Eating Raw???

[BWCDawg]

I experienced this again with the current game I'm playing.  I've played around with it a little bit.  What I've determined is that if there is just one stack of meals and more than one pawn is going to go for food the 2nd one ignores the one stack (even if there is enough in the stack) and goes for the raw food.  If I draft the 2nd pawn and wait until the 1st pawn gets the meal and starts to walk with it and then release the 2nd pawn they then go for the meals.

[woolfoma]

Might I suggest, if its possible and simple, that you have tiers, so they will search 10m for raw food, 15 for simple meals, 20 for fine, etc., that could fix this problem.

or just if it finds a food within x walking distance, but finds a better meal within x*1.2 distance, it goes for the better meal but if the better meal is to far away, it gets ignored. ex: colonist is 30m away from some potatoes, but is 35m away from a nutrient paste dispenser, it will go for the nutrient paste dispenser, but even if there is a lavish meal 40m away, the colonist will not go for it because it is more that 1.2 times the distance away from the first found food pile (this system would only apply when a colonist is starving/ very hungry).

[Rock5]

Or distance has nothing to do with it and it's like BWCDawg said, which seems most likely to me. Unfortunately it means you need lots of piles of meals to avoid the problem even if you don't need that many. It would be helpful if you could reduce the number of meals in a stack to increase the number of stacks. Then you wouldn't need to make so many meals.

[tommytom]

Or distance has nothing to do with it and it's like BWCDawg said, which seems most likely to me. Unfortunately it means you need lots of piles of meals to avoid the problem even if you don't need that many. It would be helpful if you could reduce the number of meals in a stack to increase the number of stacks. Then you wouldn't need to make so many meals.

That's actually not a problem in recent (current?) build. They like to make tiny tiny stacks of meals all over (known bug). Organized chaos? lol

Too lazy to test it myself ATM, especially since it sounds like you know the perfect setup.
Have you tried to draft and undraft WHILE the first guy is going to the meal stack?

You can probably draft someone until they are urgently hungry 5 tiles from meals and 6 tiles from raw food, wait until someone else tries to go for a meal, undraft the starving guy and see where he goes.

[BWCDawg]

Or distance has nothing to do with it and it's like BWCDawg said, which seems most likely to me. Unfortunately it means you need lots of piles of meals to avoid the problem even if you don't need that many. It would be helpful if you could reduce the number of meals in a stack to increase the number of stacks. Then you wouldn't need to make so many meals.

That's actually not a problem in recent (current?) build. They like to make tiny tiny stacks of meals all over (known bug). Organized chaos? lol

Too lazy to test it myself ATM, especially since it sounds like you know the perfect setup.
Have you tried to draft and undraft WHILE the first guy is going to the meal stack?

You can probably draft someone until they are urgently hungry 5 tiles from meals and 6 tiles from raw food, wait until someone else tries to go for a meal, undraft the starving guy and see where he goes.

Yes, I tried the draft/undraft while the 1st pawn is going for the meal.  Still no luck.  The 2nd pawn still goes for the raw stuff.

[tommytom]

Sounds pretty conclusive to me that it's reserving the stack, like you said.

[Andy_Dandy]

Yeah, but if they're literally side by side and they choose the raw meat over the fine meal then what?

Never happens (in my games at least), unless they are urgently hungry, or that finer meal just showed up at the location after the colonist decided to eat, or that someone else is going after the meal. Anyways, you can command your colonists too now, to go and eat where you want them to eat.

[Vexare]

This is happening in my game quite frequently because I have a very slow cook (she's old and only has one leg but she has the highest skill) and because the colonists would rather eat the food raw than go to the nutrient paste dispenser if they are urgently hungry. They can't be bothered to load it unless it has enough units to feed everyone who is going to the dispenser at once which supports the theory previously stated.

I just took on 5 prisoners at once and there was no way to feed them all fast enough (we haven't gotten to the stage where we have extra food meals stored up yet) and the warden was feeding the prisoners raw meat instead of nutrient paste even though there was meat in the hopper. The dispenser is in the same room as the meals. The cook finished meals but other colonists already tagged them as "mine" and the warden is not a cook so he won't load the dispenser. He feeds them raw meat. This is annoying and amusing at the same time.

Edit: Also, the cook will ignore the meat in the freezer and take fresh meat out of the nutrient paste dispenser to cook with which is also annoying. She will walk right by a pile of meat next to her cooking station and take meat out of the hopper instead. I don't know why this is happening either.

[tommytom]

Edit: Also, the cook will ignore the meat in the freezer and take fresh meat out of the nutrient paste dispenser to cook with which is also annoying. She will walk right by a pile of meat next to her cooking station and take meat out of the hopper instead. I don't know why this is happening either.

Again, this is probably a pathing issue. When it started searching, it probably calced that is "more efficient".

To fix your issue, just change the search radius in the bill and then it can only find things in range (put your freezer closer than your dispenser).