FUELED Nutrient Paste Dispensers

[b0rsuk]

Nutrient Paste Dispensers feel clunky. Colonists keep refilling hoppers. Unless forbidden, a cook will be getting ingredients from hopper, which provokes haulers to refill them. Pets will take from hoppers. Hoppers are a source of confusion and turmoil, and a logistical nightmare.

Solution: fueled NPD. Fueled not with wood, naturally, but with allowed organic matter. NPD would still require power to function. "Fuel" would only be depleted when someone presses the button. It should be possible to reuse the code used by fueled generators. Colonists do a good job refilling them periodically.

At this state of the game I don't think we need hoppers anymore and that anyone would miss them. This would streamline nutrient paste dispenser and remove all the annoyances. The only downsides would be:

- once something is in NPD, it can't be retrieved. If your food is tight, this might be a problem, but then again it's hard to run out of food with a NPD.
- tracking what went into a meal would be more difficult (cannibalism, etc.)

On the other hand, NPD would double as a mini-refrigerator (should the food inside spoil during a solar flare ?). And retrieving food could be made possible by... deconstructing the NPD.

Speaking of hoppers, I think they should be removed OR expanded (by introducing more machines that use hoppers).

[Wex]

This is good. Also, you should be able to select the "fuel" (meat, rice, whathever).

[keylocke]

iirc, hopper stockpile is set to "important" which is why other stockpiles for raw food that are set to "preferred" or below gets transferred to the hopper. (you can change and copy/paste hopper settings)

but i like the concept of fueled stuff. options for fueled machining tables or smelters or crematoriums, etc.. would be nice for a "no electricity playthru".

it adds a level of fuel logistics. (growing/chopping wood, proper placement of wood stockpiles for fast refueling, etc)

[b0rsuk]

To clarify, I meant that rice/meat would be fuel for NPD. It would use those mechanics instead of a hopper.

[obuw]

This would be a really useful addition. The hoppers are even more annoying since the changes to hauling, making your colonist carry 75 potatoes to the hopper (which already has 68 potatoes), then fill it up to 75, and then carry the rest all the way back.

And the issue becomes even worse when the NPD is in a prison. The hauler refills the hopper, then drops the rest of the potatoes on the ground, which then become inaccessible because they are in a prison room. Argh!

Not to mention,  say there are 3 potatoes left in the hopper, and you don't have any more, but you have tons of berries. The NPD will get stuck, until you manually remove the potatoes from the hopper and replace them with berries.

I think a fuel system could really help fix all these issues.

[1000101]

You can place multiple hoppers for an NPD which will resolve the "not enough for a meal" issue and you can place the hoppers on the back side of the NPD in a room which isn't a prison cell thereby resolving the "colony can't use it because it's in a prison."

Really this boils down to better planning on the players part.