under a certain percentage (or flat number).
Quote from: Morrneyo on January 08, 2018, 07:36:56 PM
2. Most of the raw food need to be frozen but hopper is usually exposed. It's waste of cooler to freeze the hopper. NPD need much more electricity then it looks.
This is not true. Vegetables last for a very long time. Potato lasts for 2 seasons, rice for 3 seasons and corn for a whole year without any cooling whatsoever. NPD acts as a wall so it's not hard at all to make 3 rooms for it. One is the dining room, one is an actual freezer with 3/4 hoppers while the last one is a storage room for vegetables without cooling and another 3-4 hoppers. The problem you describe originates from a lack of experience of using a NPD. Meat has to be freezed anyway so it's not like you won't make a freezer in the first place.
It would be nice if the hopper had an option to request the food stack that'd spoil first. A small QoL change for people like me who don't freeze their vegetables.
Quote from: Morrneyo on January 08, 2018, 07:36:56 PM
Solution : NPD needs a new mechanism such as 'charge system', like chem-fueled generator or fueling workbenches. Charge them with raw food source and it doesn't need to be attached with hopper anymore. If the NPD run out of food source, let colonists fill it in at that moments. No more waste of cooler and electricity power.
This could work if the NPD was changed a bit. Cooling technology would be a new prerequisite for it and increase its power consumption by 100 to simulate stored food being cooled. The new storage capacity would have to reach at least 20 nutrients to somewhat match 6 hoppers' capacity. However the cost of hoppers should also be included so NPD must cost 90 more steel. Alternatively set capacity to 10 nutrition and increase cost by 45 steel instead.
People severely underestimate the NPD. Paste meals cost 40% less food which means 40% less growing/harvesting/food hauling jobs. One cook would have to work 24/7 for ~10 people to feed them all the time. Building a NPD means one more colonist to do something else. Sure, it does generate hauling jobs but a lot less "wasted" work time than a cook would. And a -4 mood is negligible when you have access to a +10 mood from joy for essentially free or have a nice dining room that cancels out the debuff.
The NPD isn't in a desperate need for a rework. It's fine as is, if you know how to set it up properly. What it does need is a way to manually pull meals from it for emergencies. A solar flare makes it useless for half a day. This can be solved by keeping 2-3 stacks of emergency pemmican somewhere but it would be a lot better if we had an option to be able to pull paste meals until storage has X meals or something. Essentially add a bill to it. It would also be a nice way to feed animals (since animals literally ignore kibble if they can path to any other food, making kibble worthless if you want to keep animals for food hauling or generally allow them into areas with food). People can already force-pull meals from the NPD by drafting-undrafting a hungry colonist and forbidding dropped paste meals. Why not make it a legit option?
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 10, 2018, 06:54:44 AM
Quote from: Morrneyo on January 08, 2018, 07:36:56 PM
1. hopper works as independent stockpile zone, so colonists continuously try to fill it every moments when someone eat it with NPD. Colonists waste their energy and time just fill a fistful of rice.
This is a legit problem. Should be fixable if devs extend the storage area options and give us options to fill tiles only if the maximum stackable amount decreases under a certain percentage (or flat number).
That already exists, and the number is 25. They won't refill a hopper unless there's space for 25 ingredients.
I agree with the general idea that the NPD is getting a little bit long in the tooth - it's been largely unchanged for ~13 alphas and it shows. It's a very practical building, but it has some downsides it shouldn't have. The solar flare is one thing, a chunk blocking its interaction spot is another. Refrigerated hoppers and meal-prep on demand would be nice too.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 10, 2018, 06:54:44 AM
NPD acts as a wall [...] The problem [is] a lack of experience of using a NPD.
The real problem is this undocumented behavior that NPDs have. They, along with smelters and trading comms I believe, all count as walls, but none of them tell the player this in the UI.
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 10, 2018, 06:54:44 AM
One cook would have to work 24/7 for ~10 people to feed them all the time.
Are you sure about that? I think my line cook, who all they do is drop meals on the floor, don't even stop to pick up ingredients, can cook for more people than that. I honestly haven't done any calculations, but 1 cook 24/7 per 10 people just seems off to me.
I've played a bit and haven't used NPDs at all because if I capture a prisoner it's to either practice meds and release for goodwill (rare) or recruit (usually), so giving them lousy food from a special unit isn't worth it. Unless you are doing a slaver base I see no reason to keep prisoners around for a long time. I like the idea of it but just haven't had the need to use one yet.
I only try to use nutrient paste dispensers in prisons but even then colonist keep bringing them food so it never really gets used.
It is useful when I use my prison as a fallout shelter though.
What we need is a refrigerated hopper so you can just leave food ready to be juiced and forget about it.
YES!!!!! this frustrated me sooooooooooooo much when i started the game on the tutorial/ newbie mode.
Agreed.
Having the NPD be charged with food as "fuel" just like a pod launcher would make it much more practical. And while having its refill thresholds be customizable would be nice, honestly it could just be set to hold like 100 units and only request a pawn to recharge it when at 50% and call it a day. It's not quite a full stack, but significally better than the constant mini-hauls hoppers get now and a lot of pawns have disabilities preventing them from carrying the full 75-unit amount anyway.
I actually ask myself what do I need the NPD for anyway? I'd describe the strength and weakness of the NPD as followed:
-Good nutrient conversion
-Low/No work
-mood debuff
-Permanent energy consumption
-No cooking experience
-No transportation
conclusion
nutrient and work are a good reason to use it early game when there's no better source available. The mood debuff increases the pressure on using it only in emergencies. The energy cost instead is a reason not to use it in the beginning as electricity is something you don't have early game, so making simple meals is usually much better as it need no, or fewer energy than the NPD. Especially as the NPD need 24/7 energy, which is something that isn't always realistic in early.
=> I cannot imagine a single situation where I would need a NPD
Ideas
I think the big strength of a NPD is the nutrient effiency and preservation of food.
Both things I combine with caravaning as they need to spare space and long term food.
If now the NPD could be used to produce non-perishable food with low weight but high energy cost and research, it would turn from a useless early game device to a endgame alternative to pemmican(which is early/tribal game) and MRE(which I consider mid-game).
To spice it up, the mood debuff could stack higher or giving a hediff like "undernourishment" to punish longlong-usages.
Does no one here have an NPD setup for their prisoners? Let them feed themselves and save your wardens from making trips. Have the ass end of the NPD going through a wall to hoppers that you can easily refill, with a fridge of produce right next to it.
I still think it would be really cool to have "policies" that you could enact, similar to what the poster above me mentioned. Let me have say the NPD use 50% less electric, but the mood debuff is an extra -2. Or have it use 100% more electric, and you can make meals from it that don't expire. You could seriously do so much cool shit like that with pretty much any system in the game. At least give the modders a system that they could easily manipulate colony wide bonus/malice or being able to edit verbs, comps, or whatever with whatever on the fly.
Don't forget that nutrient paste meals also never give food poisoning, and we all know how crippling food poisoning is. That gives it another use of being a great food option if you don't have any skilled cooks - admittedly an unlikely scenario with the right colonists, whether lucky with the pool or if you rolled an ideal team, but it's a viable use.
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 17, 2018, 11:41:36 AM
Does no one here have an NPD setup for their prisoners? Let them feed themselves and save your wardens from making trips. Have the ass end of the NPD going through a wall to hoppers that you can easily refill, with a fridge of produce right next to it.
This is literally the only thing I use my NPDs for: feeding prisoners.
It saves a lot of work for the wardens, and prevents prisoners from getting my good meals. Mood is nowhere near as important for prisoners as it is for your colonists, after all.
Honestly, I thought everyone did this :p
I've been trying to mod in a reworked NPD yesterday night and tonight, but I've hit some problems:
- Cannot be made to work without "bills" like the current NPD. This appears to be hard-coded to only allow a single building type to work without a cooking recipe making this food, the current NPD.
- "fuelConsumptionRate" appears to be bugged and have zero effect.
- "consumeFuelOnlyWhenUsed" also appears to be bugged, and always work like it's a stove, and not something like a torch which constantly burns. Maybe hard-coded to look at the base item, like a stove / bench?
- the "drawSize" and "size" both appear to break whether or not you can interact with the building / cook anything. This one seems really messed up. It was working briefly, then after changing the graphic, it was no longer interactible. Maybe the save game gets corrupted? I don't know...
Given these current limitations, I can only make a limited, worse-than-the-default NPD:
- food/"fuel" cost has to be controlled by slow dispensing times (very unlike current NPD), or
- food/"fuel" could be controlled by making normal recipes, which would make pawns haul ingredients onto the NPD and not into a hopper or into a fuel-gauge like chemfuel power plants, but would allow fast "cooking" times, and exact costs, similar to current NPD
- maybe the graphics don't work, or it will randomly stop working to cook meals? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
+ could have different recipes, but maybe they'll stop working randomly due to glitches (didn't put in enough time to test what was going wrong here...)
+ could have different "fuel" types for separate NPDs. e.g. A vegetable-only NPD, or a human-meat-only NPD
+ can set the graphics properly, but maybe everythign will break because of bugs
I'll maybe try this again tomorrow, looking at what other cooking/production-building mods are doing, but right now I'm going to finish this up and watch a movie. : )
You guys should check out the mod in the WIP mods forum, can't remember the name of it, but it's kinda like an NPD system that you set up colony wide, like an electric network, and it can send food to any connected terminal on the network.
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 23, 2018, 03:58:39 PM
You guys should check out the mod in the WIP mods forum, can't remember the name of it, but it's kinda like an NPD system that you set up colony wide, like an electric network, and it can send food to any connected terminal on the network.
I believe you're referring to the one you already linked (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=35146.0) on page 1. That looks reasonable for a mod, but without any comments explaining what each XML tag in the base game or the mod does, I can only guess and hope for the best. Looking again, there's a couple of tags in the mod that look like they're not specific to the C# code in that mod, which I'll try out again when I've got time. Namely,
designationCategory appears to be hooking it up to the C# defs, but might be one I need to include to hook my NPD up to the base game's definitions. Also,
building/fixedStorageSettings,
building/defaultStorageSettings,
building/nutritionCostPerDispense,
building/soundDispense,
building/wantsHopperAdjacent look relevant. I'd tried a couple of those to little effect, but I don't have any docs on what's required, mututally-dependent, etc, so I'll try them all out as a group too.
If I have time and need to can probably whip up some C# too. The guides in the mod forum I saw were for Windows / Visual Studio, so I'll have to see how hard it is to get a project compiling properly with Mono if I need to go down that route. C# itself is a fairly good language, but I don't have a Windows machine, and I know from work that getting something set up with Mono to match a VS project isn't completely straightforward. (And I'm mostly a non-C# dev.)
That being said, I should be able to at least get something workable with only XML. I say "should" because that other mod doesn't seem to be doing much in its XML that I wasn't doing, and the C# (that I looked at) doesn't seem to be needed for this thread's more basic purposes. I also say "should" because when I was changing a single line at a time to make slightly more changed NPDs, at some point I'd randomly get something that didn't work anymore, and when I reverted the latest line I didn't get my most recent working behaviour back. Now, I wasn't using any version control (Git was harassing me for username and email before I even cared about going online somewhere...), so it's still possible I just made a mistake and was changing more than one thing at a time. Still anoying and slow work though. : )
I wish you luck on your endeavor!
ATTENTION
dont read the following comment if you get offended easily by impoliteness. the comment was created with humour in mind. please forgive me for this.
umm...the only explanation to this thread can be that i am a pro (which i am not) and you guys either suck or have never put more than 5 mins of thought into this machine. and come on. that cant be. so first of all to me the most important use is on the sea ice biome. you save such ridiculous amounts of food, energy, steel (to build) and time to cook, you dont even have to pay for it with a long research time. it is the PERFECT machine for sea ice survival and i am pretty sure most people use it in deserts and ice sheet aswell, at least for a while. i honestly believe survival is impossible without it on sea ice, maybe even other biomes. sure the debuff is pretty harsh for a meal that contains all nutrients (so no additional debuff for using it for a long time is logically possible) but it is way better than eating dead animals or raider corpses.
all this said, if i started a normal game lacking a decent cook, i'd just research this real quick. (tribal starts give you 5 pawns. it is nigh-impossible to not get a decent cook) it is so cheap and easily available. to be fair, it took a while for me to realize its true potential, but i havent looked back since. i use it for prisoners that i keep for organs, i use it in emergency situations, i sometimes use it longterm. it can really jumpstart your colony because you dont waste your time with cooking. no need for cooks, no need for (electric) stoves, no need for a clean room. and it never poisons you, it's better than a level 20 full bionic cook cooking in a sterile room. and food poisoning is much worse than bad mood. you can use the time you gain from not-cooking in the beginning and quickly build kickass rec rooms and dining rooms, maybe even an early fridge.
apropos fridge: am i the only one that builds his kitchen inside his fridge? with the same logic just put the damn nutrient paste dispenser in the fridge for the most part and let its meal-getting-part point into your diner, where people can get the food and immediately eat it aswell. it saves so much time. the hoppers are in the fridge so food in them doesnt spoil. hopper is empty too soon? wtf just install more hoppers they are practically for free. people run and fill it up too often with only a handful of food? then your hauling priorities are too high. fix that. if you have 6 hoppers installed they first of all shouldnt empty very soon. with 75 raw food each, that's a 450 raw food total, you can produce 75 nutrient paste meals. 75! with literal 6 hauling jobs and the tiniest bit of electricity and steel (and planning, i guess) 75 meals is a day's worth of food of like 30 pawns. keeping thirty pawns fed requires some pretty damn good cooks (which still poison their food from time to time) a couple stoves and a LOT of hauling aside from cooking. so 6 hauling jobs without even leaving the fridge (in many bases doors arent electric so leaving rooms is the slowest part of hauling) can feed an entire army for a day. 6!
ok before i sound like billy mays, let's address some actual problems. you cant give it orders to produce a whole slew of meals in advance so that you can take it on caravans. fair point. here it DOES show that it wasnt updated in ages. still, the old trick works like a charm, especially with 6 dispensers:
1) pick a hungry pawn
2) draft him
3) send him in front of the meal-getting-part
4) pause the game
5) undraft him
6) draft him
7) forbid all the meals on the floor, if any
8) repeat steps 5-7 until all your hoppers are empty or you have produced enough for for your trip. keep in mind, these meals hold for longer, as an additional upside.
9) if the hoppers are empty before you produced enough meals, unpause the game and haul some more raw food, then start over at step 1.
seriously, i just wrote an algorithm that even autists understand. cant be that hard.
and after this post i honestly doubt there is one person out there that knows what he's talking about and still in all seriousness claims that nutrient paste dispensers are too weak. maybe your playstyle doesnt require it. maybe you play basebuilder in temperate forests. but it doesnt take away any of this buildings amazing abilities. i didnt use it when i played base builder in temperate forests either. as soon as food becomes somewhat scarce, you better abuse the crap out of this building.
ps: i was really expecting a mod or someone who has a lot more experience than i do to explain this. maybe not even here, but to put a good ass explanation in the game when you click on the info screen of this building, or this thread will pop up over and over again.
pps: if i wasnt clear on this, i'll try again: nutrient paste dispensers are good as they are, the only thing they need is some kind of orders and options. make an option for not producing food in advance, only when needed (someone is hungry, he gets the food) and so on. i am sure tynan will figure this out just right.
Quote from: Mehni on January 10, 2018, 07:40:05 AM
Quote from: Granitecosmos on January 10, 2018, 06:54:44 AM
This is a legit problem. Should be fixable if devs extend the storage area options and give us options to fill tiles only if the maximum stackable amount decreases under a certain percentage (or flat number).
That already exists, and the number is 25. They won't refill a hopper unless there's space for 25 ingredients.
I just tested in a vanilla game with debug mode, and people hauled when the stack was at 69/75 (one meal dispenced). So, it's possible there's a bug that's causing pawns to haul more often than they should be. Even if the hoppers worked bug-free, I feel like they'd still be too fiddly, for a machine which is ostensibly supposed to be the low-effort alternative to a stove. Namely, you need to set up at minimum two buildings (NPD + one hopper) compared to the single building which is a stove. So, I'll continue my efforts at a chemfuel-like NPD. (Too bad I
had the flu yesterday still have the flu today...)
Quote from: patoka on January 28, 2018, 01:13:20 PM
(A lot of text, most of it condescending.)
The things you wrote seem to indicate you didn't actually read this thread. If you had, you'd see that there's only a few people who think NPDs need a buff, and there's already other people showing the merits of the NPD in its current form. The rest of the thread is about how to fix the very real annoyances that come with the NPD's current implementation.
Quote from: AileTheAlien on January 28, 2018, 06:33:09 PM
Quote from: patoka on January 28, 2018, 01:13:20 PM
(A lot of text, most of it condescending.)
The things you wrote seem to indicate you didn't actually read this thread.
The condescension is definitely one thing. If you want to voice your suggestions, and get people to support your ideas, I would recommend a different approach. Also, if you can't even give two damns to use proper capitalization in your forum post, why should anyone else give two damns to read it, let alone even acknowledge you?
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 28, 2018, 07:14:01 PM
Quote from: AileTheAlien on January 28, 2018, 06:33:09 PM
Quote from: patoka on January 28, 2018, 01:13:20 PM
(A lot of text, most of it condescending.)
The things you wrote seem to indicate you didn't actually read this thread.
The condescension is definitely one thing. If you want to voice your suggestions, and get people to support your ideas, I would recommend a different approach. Also, if you can't even give two damns to use proper capitalization in your forum post, why should anyone else give two damns to read it, let alone even acknowledge you?
dAmN, SoRrY, mAh MaN
i WiLl TrY tO wOrK oN tHaT
@everyone else: actually legit sorry about my attitude there, i shot over the aim there. shoulda been nicer in formulating my points.
(and now my stubbornness will show, get ready)
still. my point still stands. if your pawns go hauling after every meal consumed, you might need to check on your work tab. animals could do that work for you, why waste your pawns on it? if you past-ify meat only, you can use any herbivore to haul it, if veggies-only, use wargs. put appropriate zones and they will solve the hauling issue on their own. if you happen to get many hungry pawns at night when all your pets are asleep, just send some to haul REAL QUICK. i mean ideally the hoppers are already in the fridge.
to come to your point, i DID understand what you guys were talking about and quite honestly most if not all suggestions seemed to me like implicit buffs to nutrient paste dispensers. i thought my wall of text was understandable enough for that. sorry for the hassle. a typical issue of mine. or do you wish for me to elaborate on why i believe those suggestions were hidden buffs? (i guess i dont have to explain that the suggestions you made and already declared as buffs are too much in my eyes, aswell)
User was banned for breaking rule 2 in another thread. 3 weeks vacation for anyone who doesn't heed rules.
I'd like if you just filled up an internal buffer for a nutrient paste dispenser, and it immediately made it into paste, which did not rot, and the buffer could hold maybe 5 or 10 meals? Or even get a research option/support structures to hold more paste?
Upon discovering how the paste dispenser worked, I immediately decided it was too much effort for too shitty of a meal, and have never used it. Eating raw food is practically the same result with less effort and more efficient storage.
Quote from: Grubfist on January 29, 2018, 12:41:00 AMI'd like if you just filled up an internal buffer for a nutrient paste dispenser, and it immediately made it into paste, which did not rot, and the buffer could hold maybe 5 or 10 meals?
This would basically be the same as how chemfuel generators work right now, correct? That's one of the options discussed, and one that I briefly had working (sort of).
I tried again this weekend to get something working with just XML, but it appears that none of my pawns can interact with the new NPD to craft a meal. I even tried to just make a simple mod of a stone-cutting bench to see if I was just making a simple mistake somewhere. (Basically just a new bench with a different name in the XML, and only one stone recipe in its list.) I'll post in the modding help forum when I get time to put my stuff up on Github and make notes of what I was trying...
Quote from: lancar on January 18, 2018, 02:47:39 AM
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 17, 2018, 11:41:36 AM
Does no one here have an NPD setup for their prisoners? Let them feed themselves and save your wardens from making trips. Have the ass end of the NPD going through a wall to hoppers that you can easily refill, with a fridge of produce right next to it.
This is literally the only thing I use my NPDs for: feeding prisoners.
It saves a lot of work for the wardens, and prevents prisoners from getting my good meals. Mood is nowhere near as important for prisoners as it is for your colonists, after all.
Honestly, I thought everyone did this :p
Using electricity on prisoners?!? Usually I just put a wall and door on an old mine shaft, cram as many resting spots as possible into it, then shove them into it and set one or two to be fed so they fight over the food the warden brings in. It keeps them all nourished enough to live until I can sell them into slavery.
One time I put a huge 2x2 statue of one of them being relentlessly beaten with excessive force when being captured into the room with them for them to appreciate.
Quote from: Grubfist on January 31, 2018, 04:52:41 PM
cram as many resting spots as possible into it, then shove them into it and set one or two to be fed so they fight over the food the warden brings in.
Holy shit they will fight over food?! Or you just mean, they all run for it once it hits the ground?
Quote from: Harry_Dicks on January 31, 2018, 06:51:14 PM
Quote from: Grubfist on January 31, 2018, 04:52:41 PM
cram as many resting spots as possible into it, then shove them into it and set one or two to be fed so they fight over the food the warden brings in.
Holy shit they will fight over food?! Or you just mean, they all run for it once it hits the ground?
That second thing. Though they will often beat each other up because they're in poor moods and take it out on each other.
I'm on vacation this week, so I worked on my NPD mod again, and discovered a few things. First, being able to interact with a thing like a stove or workbench, requires another separate definition, even after you define the building to have bills, ingredients, etc (WorkGiverDef). Also, if I make separate paste meals (so each refuel-type NPD can work with its single fuel), then I won't be able to get cannibalism to work properly (each food item can only have a single tasteThought in its definition; the way NP meals work now, is that the paste item gives one debuff, then the human flesh is coded on its own, and adds because it's an ingredient.
However, if I instead use the BiofuelRefinery as a starting point, it will basically act as a stove. (The BR basically uses most of the same definitions.) Cannibalism and insect meat would work, and you'd only need a single NPD building. It wouldn't be able to be a refuel-bar type building though; Since that type of thing won't have "ingredients". I could probably get around that with a hybrid aproach, where the "fuel" is any non-human, non-insect food / ingredient, and then the "meals" you can make would only use a smaller amount of ingredients for the traits. That would be pretty fiddly to balance (fuel usage over time, guessing how much for a meal.), and would make cannibal NPD usage much cheaper, since it would use less human meat. Although I guess raider meat is basically free, so that wouldn't be much of a problem.
Anyways, I think I'll just finish up the BiofuelRefinery-style NPD (https://github.com/EliaTarasoff/rimworld-nutrient-paste-dispenser/pull/2). Should be finishable pretty quickly, since I no longer need to mess around with multiple copies of everything for normal/insect/human varieties. It will still be a lot less hauling than the current hopper-system of NPDs, since I can just make the recipes give paste in large batches.
OK, that took more hours than I thought, even with the simplified recipe / copying off of the BiofuelRefinery. Anyways, here's the mod I made (https://github.com/EliaTarasoff/rimworld-nutrient-paste-dispenser). Summary:
- overrides the default NPD, and disables the hopper
- works like a stove/workbench/biofuel refinery (haul food to it to make meals, can use a chair, outdoor and temperature penalties)
- large batches mean low amounts of hauling (the original item's description says it should be low-time, but the weird hauling negated this)
- costs, time, etc should be roughly balanced, but I'm totally open to feedback (either reply here, or reply here with a link to your pull-request ;)
- I also added dehydrated nutrient bricks, as a cheap but horrible replacement for pemmican / packaged survial meals
- is ugly, to hopefully balance against people wanting to make huge batches for sale, or completely replacing survival meals, kibble, or pemmican
The size and image is the BiofuelRefinery, because I actually don't like the current / updated NPD graphics (or even the old one, to be honest). But I'm totally willing to change that if somebody (pull-)requests it, or suggests something better. If it's not too much effort, and somebody requests it, I can make it downloadable in the Steam workshop, for people who are less comfortable with mods. Hardest thing is finding the location/folder for mods, to copy-paste into. :)