What's the point of the nutrient paste dispenser?

[magicbush]

I dont get the point of it anymore. Last time I played the pawns used it, but now they grab raw meat over using it and get sick. My cook keeps breaking because shes In withdrawal so i have no cook but tons of raw food. Why was this changed to make the dispenser pointless?

Is there a way to make the pawns prefer the paste over raw meat again?

[Bozobub]

I have no idea why this was done, BUT try growing berries; there's no mood debuff for eating berries raw.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

My guess is this was a side effect of trying to change the eating behavior to prefer meals over raw. Probably set it so they prioritize by going against negative debuffs, which obviously won't work well with regards to nutrient paste meals. So the system probably just needs a bit more tinkering to get NPMs in there proper spot.

[SilentP]

The point of the nutrient paste dispenser (NPD) is to dispense nutrient paste.   

[DeathWeasel]

I've been using the NPD in my last few colonies and it can be extremely frustrating to get them to use it properly. It seems like when a pawn gets hungry, they have some sort of search range for food; they will travel far for meals but not very far at all for the NPD. Most of the time when my pawns are out harvesting they will just eat food off the ground, but after all that food has been put in the freezer they will use the NPD which is also in the freezer. Keep your food as close as possible to the NPD and they will prefer to use the NPD.

Also, make sure the interaction spot isn't blocked by trees or chunks or anything like that.

[Listen1]

It's been on pretty low for a few alphas, I still use it for prisioners though.

The nutrient past dispenser should have a bonus, if I remember correctly, each Nutrient pastes takes 8 units of food, compared to 10 of a simple meal. In a colony of 10 pawns, each eating 2 times a day, you have 200 food units per day, compared to 160 food per day via nutrient paste dispenser + extra colonist that only needs to butcher.

Make it a season, and you have 3000 units of food compared to 2400 of the NPD. As you can see, it is still worth it. I for one, would like if they took only 7 units of food.

[DeathWeasel]

Each nutrient paste meal only takes 6 food

[Catastrophy]

Plus, you save yourself from a lot of time spent cooking. NPD is quite good for early colonies with limited workforce.

[Listen1]

Each nutrient paste meal only takes 6 food

Holy **** so in the earlier scenario, if simple meals take 3000 food a season nutrient dispenser will take 1800 food per season.

I'll stop everything and only do NPD. Amazing

[GiantSpaceHamster]

Keep in mind that fine and lavish meals provide a mood bonus. Lavish meals are probably not worth wasting time on (they require double the resources for a barely noticeable increase in effect) but fine meals are absolutely worth it. Nutrient Paste is a good backup plan if you get low on food, or for prisoners, or maybe even for more remote sections of your base, but there is still a good incentive to use fine meals.

[milon]

I haven't tried the NPD recently, but I just might have to when I get around to trying out the Sea Ice biome. 

And I'm fairly certain that using the NPD is a Hauling job, not a Cooking job.  You should be able to right-click prioritize the NPD, or just set someone with a higher hauling priority.  Colonists "should" prefer paste to raw meat, but I'm at work so I can't confirm this right now.

[Calahan]

There was some excellent info about meal selection mechanics posted a few days ago by Zhentar, and includes a reference to the NPD  (the yellow text above the quote acts as a link to the thread)

You are not entirely wrong, in that colonists do prefer food that is closer to them "as the crow flies", ignoring walls. However, they do not search outward in a radial pattern - they consider all food on the entire map and pick the "best" food out of everything.

Pawns have a pretty strong preference for foods that don't give them any debuffs. They'll pick a simple meal (that doesn't contain insect/human meat) that is 102 tiles further away than raw food. Their preference for meals that do give them debuffs is much smaller; nutrient paste will only attract them from 31 tiles away, or simple meals with insect meat 36.

edit: and they will choose berries that are 49 tiles further away over nutrient paste, 65 tiles for simple meals

[Catastrophy]

I haven't tried the NPD recently, but I just might have to when I get around to trying out the Sea Ice biome. 

And I'm fairly certain that using the NPD is a Hauling job, not a Cooking job.  You should be able to right-click prioritize the NPD, or just set someone with a higher hauling priority.  Colonists "should" prefer paste to raw meat, but I'm at work so I can't confirm this right now.

Yes, they haul to the hopper. Two hoppers will do. Have a stack mod and then don't worry about hauling for quite a time. NPD can stick trough a wall: The behind part refrigerated with hoppers and raw foodstuff - while the front sticks to dining room.

[magicbush]

I haven't tried the NPD recently, but I just might have to when I get around to trying out the Sea Ice biome. 

And I'm fairly certain that using the NPD is a Hauling job, not a Cooking job.  You should be able to right-click prioritize the NPD, or just set someone with a higher hauling priority.  Colonists "should" prefer paste to raw meat, but I'm at work so I can't confirm this right now.

They definitely prefer raw to using the dispenser. I have both my freezer and dispenser on each side of my dining room and they are grabbing and eating raw meat or raw potatoes randomly. The hopper is loaded, and the end is not blocked by anything. Im not sure what zhentar posted with the tiles is accurate, as its it's not in my scenario.

I think I am going to have to restart my colony which irritates me as all my pawns are sick and breaking now because of this, and my cook is still out of commission.

[Tynan]

I'll look at how the AI decides between the raw and nutrient paste food sources, to make sure it's working properly.