Meals will be stackable?

[jjgoldman]

I hope crafted meals are eventually stackable.  Having to have a square available for each meal is quite challenging.

[daft73]

I hope crafted meals are eventually stackable.  Having to have a square available for each meal is quite challenging.

According to the current artwork I hope not...could get  messy..but in all seriousness..I would hope some type of stacking..maybe   'Cupboards'

[Tynan]

It's tricky because they spoil individually. Maybe they should't, though.

But really, you're not intended to store huge numbers of meals.

[Thunder Rahja]

Could just go with how Don't Starve does it: Food spoil times becomes averaged and matching when stacked and subsequently unstacked. Though at present I like how they aren't stacked so you can quickly see how many you have on hand.

Perhaps later on maybe we can get a refrigerator or ice box to store meals in a stackable method, and maybe extend the life before a meal spoils. You'd think a meal that sat around for more than a day would be less pleasant to eat.

[colonistPally]

Yeah maybe if we had a fridge that auto sorted into like < 1 day, 1 day, 2 day.

Food went into the 2 day, and someone "hauling" would go shuffle it around every day. People ate from the < 1 day first. Cleaners kept the fridge clean at 0 day.

Not having haulers / cleaners wrecks the food. Not having electricity wrecks the food. No cook and you don't get the food anyway.

Some extra coding but that's how I'd do it if I had a magic wand.

[Luckless]

Meals stack together with others of the same kind, and become an ordered list of spoil times. Colonists would of course take oldest first, and ideally will store them in neat stacks near where they're made.

Storage could be a technology tree with related devices. Start off with just a cupboard that would give no storage bonus. Next would be basic refrigeration, but it would append a 'second life' value to meals stored in it. (Colonists don't enjoy older meals, but they're still better than paste) Refrigeration could be upgraded in ways such as extending the 'first life' aspect of a meal as well as its second life. Could have a secondary device that would restore meals that had been stored.

This way you could prep a pile of meals at once and then have your cook move on to other jobs that might have them working further from the meal prep area.

[UrbanBourbon]

Meals going bad was a bad move. It breaks the consistency, since raw ingredients do not go bad. That, and because meals have a timer, they cannot be stacked. Why shouldn't the cooks be able to craft delicious MREs, meals with a shelflife of years? Delicious MRE.... what a fantasy. But that's what sci-fi means - Science. Fiction.

[Monkfish]

I'd prefer to see an integrated use of the tables. In my current colony (which is sizeable at the moment) I have a long table with 8 chairs and have designated a stockpile for just meals in the same location as the table. What this means is that cooked meals are placed onto the table and colonists come to the table to eat. However, this is a bit clunky as I'm making best use of the mechanics available and they're not really intended for this purpose. So, I suggest the following...

- Cooked meals must be stored at a vacant slot on a table
- Cooks will only cook a meal if there is a slot vacant
- Cooks will move a cooked meal to the table rather than dropping it on the floor and a hauler moving it as happens now.
- Colonists coming to the table to eat would sit at a chair that has a meal ready and eat directly from the meal rather than picking it up and taking it somewhere else (sometimes happens currently)

This setup would mean that you could schedule a cook to make infinite meals of a given type and not worry about them making thousands that would spoil, it makes the table a functional item rather than decorative (unless eating at a table already provides a buff to happiness), prevents food being stored on the floor (no significance at the moment) and generally just looks nice). This would also mean that meals don't need to stack.

[Armorat]

I'd prefer to see an integrated use of the tables. In my current colony (which is sizeable at the moment) I have a long table with 8 chairs and have designated a stockpile for just meals in the same location as the table. What this means is that cooked meals are placed onto the table and colonists come to the table to eat. However, this is a bit clunky as I'm making best use of the mechanics available and they're not really intended for this purpose. So, I suggest the following...

- Cooked meals must be stored at a vacant slot on a table
- Cooks will only cook a meal if there is a slot vacant
- Cooks will move a cooked meal to the table rather than dropping it on the floor and a hauler moving it as happens now.
- Colonists coming to the table to eat would sit at a chair that has a meal ready and eat directly from the meal rather than picking it up and taking it somewhere else (sometimes happens currently)

This setup would mean that you could schedule a cook to make infinite meals of a given type and not worry about them making thousands that would spoil, it makes the table a functional item rather than decorative (unless eating at a table already provides a buff to happiness), prevents food being stored on the floor (no significance at the moment) and generally just looks nice). This would also mean that meals don't need to stack.

I'd be happy with this system. Wouldn't even require the refrigerators that people have been clamoring for.

[Vas]

Yea, I like that previous quote.  I really like the meals not being stacked, it wouldn't make sense really.  I mean do you get a tray in school with pudding, peas, meat, mashed potatoes, then stack it on top of a tray identically filled with the same foods?  Do you intend to scrape your friend's meal off the bottom of your tray before you eat?

Cooks should automatically send cooked meals to tables, or a hauler should.  Each meal made should reserve a spot on a table somewhere so nothing else can take it's spot, so even if the meal is dropped on the floor by the cook, the meal reserved the nearest table spot.

[Monkfish]

I modified my setup slightly last night, partly due to compound redesign and partly because I didn't like that the colonists picked up meals from the table and ate them elsewhere (sometimes at the table if there was space, sometimes at the research bench (which has a chair) and sometimes just on the floor).

Anyway, I now have two long tables next to each other with chairs along the long edges of both to seat 16. There is another long table with no chairs between the two tables and the cooker. A stockpile taking only meals and with a priority of "Critical" has been placed over the table with no chairs. Now, a cook makes simple meals when I set a bill, a hauler moves the cooked meals from the floor to the table with no chairs, and hungry colonists come in, pick a meal up from the table and then go and sit down at the main table to eat. It's quite visually pleasing to watch, especially if several people are eating at the same time. I may post screenshots or capture a short video of it with Fraps or something.

[StorymasterQ]

Cooks should automatically send cooked meals to tables, or a hauler should.  Each meal made should reserve a spot on a table somewhere so nothing else can take it's spot, so even if the meal is dropped on the floor by the cook, the meal reserved the nearest table spot.

I like this solution. The bill could also be modified to stop cooking once all table spots are full. Or maybe a settable plus just in case the are more people than chairs.

[Kochean]

It would be nice if along side with meals being stack able we could get an equipment rack that can store more than one gun in a space. i understand how it is that way but other than looks there is no reason to build the equipment racks. you can just make a storage zone and make it only hold guns and you have saved yourself a small amount of metal.

it would be nice if the racks cost the same but were reduced to a 1x1 space and allowed the storage of 2 or more guns. me personally i would hope i could fit more than one pistol in a 3'x3' footprint.