Cooking?

[FowlJ]

Only one cook works at any table at any time - do you have 4 cooking tables?

[Monkfish]

Ahh, ok. What cooking skill level are your colonists? You need at least level 7 to make fine meals, but only level 3 to make simple meals. If you've billed infinite fine meals, they'll never be made if all of your colonists are below level 7. Check and bill simple meals if you haven't already, then your colonists will start cooking. Also, be sure to check the radius of the bills too. The default is 15 tiles so if there aren't enough resources within that radius then they also won't cook anything. I usually leave the radius at 15 and have a raw food stockpile nearby.

Also, be mindful if you set infinite cooking, if you don't watch what the colonists are doing you'll end up with all of your raw materials gone and a shitload of cooked meals scattered throughout your complex. 

[VeTaL]

Only one cook works at any table at any time - do you have 4 cooking tables?

I have 1 table and it is always empty.

[VeTaL]

Ahh, ok. What cooking skill level are your colonists? You need at least level 7 to make fine meals, but only level 3 to make simple meals. If you've billed infinite fine meals, they'll never be made if all of your colonists are below level 7. Check and bill simple meals if you haven't already, then your colonists will start cooking. Also, be sure to check the radius of the bills too. The default is 15 tiles so if there aren't enough resources within that radius then they also won't cook anything. I usually leave the radius at 15 and have a raw food stockpile nearby.

Also, be mindful if you set infinite cooking, if you don't watch what the colonists are doing you'll end up with all of your raw materials gone and a shitload of cooked meals scattered throughout your complex. 

Ah, that's the point, thanks. I did exactly as you described: i made infinite fine meals, but cooking levels are about 2-3. Thanks

[letharion]

In this particular case i have 3 planters and 4 cookers due to Overview. I have a cooking table with infinite bills, electricity, tons of raw food, but 4 cookers are just idling.

I frequently have this as well, it's almost always because the bills has a search range that's low enough that noone finds any resources to use. In theory I guess a very high search range could have performance problems, but I haven't seen any problems with setting the range to 9999, aka "search everywhere".

In practice though, a lower range can be useful if you want to limit how much of a resource if consumed.

[Tynan]

In this particular case i have 3 planters and 4 cookers due to Overview. I have a cooking table with infinite bills, electricity, tons of raw food, but 4 cookers are just idling.

I frequently have this as well, it's almost always because the bills has a search range that's low enough that noone finds any resources to use. In theory I guess a very high search range could have performance problems, but I haven't seen any problems with setting the range to 9999, aka "search everywhere".

In practice though, a lower range can be useful if you want to limit how much of a resource if consumed.

The low default range was a usability mistake on my part; it now defaults to 9999.

[Sholf]

In practice though, a lower range can be useful if you want to limit how much of a resource if consumed.

Wow, this seems like a really good idea.
I've been trying to find a way to set it to "Cook whenever the meal stock drops below x" since it'll spoil if I just keep cooking, yet it runs out so quick if I stop cooking. Maybe if I can manipulate the range and stockpiles in such a way I could do that.

[letharion]

At low levels cooking does rise.

Interesting, that is not the behavior I'm seeing. My cooking skills, even on the lowest ranges, never see any increase at all from cooking meals. Butchering yes, cooking no. I assumed this was a known bug. I'll verify it's not caused by a mod I have, open a new one in the appropriate thread.

I've been trying to find a way to set it to "Cook whenever the meal stock drops below x" since it'll spoil if I just keep cooking, yet it runs out so quick if I stop cooking. Maybe if I can manipulate the range and stockpiles in such a way I could do that.

What I do is I keep a single stockpile of food right next to the cooking table. Sooner or later (often later), the stockpile will run down to 0, in which case the final meal being cooked is very likely to end up occupying the stockpile. This halts further food production until the meal has been eaten. It's far from ideal, but it's the best way I've found of controlling food production without micromanaging it.

but cooking levels are about 2-3. Thanks

Notice that if cooking levels are below 3, even simple meals are below the threshold and nothing will happen. Getting the colonist to butcher is the only way (I know of) to remedy this.

[UrbanBourbon]

The low default range was a usability mistake on my part; it now defaults to 9999.

Yeah, how dare you assume that players would establish their food ingredient stockpiles near their kitchens. How dare you.

[Sholf]

What I do is I keep a single stockpile of food right next to the cooking table. Sooner or later (often later), the stockpile will run down to 0, in which case the final meal being cooked is very likely to end up occupying the stockpile. This halts further food production until the meal has been eaten. It's far from ideal, but it's the best way I've found of controlling food production without micromanaging it.

That sounds like it might actually work, I'm gonna give it a shot later. Thanks for the tip!

[Monkfish]

That's a good idea, I might try that, although I'd set the stockpile to not allow meals so that they don't block it up.

[UrbanBourbon]

One way to control the speed of meal production is to place the meat stockpile at a certain distance. Try placing it 10 or 20 tiles away from the stove. Experiment.

[letharion]

That's a good idea, I might try that, although I'd set the stockpile to not allow meals so that they don't block it up.

I think you misunderstand. The meal blocking up is the point. It's a (very crude) attempt at controlling production in a way that doesn't require micro managing it, yet still not leaving someone permanently making food.

[Monkfish]

Yeah, I realise this now, I set a stockpile yesterday and let it run for a short while. Ended up swimming in cooked meals.

[johnpaul_riley]

If I read through Tynan's release notes properly, it looks like we'll be able to do the following in the next version of RimWorld:

February 27

    Disallowed building very close to the map edge. This discourages weird building patterns that exploit edges and corners and stress game systems.
    Added basic music system. Added Al’s guitar sting for game start.
    Resource lister now counts meals.
    Added target amount for bills; colonists won’t do the bill if you have more than the target amount in storage.
    Started automatic hunting. So far, colonists can go kick animals to death. Doesn’t work so well for boomrats.
    Moved JobDefs into XML.
    Job reports like “Hauling Metal.” or “Eating meal.” are now in JobDef, not code.

1) Create a stockpile near the cookstove set to accept meals, food, meat, etc.  Make it a proper pantry!
2) Make an infinite meal bill, set the limit in stock setting to say, 10.   This should mean that meals will be created infinitely as long as there is less than 10 meals in stock.

As long as someone is set to haul the prepared meals so they properly register as being in stock, and as long as there is sufficient raw food within the cookstove's range, it should be easy-peasy to create a smoothly functioning kitchen requiring no micro-management.

Eager for the new version to give this approach a try!