How to plan amount of raw food ingredients?

Started by Thom Blair III, August 10, 2018, 02:58:37 AM

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Thom Blair III

This is my first play through and I'm trying to figure out how to not grow/hunt/slaughter too much, yet make sure I have enough food for the coming year.  The problem I'm facing is the number of people and animals I have keeps changing. In addition, some animals are carnivores and some can just eat plants. So, does anyone have any insights on how to plan accordingly?
I was surprised to read about Angkor Thom in Cambodia. I looked up what "Thom" means and it's "big" or "great", so my avatar icon is ធំ which is "Thom" in Khmer.

mecatxis

You can avoid hunting, but growing is a must do. I always have one or more paws dedicated to farm. In early game you can survive on harvesting in some biomes, but as soon as you are three colonist and have some cattle and pets, you will have difficult times without farming.

Awe

#2
Quote from: Thom Blair III on August 10, 2018, 02:58:37 AM
This is my first play through and I'm trying to figure out how to not grow/hunt/slaughter too much, yet make sure I have enough food for the coming year.  The problem I'm facing is the number of people and animals I have keeps changing. In addition, some animals are carnivores and some can just eat plants. So, does anyone have any insights on how to plan accordingly?

Im not planning anything. Just build a freezer big enough to have time to react on situation changes and preserve excessive calories.

Also you can have pretty flexible source of vegs if you go to roofed year-around hydroponic with rice. Rice at hydro grow fully within 2 rw days so if you grow too much - just switch some hydro tanks to anything else. Or switch back to rice and you have bigger harvest in 2 days.

PS Dont look at forbidden doors and empty hydroponic. Its just after solar flare. Doors forbidden to minimize cold dissipation and rice in hydro harvested because unpowered hydroponic kill plants. (its usually better just cut/harvest everything on solar flares)

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Canute

Not to speak about to build a greenhouse, so you don't get surprised by some bad events and can grow/harvest fresh vegetables during winter.

Awe

Yep, simple greenhouse is very good and achievable goal before first winter. Just a walled 11x11 patch of soil(preferably rich), sunlamp, 3-4 heaters, 1-2 battery, 3 solars, 1 wind turbine. Its like 1k of steel, 30 components and some bricks.

zizard

Depending on biome, 1-2 heaters can be enough, or 0 if built around a geyser. Technically only need about 1.7 solar panels for the sun lamp and some fraction of a fuelled generator for the heaters.

Crow_T

A big part is managing what the colonists eat first, if you have a ton of meat and not many veg you can switch simple meals to meat only and make kibble from the remaining meat and veg for example. Just managing the simple meals can help a lot. I'd a;so recommend not going too crazy on the animals if you are just starting out, they can be a pain to keep up in the wrong scenario.
(regarding dead man's apparel)
"I think, at the very least, the buff should go away for jackets so long as you're wearing the former owner's skin as a shirt."
-Condaddy20

xrumblingcdsx

Don't forget to limit the zones of your animals. If they eat meat you can feed the dead to your dogs. If you have a psychopath make sure you're dicing them up first to get that leather.

Serenity

Quote from: Awe on August 10, 2018, 09:40:20 AM
Just a walled 11x11 patch of soil(preferably rich), sunlamp, 3-4 heaters
1-2 heaters is enough for one sunlamp even in boreal forest. 3-4 heaters is for 2 sunlamps


How much food you need to store depends on the number of colonists. It's also not necessarily a complete disaster if you run low. Even in winter there are a few animals to hunt and you can buy some food from traders if you get one.

fritzgryphon

Hydroponics have gotten a buff in unstable (I think).  70 watts for 280% growing speed is pretty decent, if you have the steel.

rizurper

Unless you are desperate on food, don't hunt small animal. Too much effort for small reward.

Other than that, you'll always need meat. Hunt every big herd you find. Butcher them only when you need meat, because in term of store space efficiency big animals are best to store in form of corpse rather than their meat counterparts. The maximum stack of meat per tile is 75, and big animal's meat value more than 75. This will save your freezer space. In other word, you will want to always butcher small animal with meat value less than 75 for obvious reason.

zizard

Quote from: rizurper on August 11, 2018, 05:24:22 PM
Unless you are desperate on food, don't hunt small animal. Too much effort for small reward.

Other than that, you'll always need meat. Hunt every big herd you find. Butcher them only when you need meat, because in term of store space efficiency big animals are best to store in form of corpse rather than their meat counterparts. The maximum stack of meat per tile is 75, and big animal's meat value more than 75. This will save your freezer space. In other word, you will want to always butcher small animal with meat value less than 75 for obvious reason.

Don't forget to grenade the corpses for wealth control!

Hans Lemurson

Quote from: rizurper on August 11, 2018, 05:24:22 PMButcher them only when you need meat, because in term of store space efficiency big animals are best to store in form of corpse rather than their meat counterparts. The maximum stack of meat per tile is 75, and big animal's meat value more than 75. This will save your freezer space. In other word, you will want to always butcher small animal with meat value less than 75 for obvious reason.
Also Animal Corpses in your freezer have a smaller impact on your Colony Wealth than the meat and leather they produce.  A Freezer full of muffalos will attract less unwanted attention than a freezer full of beef and hides.
Mental break: playing RimWorld
Hans Lemurson is hiding in his room playing computer games.
Final straw was: Overdue projects.

spidermonk

Colonist eats 2 meal per day. Gourmands tend to eat like 2.5 per day The ones with gut worms eat more also. Then, someone can join during the winter, you may got a prisoner or two.

Rice and corn grows on rich soil around 1.3 times slower than the number in the description. Potatoes grow around 10-11 days on normal soil.

It's better to have at least your winter length + 1 season + 5 days amount of food in your freezer. Divide that number by 2 if you are well stocked with meat and do fine meals. You need that extra 1 season buffer for a toxic fallout possibility. 5 days is a growing time of rice on rich soil.

Thom Blair III

Thank you! I didn't realize the game took the soil quality into account when calculating growth speed. I'll look into that.
I was surprised to read about Angkor Thom in Cambodia. I looked up what "Thom" means and it's "big" or "great", so my avatar icon is ធំ which is "Thom" in Khmer.