Pemmican vs Berries and similar foods

[tyriaelsoban]

I've been playing alot of tribe start maps lately noticed an annoying trait of pawns, it seems that pemmican and berries share the same priority when a villager chooses stockpiled food to consume, in some cases, even though the pemmican is closer i will see a villager go and consume berries from the stockpile instead, none of the villagers in my current save have that stupid "eats raw food" trait (ascetic?) but its highly irritating having to micromanage every meal a villager has when you're gunning to make the best use of all your stocks in order to survive winter on the tundra.

[Calahan]

Thank you for the bug report.

There have been many reports regarding Pawns choosing the wrong or worse food, especially since A15, but so far, at least AFAIK, none have been confirmed via a reliably reproducible save game. I even did some extensive testing of this myself in A15 and could not find a reproducible problem. As all the reports I have seen (keeping in mind others may have seen reports I have not) have been based on either a misunderstanding of the mechanics surrounding food choice (or... see next). And in the case you are reporting, that being berries vs pemmican, my understanding is that these are treated equally (which you also mention) since both provide neither a buff nor a debuff, so the Pawn will simply choose the one that is closest.

In the attached screenshot, the Pawn named Ray will choose the pemmican because that is closest. If I move Ray to the spot where the blueprint is, then Ray will choose the berries because then they are closest. If I unforbid one of the survival meals, then Ray will choose that because that gives a +5 buff for eating a fine meal. This is a very simple test, but I hope it illustrates the point.

Plus player's definition and understanding of what Pawns deem as "closest" is also sometimes misunderstood. As the game determines "closest" in terms of "how the crow flies", so what might seem an illogical choice in terms of distance travelled, makes sense in terms of "as the crow flies". Take this example:

W - Wall   M - Pemmican   B - Berries   D - Door   P - Pawn

    WWWWWWWWWWWWW
P  W B                          M D
    WWWWWWWWWWWWW

Here the Pawn will, or should, choose the berries because that is closest, even though they have to literally walk over the pemmican to get to the berries. (and it's been asked many times why the game is programmed this way, and the answer has been due to performance. As anything more complicated needs to factor in a performance trade-off due to the increased calculations required for an increase in complexity. And at the moment, at least AFAIK, Tynan is happy with the current trade-off regarding this. So things are not as simply as just saying "please improve the AI"). 


Despite the above, I am not saying that what you have encountered can not possibly be a bug, as maybe what you have observed is indeed a bug. But in order to demonstrate it you first need to have a good understanding of all the mechanics involved, and not an understanding based on how you personally think the mechanics should work (if you want to suggest a change to the mechanics then please feel free to post one in the suggestions forum). Then provide a pure vanilla save game that will reliably reproduce the bug you've found, or provide a set of rock-solid guaranteed reproduction steps (although a save is far easier on all fronts).

Failing the above, any report on the wrong food being chosen is likely to just be seen as another report of "my colonists are not eating the food I want/expect them to", which from a bug diagnosing perspective, just means that Tynan (or ison) will check the code if there are enough similar reports posted (either here or on other platforms). But I know they checked the code when all the A15 reports on this appeared, so they' are probably fairly confident it's WAD at this point.

But if you are confident you understand all the mechanics involved (this post by Zhentar might help you on your way in that regard https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=29222.msg294787#msg294787), have run a numerous variety of tests, and you are sure you have found a genuine bug, then please please do post a save game of it. As if there is a bug hidden somewhere in the code regarding food selection, then I'm certain Tynan would be very happy to have a report and save game on it so that he can fix it.


Edit - Tynan has posted recently to say he will be looking at at least one aspect of food selection.

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

So there might be some tweaks in the next update regarding Pawns and their opinion of raw food (which may or may not have a bearing on pemmican vs berries).

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[Zhentar]

Mantis'ed: https://ludeon.com/mantis/view.php?id=2892

Pawns do have a (small, 16 tile) preference for simple meals over raw food like berries on top of the mood effects, so that pawns will tend to prefer the much more ingredient efficient option when it's available. Pemmican does not have this preference, which I suspect is simply an oversight.

[Tynan]

I've addressed this now. Thanks!

[Calahan]

@ mini-Tynan Zhentar - Many thanks for taking a look at this, finding a bug, and filing a Mantis report on it. I'm pretty sure somewhere in all that you saved someone a load of time, so huge appreciation to you for helping the way you do. A bumper super sized box of internet cookies are on their way.