Distance between food and dining room

[silverskin]

How close to the kitchen/freezer do tables need to be for colonists to eat at them?

The attached picture shows the layout. I didn't think the dining room was far away. But no-one ever eats in there. They grab their meal and just eat it in the freezer. Then they all complain about eating without a table. The damn table is right over there.
Is there a distance limit or something? Is there any way to increase how far they'll go to eat?

I would hate to pull the base apart and ruin my aesthetic.

[attachment deleted by admin - too old]

[Vaporisor]

Tough to say really.  I have had them go further to dining areas for a meal.  No examples for screenshots though.  Try redoing the floor in the dining area perhaps?  It could be the freezer is just a nicer place to eat.  I am unfamiliar with the mechanics overall so only can suggest what I see.  Sterile floors and steel walls vs wood and concrete.


Edit:  Oops, freezer and I was looking at the kitchen.  My bad.  Shrug then, sorry.  Maybe autodoors on the dining room?

[Agent00Soul]

Turn on the room stats .. button right bottom corner. It will tell you the beauty of each room and what kind of room the game thinks it is..
They usually go for the nearest table and chair without preference for beauty though so dont have any closer tables than your dining room.

It isn't too far, my kitchens are about the same.

Looks like youre playing modded like me so if you cant get it to work then place some refrigerated storage units in your dining room for meals .. either make the cook take them there after creating or setup some crazy conveyer belts.. but your space is tight not sure if theyd fit.

[Shurp]

I always put my dining room *in* the freezer.  Anyone who doesn't like it is ordered to drink more beer until they do like it.

[koisama]

It's best to have food in the dining room or in the freezer next to it because there's no reason to make pawns travel to the kitchen to get individual meals.

Default behavior after they get themselves a meal is to look for chairs in a radius of 25 cells, if there's no chair next to the table - they will eat it where they're standing.

[silverskin]

Strange people, colonists.

They've actually started eating in the kitchen again. Maybe it depends on where food is in the freezer? Maybe my freezer crosses that 25 cell radius, that koisama mentioned, and if the food is in the far corner then they won't take it to the dining room.
I did redo the floor, like vaporisor said, by putting some wood flooring down over the ugly concrete. Maybe that made all the difference.

I'll shove some statues in there, see if I can make it so pretty that a colonist would find himself unable to swallow food outside of the dining room.

[Zombra]

Yeah, in my current colony, people would go outside, have a nice walk past the garden, and go a few doors down to the dining room for their meals.  This went on for several months.  Then they got lazy, or something, and decided it was too far to walk.  At that point the vogue became eating straight out of the container while standing in the freezer.  Luckily, I had some space, so I just put a (small) new room adjoining the freezer with an autodoor to absolutely minimize resistance.  Now they eat sitting down in that little cell and like it much better.  I guess.

EDIT: lol @ "idiots.jpg" 

[cultist]

Colonists not eating at a table is the game telling you that you're bad at conserving time. The more distance between meal storage and table, the more time a pawn wastes every day fetching their meal and eating it.

In a large colony, a simple solution is to have a 1x1 stockpile of meals in the dining room. If they get eaten fast enough and topped off, they (probably) won't spoil (depending on indoor temperature and climate of map).

A more controlled solution is a tiny secondary freezer for meals, medicine etc. adjacent to the dining room. If you connect this to the kitchen with the main freezer on the other side, both your cook and other pawns waste a minimum of time cooking, fetching meals and eating. Also, you avoid non-cook pawns going into the scary room with all the dead animals and getting a 10 second mood debuff. Largely irrelevant though.

The absolutely bestest way to feed pawns quickly and effectively is to make a nutrient paste dispenser part of the dining room wall (the active part should be reachable from inside the room). You might not like the mood hit, but you'll love the speed and efficiency.

[nuschler22]

I have a beautiful dining room with tables, chairs, art work, etc.  They still want to stand in the cold freezer and eat.

I started restricting all the meals in the freezer, using them in case of emergency.

[Negocromn]

This was my last colony dining room.

Looking at it now, I think that I could have stored meals in the same stockpile you can see beer if I had pushed my oven almost against the wall and put an autodoor in the middle.

[Zombra]

"Hey Yumi, what do you think dinner will be tonight?  Do you think it's corn?  Oh boy, I hope it's corn!"

"..."

[firescythe]

Maybe I can offer a "trick".

Basic food spoils in 3 days. Colonists eat 1x/day. If you set the stove bill to cook until you have maximum 2xColonists, you can safely place basic food storage area to dining room, and so they will sit and eat at a table, if stock drops a cook will level it up again, and they will have alkways fresh food plus some safety if who know what happens.

My layout looks like the freezer room has the butchery table, and direct door to next-to-door placed stove, immediately behind stove is the food storage area, and 2 tiles away is table-and-4-chairs. Minimalized time from raw food to even fine meals.

[Shabazza]

I always built/build my freezers adjacent to the kitchen/dining room. So I never had that problem.
Wasting time for hauling/walking around is a big factor in RimWorld.
So I try to build my base in a way that keeps ways short for trips that are frequently made.
Like picking up rock chunks or metal for crafting them into bricks/steel, hunting/butchering/taking food/eating.
That's why I build my crafting stations and kitchen near the entrance, while I place sleeping quarters the farthest away from the entrance.

[Xav]

I always built/build my freezers adjacent to the kitchen/dining room. So I never had that problem.
Wasting time for hauling/walking around is a big factor in RimWorld.
So I try to build my base in a way that keeps ways short for trips that are frequently made.
Like picking up rock chunks or metal for crafting them into bricks/steel, hunting/butchering/taking food/eating.
That's why I build my crafting stations and kitchen near the entrance, while I place sleeping quarters the farthest away from the entrance.

*high five*

I thought nobody else thought about this like I do.  Although, with the addition of the hive feature, the colonist bedrooms did require rework.

[Sicdoc]

I have been using cultist's idea for a while now and never had any problems. The single stockpile for meals is the to go I reckon.