colonists starving themselves in to a break down

[wild alaskan]

I have been having tons of problems with my colonists not eating, and therefore going insane. I have almost 70 colonists and am playing randy random with no mods, I am really confused why they are so slow to go in and eat some food. There is plenty there, I have simple meals always on hand not to mention 4000 strawberries. Do they develop tastes for fancy things as the game goes on or what? what can I do to make them stop going insane?

Also industrial traders, any keys to making them show up?

[Neone]

Maybe your kitchen is really far away frim their job place? Before they get to the kitchen they go insane.
Maybe they are drafyed? Colonists dont eat or sleep while drafted into military service.

Regarding traders - without cheating - no.

[Thunder Rahja]

Eh, I thought it wasn't possible to get 70 colonists without modding the game. There's a critical population limit for every storyteller, and Randy's is at 50.

Either way, I don't think the game was designed to handle so many colonists. Maybe it's just Darwinism at work.

[wild alaskan]

definitely have over 50 because occasionally Ill have more than that idle. Maybe Randy will just keep causing melt downs  and massive raids of people with grenades until i go back below that threshold. It is a bad situation when a colonist with a mini gun goes on a rampage, half because of excessive friendly fire incidents when taking them down. lol 

one more question, how do you use molotovs manually? I need to burn a quarter of the map to get rid of some bodies.

[Neone]

Draft a colonist with molotoc and tjen press F

[OnyxShadow]

Really need a way to force colonists to eat/sleep.

It really sucks to have a colonist that is so hungry that he's literally about to lose his mind, but he refuses to go grab a tray.

[wild alaskan]

so I counted my colonists, I have 80 currently!

[Splinterbee]

Throughout the game they will get tastes for different food and become picky. Most of them will gain a taste for cheese. First to get cheese you most get 4000 metal. With that make 5 buckets and a cheese dispenser. Equip the buckets on your crew and get them to beat raiders with them. After beating the raiders the raiders will turn into cheese and they can eat. The end... No just kidding. You can get them to eat manually by making them haul the food or by turning off there jobs.

[Damien Hart]

I've been noticing similar things lately. I think the problem stems from the fact that there's not much time between "Hungry -8" and "Urgently Hungry -20", coupled with the fact that colonists don't go for food until they hit hungry. Not to mention they only go for raw food when they're urgently hungry, like when your meal reserve is emptied during a solar flare.

It's definitely more prominent on larger maps, especially with hunters and haulers working outside the base.

[VyleStyle]

So yeah, I just encountered this same issue in alpha 6.
Im in august after year 1 and have about 20 colonist, eating just fine with cooking tables, never used a nutrient dispenser, never had a problem.
then just one day, they decided not to eat. for no reason at all. pleanty of food, raw, simple meals, meat, berries, potatoes. They wouldn't eat anything, cooked or raw.
I tried reloading game, putting in dispenser, nope, that didn't work.
reloaded to find the problem, to no avail. not a single person, cooked or ate and all died after starvation.
I'm so puzzled.. and sad 6 hours wasted on this group...

[bobucles]

I think the problem stems from the fact that there's not much time between "Hungry -8" and "Urgently Hungry -20"

Definitely this. If a colonist is hungry and his next job is a big one, then he will inevitably reach the -20 threshold. There needs to be just a bit more leeway here, or colonists need to be more aggressive about eating.

It is also possible that colonists can not access their food due to some quirk with the item reservation system. Try testing how many colonists can attack a food pile at any one time. If they're grabbing food in single file, it will create a backlog that will definitely starve your colonists.

[StorymasterQ]

Also check that none of your prison areas have spilt, as just one block of prison wall missing is the difference between a prison room and a prison everything.

[Xerberus86]

Really need a way to force colonists to eat/sleep.

It really sucks to have a colonist that is so hungry that he's literally about to lose his mind, but he refuses to go grab a tray.

yep, my two most humerous incidents were:

a) a woman who hauled food starved on the way to the stockpile

b) a doctor who was feeding their patient died after doing so

<-- that shouldn't happen

[Goo Poni]

I know that any colony healers (doctors) are extremely selfless to a fault and will prioritize healing and feeding others until they die or run out of people to help before they think to look toward themselves. If your healers are starving and you are tending to wounded, disallow them from healing for a while so they can go look for food and have a nap.

I don't think there is a way to force eat, r-clicking food just gives the option to haul it.

Generally, if you're having exhaustion or starvation problems, draft and undraft the troubled colonist to make them reprioritize what they're doing and if they go back to doing the exact same thing, disallow their jobs until they've sorted themselves out first.

The other thing is as another poster pointed out, double check that your prison hasn't been smashed apart and is infecting everything else with the prison cooties. Colonists refuse to use items and equipment coming from a prison room which is amusing when you're rebuilding or expanding the prison and the entire map temporarily becomes a prison and no-one wants to use anything.