Every time I start a new colony I just skip the Nutrient Paste Dispenser and build a cooking stove instead. I get no morale penalty that way and can stockpile some meals for the inevitable eclipse/solar flair.
Is there a use for the paste dispenser that I missed? Maybe in your prison?
It would be great if we could produce Packaged Survival Meals with the paste dispenser? Some long lasting emergency rations might be useful later on imo.
I have no clue.
I don't think you even need it though as I've been doing the same thing, and have a colonist prioritized to cook meals all the time. It works well, so I don't want to waste space with a clunky water turbine looking machine. Plus I can't imagine it tasting too good for being paste.
I guess it is good for new starters who are join learning the game. Gives a food source if they screw up their food supply or forget to build a cooking bench
I suppose
Whenever I have a large colony, It's always nice to have a nutrient past dispenser in the event of bad blight timing. Never have had to use it, but it's a nice backup, just in case.
Quote from: AwesumnisRawr188 on June 14, 2014, 06:22:22 AM
so I don't want to waste space with a clunky water turbine looking machine.
Well, if it would be changed into a Water Filtration Unit we could have bottled water for our colonists. Unfortunately I have no idea how to add the need to drink water regularly for pawns. Might be a good idea to wait until the inventory system for colonists is implemented. We wouldn't want our workers to return to the water hole every 2 or 3 hours. =D
Late game, raids rarely come at a time when you have a full stockpile of meals. I find the first thing my guys do after a raid is a big group meal, wiping out my stock. The paste dispenser, while still giving a negative is, I believe, a lesser negative than the raw food. That's what I've started using them for.
I usually play on Tough Cleopatra, so I always find myself building a paste dispenser so my Colonists have more time to work instead of carrying around food everywhere.
Once I have built basic defenses and rooms, I build a Stove near my kitchen (Where the table and Dispenser is) so they can start preparing meals. Since the Dispenser already has a stockpile of food nearby, it makes the creation of meals that much faster, while at the same time providing them with a food source in case of an emergency.
The Dispenser is a necessary item depending on what you focus on doing at the start of the game. The time a colonist would spend hauling and preparing 8 or so meals, could be better spent growing vegetables, cutting down trees and mining for metal. ^^
I just stick to berries since they don't lower happiness at all.
Quote from: Col_Jessep on June 14, 2014, 05:58:15 AMIs there a use for the paste dispenser that I missed? Maybe in your prison?
I think there should be an option to reserve the dispenser only for prisoners. Just sayin' ;)
Personally I never both with the stoves. I play on Randy and easily amass huge colonies and I only ever use the nutrient paste dispenser. Only one at that. The moral cost doesn't even matter as long as they are feed. Last time I bothered to cook I hated the exp. dates on the meals so I never bother. Has that changed btw?
I think the nutrient dispenser should be smaller, with that it will be more useful than it is now. I mean is a huge structure in which you could build a kitchen and a butcher table for all needs.
Quote from: Aenir on June 14, 2014, 12:37:32 PM
I just stick to berries since they don't lower happiness at all.
Oh, didn't know that! Strawberries for EVERYBODY! =3
Quote from: Tamedsquall on June 14, 2014, 04:19:57 PM
Last time I bothered to cook I hated the exp. dates on the meals so I never bother. Has that changed btw?
I think it's 3 to 4 days. A fridge to double the time would be nice.
Quote from: Col_Jessep on June 15, 2014, 05:36:26 AM
Quote from: Aenir on June 14, 2014, 12:37:32 PM
I just stick to berries since they don't lower happiness at all.
Oh, didn't know that! Strawberries for EVERYBODY! =3
Could go wrong easily, because your colonists need more units of raw food to get full than a dispenser use. Also strawberrie plants don't produce as much units as a potato plant, farming is less effective in Alpha 4 and there's always the possibility of a blight.
I maintain my position if the nutrient paste dispenser was smaller it would be much better, because it would be a very nice adition to the starting colony- even better. if it was part of the drop pod suply and you could just place it at the begining. but thats just another whole concept idea for the game.
If I don't have anyone with cooking skill 3+ or if my colonists are spread too thin to have a dedicated cook, I build a nutrient paste dispenser. All you do is put food into it and you get instant meals. Sure, it reduces happiness a little, but in the early game when you have only three colonists, it can save you a lot of time.
It can also be quite useful as a backup meal source later on when your cook is incapacitated or otherwise occupied. -8 happiness for eating nutrient paste is half the penalty of -15 for eating raw food.
The difference with the stove is that you can stockpile food for 2 or 3 days though. A solar flare becomes a non-issue that way. The last thing I want is having everybody sitting in the dark with a penalty due to not so tasty food on top of that. You have to put down some serious carpet to forget a raw potato meal... xD
I use nutrient paste dispensers a lot because cooking takes too much manpower. I found that you basically have to have a guy at the stove all day to cook meals for 5 colonists, even if that person is really good at cooking. Nutrient paste dispensers do it automatically and in seconds, and eating nutrient glop is normally the least of my colonists' worries.
In my current colonie, I disclaimed the NPD at the start and figured out that cooking is way to much work when I have only three colonists, so in the future I will use the NPD again and eventually recruit a cook if I find one.
I gess its good for eating power and taking up to much dam space
that's my gess
Quote from: fla_hotrod on June 14, 2014, 02:58:55 PM
Quote from: Col_Jessep on June 14, 2014, 05:58:15 AMIs there a use for the paste dispenser that I missed? Maybe in your prison?
I think there should be an option to reserve the dispenser only for prisoners. Just sayin' ;)
Or just an option on what to feed your prisoner. One of the first fine meals I ever had made was given to a prison and I was so pissed about that for so long.
I mainly use the nutrient past dispenser near the begining as I rarely pick someone with a good cooking skill off the bat
Quote from: christhekiller on June 18, 2014, 07:35:04 AM
...
Or just an option on what to feed your prisoner.
...
Hmm, that ought to be an improvement idea. If Tynan is reading this, he ought to think about perhaps adding the option. So we already have 'Gets Food' for prisoners. And now we need an option as to what food does each prisoner get, say, Raw, Vegetarian, Meat, Human meat, etc.
NPD is the lazy man's colonist feeding system.
The more meticulous and enthusiastic players employ chefs and set their meal stockpiles right on top of dining tables (or under them, it's hard to tell). The Cooking Stove and the NPD wage eternal battle.
NPD is good when:
...You are in late game, have a lot of colonists, and have several happiness-boosting structures.
...Very early in the game when you still have the "new colony optimism" bonus to counter the paste meal penalty.
NPD is risky when:
...You dig rooms into the mountain in the beginning and do not clean up the places or smooth the floors in proper time. Then you get penalties from dirt, rough rock floors and nutrient paste while your "new colony optimism" has worn off.
...You get a solar flare. Then you eat raw food if you have no meals in stock, turning the paste meal penalty into something worse.
Cooking stove is good when:
...You have plenty of meat and vegetables in store. You could stop growing altogether and have your growers do something else. The difference between a fine meal and a paste meal is 13 happiness, not entirely insignificant amount.
...You suffer frequent raids. Corpses and wounds are no fun. A good meal can be the difference between a rampage and a simple mental break.
...You have a someone with potential to become a good chef, and that guy isn't good for much else. Most chefs don't clean or haul, so you might as well give them a stove to play with.
Cooking stove is risky when:
...You don't have the manpower and there are more urgent jobs.
The differences are subtle and complex but largely irrelevant if you know what you're doing. NPD is still a slightly greater risk over cooking stove but when it comes to mass feeding, NPD delivers every time. NPD does not require sleep, unlike your chef. It'll always be there for your colonists. Also, I suspect NPD can process human meat without any penalties but I haven't checked it.
Quote from: Dr. Z on June 15, 2014, 06:34:02 AM
Could go wrong easily, because your colonists need more units of raw food to get full than a dispenser use. Also strawberrie plants don't produce as much units as a potato plant, farming is less effective in Alpha 4 and there's always the possibility of a blight.
Blight doesn't effect wild strawberry patches, so far as I've seen.
I've had my colonists saved many times by the large patches of berry bushes near the houses.
Quote from: Sinsults on June 19, 2014, 01:39:23 PM
Quote from: Dr. Z on June 15, 2014, 06:34:02 AM
Could go wrong easily, because your colonists need more units of raw food to get full than a dispenser use. Also strawberrie plants don't produce as much units as a potato plant, farming is less effective in Alpha 4 and there's always the possibility of a blight.
Blight doesn't effect wild strawberry patches, so far as I've seen.
I've had my colonists saved many times by the large patches of berry bushes near the houses.
Ahh, you're talking about the wild ones, yeah that's right I thought you mean the planted ones. That actually sounds like a good idea. Will try it out next time :)
Blight affects only your own growing zones. I often designate a large berry patch, then remove the growing zone once it's going - it'll spread itself and it's blight-proof. :)
NPD used to be the best way to manage prisoners, as there is presently no way to manage the quality of food that you give them, and no way to manage the resource cost of holding prisoners.
Since it was removed, managing large groups of prisoners is a pain.
Would be less of an issue if traders weren't a once-in-a-blue-moon thing late game.
I've got a Prison meals mod. You can set stockpiles inside prison cells and have a number of meals delivered directly by the cook. Naturally, that works best if your cook stove is in close proximity to the prison.
But it sort of opens up possibilities of having a stove that is dedicated to producing meals for prisoners, for example.
Quote from: Dr. Z on June 15, 2014, 06:34:02 AM
Quote from: Col_Jessep on June 15, 2014, 05:36:26 AM
Quote from: Aenir on June 14, 2014, 12:37:32 PM
I just stick to berries since they don't lower happiness at all.
Oh, didn't know that! Strawberries for EVERYBODY! =3
Could go wrong easily, because your colonists need more units of raw food to get full than a dispenser use. Also strawberrie plants don't produce as much units as a potato plant, farming is less effective in Alpha 4 and there's always the possibility of a blight.
That's why I love building in a forest. Food growing by itself, laying around ready to be harvested by anyone. Yes, the fires are a sensible problem there, with any boomrat or storm starting several at once...
I'd love to see the NPS
1. Be able to turn human flesh into non-cannibal food source
2. Be able to turn inedible organic matter into food source. Why not somehow allow full corpses to be deposited, and the whole thing is broken down into nutrients, not just the meat.
3. The ability to research and use mood stabilising chemicals. Being able to pick from a list of enhancements with pros and cons would be great. So perhaps a drug that increases happiness but slows people down.
Always good to have multiple options for the player to have their own game style, as long as it makes sense and there are reasons to choose one way over the other. Currently this isn't really the case.
Quote from: MajorFordson on October 05, 2014, 07:49:28 PM
I'd love to see the NPS
1. Be able to turn human flesh into non-cannibal food source
2. Be able to turn inedible organic matter into food source. Why not somehow allow full corpses to be deposited, and the whole thing is broken down into nutrients, not just the meat.
3. The ability to research and use mood stabilising chemicals. Being able to pick from a list of enhancements with pros and cons would be great. So perhaps a drug that increases happiness but slows people down.
Always good to have multiple options for the player to have their own game style, as long as it makes sense and there are reasons to choose one way over the other. Currently this isn't really the case.
That's actually a really good suggestion, and would give NPD an actual purpose. I like it!
The mood stabilising effect is a good idea indeed. Perhaps instead of mood-raising effect, people should get a "blissful" or "drugged" medical state, that would make them more resistant to mental breaks but would also make them work somewhat slower? It would make NPDs a good choice for starting colonies again while larger colonies would still want to cook.
Quote from: Rahjital on October 06, 2014, 04:22:50 PM
The mood stabilising effect is a good idea indeed. Perhaps instead of mood-raising effect, people should get a "blissful" or "drugged" medical state, that would make them more resistant to mental breaks but would also make them work somewhat slower? It would make NPDs a good choice for starting colonies again while larger colonies would still want to cook.
The start of the game is when you're least likely to have mental breaks, and when you have the most work to be done. Your suggestion would be better for a late-game colony that has no cook.
I used to skip pasta dispenser until recently when I did some testing and it turns out with pasta dispenser I am able to increase my colony efficiency by 1/3 and that is a lot on scale of say 20 days. If you run it until you get your first prisoners you have all 3 guys building, mining etc. In early stages of a game penalty for a pasta meal is so low you can easily take it. After increasing your colony to 4-5 guys you can just sell it and start cooking properly.
my biggest problem whit the Nutrient Paste Dispenser is that its takes up 1/3 of my cantina space really I could fit in an third table plus chair or an Paste Dispenser(takes the table as I never really use the Dispenser anyway).
if it was smaller and was not effected by solar flares/eclipse, then maybe as an backup but else you just going to end up whit spoiled food all the time.
if the Nutrient Paste Dispenser was 1X3 or 2X1 or something like that I would actually place one in the corner instead of an jukebox but we don't have jukeboxes so Paste it is. but now I need an freaking extension for something no one likes to use.
I have never used it. Ever. Though I can understand in certain, yet non-implemented biomes it could be a lifesaver.
I feel like it shouldn't really make human meat non-cannibal. If anything I'd find the idea of consuming pastified human meat worse than a slice of man-steak. Although I suppose the colonists don't necessarily need to know what's in the paste...
Love the idea of being able to drug your colonists though. Develop anti-depressants and put them in your nutrient dispenser until they act like robots. Then chop off their limbs and replace them with robotic limbs so you get real robots.
Quote from: Hoodinski on October 10, 2014, 09:53:27 AM
I have never used it. Ever. Though I can understand in certain, yet non-implemented biomes it could be a lifesaver.
Really? I find myself relying primarily on it. Typically, especially early on, I'll have anyone whose skilled in cooking doing other things, like at least hauling. And keeping busy by cooking for the colony just seems like a waist of effort when they could be doing other things