TIP: Saving meat for Fine/Lavish meals, even early on ...

[Chibiabos]

I guess i may tend to over-farm (or under-hunt) because I tend to wind up with huge surpluses of vegetables (particularly corn which I generally switch exclusively to once my colony is going) but relatively little meat.  I try to maintain a decent stockpile of simple, fine and (when my cook has the skill) lavish meals, but with so little meat, the default filters for 'Cook Simple Meal' will use meat randomly (which, again, relative to veggies I have little) when I would prefer to reserve meat for the Fine and Lavish meals.  (Fine and Lavish meals must use 5 veggies -and- 5 meat whereas simple meals must use some combination of 10 from veggies and meat -- they can use pure veggies)

Its a simple thing, of course, to modify the Cook Simple Meals task to uncheck meat as an ingredient.  I do this when I first start cooking, even before my cook is skilled enough to make even Fine meals, to save the meat I accrue for eventual Fine/Lavish meals.

At the beginning things are a bit chaotic, though, and my supply of veggies may run out.  To insure against this resulting in my colonists eating raw meat, after Cook Simple Meals, Cook Fine Meals and Cook Lavish Meals (I set 'Do until you have X' and generally set the 'X' amount to 3 or 4 meals per colonist to start), I will add another Cook Simple Meals task that will include meat as an option, I will use 'Do until you have X' for this and have the 'X' amount set to maybe 2 meals per colonist to get them through a couple of days.

This way, the first 'Cook Simple Meals' task (veggies only) will run first, and so long as there are veggies, it will create simple meals.  The second 'Cook Simple Meals' task (meat or veggies) will only run if there were not enough veggies for the first 'Cook Simple Meals' task to make enough Simple Meals to fill or exceed the second 'Cook Simple Meals' task's 'Do until you have X' amount.

This setup of having two 'Cook Simple Meals' tasks -- the first with veggies only, the second allowing meat -- makes it so meat will only be used in simple meals if there are not enough veggies to maintain a good level of Simple Meals, saving that meat for Fine or Lavish meals when my cook is ready to make those.  This will reduce the need for hunting which, while fun and definitely useful for the secondary bonus of training up Shooting can consume colonists' time particularly if the designated prey to hunt is far from your colony.

[b0rsuk]

I never used meat to cook simple meals. I started switching meat off as soon as I discovered the option.

[Chibiabos]

I never used meat to cook simple meals. I started switching meat off as soon as I discovered the option.

I use it as a backup, particularly at the start.  Usually there's a mad animal early on, before I have my first veggie harvest ... that usually prompts me to manually force my constructors to finish that darned stove and power for it.  The moment the stove is built, I generally set my Cook Simple Meals (veggies only), Cook Fine Meals, Cook Lavish Meals and Cook Simple Meals (anything except human meat).  I will tweak as time goes on.  Occasionally I'll be flush with meat, such as when a tree-ravaging Alpha Beaver event happens, or I manage to salvage a lot of meat during Toxic Fallout, or too early on for me to tame the more difficult beasts I decide to get rid of herds of elephants, rhinos or boomalopes that keep ravaging my crops.  And sometimes I've had a nasty combo of solar flare and heat wave (or heat wave and raider attack that manages to take out a power station, or power stations break down, or fire burns power stations and/or conduit, etc.), and I'm on the verge of losing the meat in my freezer (which necessitates having a fueled cook stove of course which I often neglect to build as I seem to do pretty well setting up power and batteries early on).  In such a case it becomes cook it or lose it -- yeah meals will spoil too, but at least I'll get a few days to get my freezer coolers powered and operational again.

[Bairne]

If you can get your hands on some chickens you'll never need to worry about it. The eggs replace meat really, really well. One egg for a fine meal, two (IIRC) for a lavish.

[Sicdoc]

Great tip!

[milon]

Chibiabos, I'm really liking your tip series of posts.  It's all great stuff so far!

[Chibiabos]

Chibiabos, I'm really liking your tip series of posts.  It's all great stuff so far!

Thanks!  Hopefully others will do the same, share their tricks and strategies they've found.  I know a lot of people struggle ... there's stuff that frustrates me in the game that I'm sure someone out there has figured out an easy way to manage.  I know I'm doing lousy at managing my people ... I too easily fall into the trap of putting everyone in jobs they are passionate about, but because some colonists are passionate about some things that means many things don't get done, they wind up just doing their first task and never get to some others I need doing like crafting or research.  I gotta learn to be more decisive on who does what.  I'm sure there are some easy tricks to it others have mastered.

[GarettZriwin]

Thanks!  Hopefully others will do the same, share their tricks and strategies they've found.  I know a lot of people struggle ... there's stuff that frustrates me in the game that I'm sure someone out there has figured out an easy way to manage.  I know I'm doing lousy at managing my people ... I too easily fall into the trap of putting everyone in jobs they are passionate about, but because some colonists are passionate about some things that means many things don't get done, they wind up just doing their first task and never get to some others I need doing like crafting or research.  I gotta learn to be more decisive on who does what.  I'm sure there are some easy tricks to it others have mastered.

Just put one passionate crafter to do smithing and tailoring jobs, preferably one with best skill - if he dies you will have still much more resources to train because you won't use them all at once. Use wood(Longswords that can be smelt so you get 50% wood back), hair and cloth for training(dusters). Crafting is basically bunch of crappy jobs so anyone can stonecut or smelt metal, do not bother crafter because it gives no to little xp.

Similiar with Art - grand wooden ones till 20lvl then stone/wood large.

Cooking? Set butchering minimum lvl to your best cook -1 lvl, up to 10. You can always train noobs making kibble, beer or vegetable-simple meals(Good to sell).

Construction? One, best builder and repairer(if nobody else is passionate, else leave repairs for them so they get closer to lvl10 and not mess qualities).

For Research you can have one wooden bench with multianalyser and two scientists, they will work on different shifts, just because someone is not night owl does not make him unhappy about working at night.

You should have at least 2 doctors, each on different shift, even without passion(Obviously anyone with passion should have number 1 priority for that ). Euthanising and treating wounded animals will easily keep them around 15lvl with basic passion.

Everything else depends pretty much on manpower you want to use.

[Chibiabos]

Just put one passionate crafter to do smithing and tailoring jobs, preferably one with best skill - if he dies you will have still much more resources to train because you won't use them all at once. Use wood(Longswords that can be smelt so you get 50% wood back), hair and cloth for training(dusters). Crafting is basically bunch of crappy jobs so anyone can stonecut or smelt metal, do not bother crafter because it gives no to little xp.

Similiar with Art - grand wooden ones till 20lvl then stone/wood large.

Cooking? Set butchering minimum lvl to your best cook -1 lvl, up to 10. You can always train noobs making kibble, beer or vegetable-simple meals(Good to sell).

Construction? One, best builder and repairer(if nobody else is passionate, else leave repairs for them so they get closer to lvl10 and not mess qualities).

For Research you can have one wooden bench with multianalyser and two scientists, they will work on different shifts, just because someone is not night owl does not make him unhappy about working at night.

You should have at least 2 doctors, each on different shift, even without passion(Obviously anyone with passion should have number 1 priority for that ). Euthanising and treating wounded animals will easily keep them around 15lvl with basic passion.

Everything else depends pretty much on manpower you want to use.

I already do the two doctors thing, usually I'll have two people passionate about doctoring ... because, yeah, sometimes stuff happens to my first doctor and I need someone to treat them, and sometimes I barely manage to survive a fight and most of my colonists wind up wounded (plus a lot of colony animals), and I want to get them treated as quickly as possible to avoid infection.  There's a slight tradeoff there, since having only one doctor means the experience from treating goes to that one doctor so they would gain experience faster than splitting among multiples, but I think its worth it in the long run.

My problem is generally I'll have passionate-at-crafting (or research or some other stuff I need done that's on the right hand side of the task priorities) will also be passionate about growing, cooking or something else, so those people will rarely get to those right-hand-side-stuff because they'll always be growing/cooking/etc.  Yeah I could set the left hand stuff to side 2, but particularly with cooking and growing I need those done too. :/

Crafting for me is eminently useful ... stone blocks are my preferred material and I often create large building projects needing a lot of it, and clothing is a decent cash cow production, as are primitive weapons.  Experience from those can lead to high quality guns, of course.  I regard all the tasks as important.  I definitely need a strong overall scheme to figuring out whom to dedicate to what.  It'd be great if someone has an excellent system to post a 'TIP:' thread on this, I think it might help a lot of other players too.  And all sorts of things ... I am generally pretty good at kiting enemies, I would like to make a tip post on that but I'll need to use screenshots probably.

[milon]

Off topic, but look at this thread for kiting inspiration:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=4055.0

On topic: To further save meat, make sure to set up allowed zones for your animal, and cut your freezer into 2 or more stockpiles.  Don't let animals in/near the meat stockpile.

[Chibiabos]

Off topic, but look at this thread for kiting inspiration:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=4055.0

On topic: To further save meat, make sure to set up allowed zones for your animal, and cut your freezer into 2 or more stockpiles.  Don't let animals in/near the meat stockpile.

I generally setup a freezer for the animals with their own meat (human corpses, rotted corpses, human meat if I find an opportunity to carve 'em up without pushing my cook over the edge from the mood debuff and I don't have other colonists just on the edge so the general colony mood debuff won't push 'em over that edge).  I'll actually try to give them a second freezer-in-a-freezer deeper in just for human corpses, so my colonists don't get a 'Observed corpse' or 'Observed rotting corpse' every time they go in to haul in hay or another rotten animal corpse.

[Cimm0]

I utilized the good cold tolerance and diet of combat wargs:

- Dead people are hauled to animal area full of wargs.
- Animal area is refrigerated to prevent rotting if power is available.
- Animal area has a crematorium that disposes bodies in 99% condition - mostly bones, that is.
- All this leads to wargs living comfortably in -20 °C, eating normal/rotting corpses and colonists burning bones and/or low quality equipment from dead people.

The colonists could just burn bodies, chop bodies for meat, make kibble, sell human meat etc. etc.

But this way nobody has to do the dirty work (butchering humans) while the colony gets animal food (well, wargs get, anyway) and the bodies are not just cremated for nothing.

Also, by now, after playing through several alphas, feeding enemy corpses to animals feels instantly natural and kind of fits into the whole "butcher, eat and sell people and/or their organs" part of the game. Too much Rimworld, man, too much Rimworld!

[Limdood]

I generally set up a cook stove with 2 bills.

First, i set it to cook fine meals
THEN i set it to cook simple meals (veggie only)

I often limit the simple meals amount (do until you have X, usually 50 or so) so that my freezer doesn't get overflowed with meals...and i can sell off excess when needed.

I do the same multiple bills at almost all workstations.
Stonecutter:
cut stone until you have 1500
cut granite only forever (best wall HP)

Electric Smelter:
Smelt weapons...awful-superior, pistols and all melee except longswords....do forever
Smelt Weapons...awful-poor, all melee weapons and the cheaper guns (PDW, shotgun, etc.)...do forever
Smelt slag chunks...do forever

Machining Table:
Dissassemble Mechanoids - do forever
Make artillery shells until you have 20 (or more, depending on # of mortars)
Make (most used weapon) - 0/1 ....i just tick up this number whenever i need another one
Make armor vest until you have 1 (this way i always have a spare armor vest)