I still would like to see "Variety" perks/penalties for food

[nuschler22]

I mentioned it quite a while ago (year or two).

As far as I know, there is no reason for doing anything other than feeding your colonists more than one type of meal, whether it be simple, fine or lavish.

I would like to see some sort of penalty, and reward, for mixing up the food intake.  Perhaps, -5 for having the same meal 5 straight days, or +5 for having a different meal than yesterday. 

Right now, I do it as a "rule" for my colony.  I try to have several different types of vegetables and meats if possible and try to vary what my cook makes. 

[JimmyAgnt007]

I also like to mix it up. Having all sorts of crops to make meals with.  Eating meat meals vs vegetarian meals can be a thing.  We track the ingredients for cases where people eat human meat so the game logic should allow to track the other food types.

That being said, its a very minor thing that might already be in Tynans notes, but not high on the priority list. 

Also this should have probably gone in the "Suggestions" category. 

[b0rsuk]

If plants had significantly different requirements, then it could be challenging to get more kinds of plants. You might need to set plantations in different, scattered areas etc. As it is, you would just set 3 growing zones next to each other and it would be totally boring.

Corn currently requires a lot of time to grow and benefits from rich soil the most. Rice is the quickest, but not especially efficient outside hydroponics and needs a lot of pawn time. Potatoes are just a safe default, you can't go really wrong with it either way. I don't feel I need to adapt and place correct plants, the benefits are within +20% -20% range.

Rice could need either hydroponics, or mud/marshy soil. Basically damp soil. Corn is fine. Potatoes, I don't know, but someone had an interesting idea that it shouldn't burn, because that's why it gained popularity in middle ages. Because granaries filled with potatoes are much less likely to burn down.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Berries are my main crop since they can be eaten raw.

There should be some more environmental limits on crops to make some harder to grow than others in certain environments. 

[Lascer]

Wouldn't it make more sense to simply require the more complicated meals to have a greater variety of food sources? If you only have one crop source you can only make simple meals.

Though a 'vegetarian' perk might be interesting. Pawn takes a negative modifier for eating meat, but doesn't get the negative modifier for eating raw food.

I always plant a variety just to vary harvest times on the crops.

[Robovski]

I don't think a vegetarian wants to eat a raw potato. A vegetarian getting a debuff for "ate a meat meal" makes sense but you"ll be sorry if you just start eating raw veg. You'd have to balance it with a "ate a vegetarian meal" buff instead.

[Boston]

I play with the "Vegetable Garden" mod, and it actually adds a whole new slew of crops and actual recipes. Most recipes are very food-efficient, and add certain benefits.

My favorite is the "slow cooked stew" recipe. It requires 10 Cooking, and takes 60 meat and 60 vegetables. It makes 8 meals worth, so it ends up equaling a Fine Meal, but it counts as a luxurious meal, and boosts your colonists stats, like blood filtration, etc.

Best part is, since the amount of required ingredients is so high, you usually end up adding a whole slew of ingredients together, and almost always end up with something you would actually enjoy eating, as opposed to, you know, just some boiled potatoes or roasted meat. One time, I got a stew that had corn, beans, pumpkins, potatoes, smoked venison and smoked bear meat. It sounded so good, it actually made me hungry, and I got off Rimworld and made myself a pot of stew with roughly the same ingredients.

[Shurp]

I was just thinking about this yesterday when a blight wiped out all my crops.  "WTF, the same bug killed my healroot, cotton, rice, *and* strawberries?  That's not very likely..."

If the blight event were more frequent, but only killed a specific crop type, that would be an incentive to grow a variety of crops.

[Lascer]

I don't think a vegetarian wants to eat a raw potato. A vegetarian getting a debuff for "ate a meat meal" makes sense but you"ll be sorry if you just start eating raw veg. You'd have to balance it with a "ate a vegetarian meal" buff instead.

Yeah, I was trying to cut down the middle of useful in play, realistic to the gameworld, and still fun. It wouldn't seem to make sense for a vegetarian to get a buff from eating a vegetarian meal, unless the omnivores got a buff for eating what they normally eat too. And everyone getting the buff for doing what they do, essentially means the buff doesn't need to exist... the end result would be the same if it did or did not (unless a buff across the board needs to be added to balance something else, another negative would need too be added to balance the buff).

Considering it isn't terribly realistic that the pawns eat raw food, while sitting in front of a fire or stove, simply because someone told them they aren't a good enough cook... It would make a bit of sense to say there are a few steps being glossed over in the process. Letting the vegetarians eat 'raw' food without a debuff, seems to be a fairly innocuous suspension of realistic mechanics, and would offer more flexibility of playstyle than the other suggestion. And considering they could never eat any of the meals that require meat (is that just lavish?), it would still have a cost no matter what. They'd never get the raw food debuff (easing the need for meals slightly, at the cost of the pawn eating subpar food quality), and never get the lavish meal buff, and always have the chance of catching the 'had to eat meat' debuff special to them if the player isn't watching.

It's kind of a minor thing anyways, but I really like to see a large variety of perks, and perks that are good or bad depending on the circumstances.

And I wanna see a neurotic cannibal vegetarian.

[mumblemumble]

Sorry but,  i cannot see allergies being fun... What if someone joins and you have no food they aren't allergic too? What about consuming allergic foods because range / pathfinding issues? What if it ends up just being a micromanagement hassle?

Sorry,  but either fatal or illness causing,   i can't see this being good

[MajorFordson]

I suppose it would be interesting to have crops need different soils - for example rice would need damper soil than potato.