Is nutrient paste ever worthwhile?

[Zombull]

I have 325 hours played in RimWorld. I've never built a nutrient paste dispenser. Not even sure how they work. I just know they're supposedly more efficient but colonists would take a mood hit. It's always easy enough to hunt and grow, though. It's never seemed like something I've needed.

Am I missing the point?

[Injured Muffalo]

As I understand it, it's mostly for extreme biomes where you need to extend food as much as possible. Or pets or something. Prisoners?

Anyway, it's also a lot of trouble to set up profitably since you can't specify food allowed for groups. I have also not bothered to use it.

[Greep]

I pretty much always use nutrient paste to start out.  It just saves you a pawn to cook is all, you still need to supply it with raw food.  It's specifically nice if you don't embark with a cook, or you will get food poisoning.

[Lech]

Its good when you can't afford cooking, or you don't have a good cook.

[ReZpawner]

Oh it's pretty good in the beginning - and by beginning I mean the early alpha versions. Pretty much useless now.

[lancar]

I only ever use mine to feed my prisoners. It's convenient and saves travel time.

[Panzer]

Best thing ever in my opinion, needs less ingredients per meal, instant food for your guys, no food poisoning, frees up a colonist who would otherwise have to cook. The tiny mood hit is manageable, the only real downside are solar flares, in my opinion, since you dont have meals in storage, but theres a micromanagement trick to pull more meals out of the dispenser to take care of that problem.

[Ukas]

I always build one in prison, in a separate cooled room so ingredients in hoppers won't spoil, with the outlet on the barracks side. It's a beautiful system, prisoners get fed by dogs instead of wardens, and prisoners always have their meals even if there's a manhunter pack running on the streets or other problems.

[viperwasp]

I have not played Since A16 or A17. Certain bugs prevented me from enjoying the game. Unless they nerfed nutrient paste which I hope they did not, and I don't think they did. Than I can tell you all that this stuff has saved me so many times. Good for making good use of food in various situations. I always sort of start out using paste until I have a dedicated cook.

[Oblitus]

Cooking is fast enough if you set your kitchen right. Especially with RimFridge, and I see no reason not to have it. Mood hit is small, but for early stages, until you have all set, pawns tend to be on edge all the time, and at the late stage, you don't need benefits nutrient paste can provide.

So it is only reasonable for extreme biomes where every point of nutrition is valuable. Would be nice to make a nutrient paste to feed animals, but it is hardcoded to only work for humanlikes.

[NiftyAxolotl]

I researched Nutrient Paste on my specifically to feed my out-of-control animal horde. But it doesn't do that. My colonists dine on fine cuisine and exotic jellies, and they just laugh if I order them to use the machine. The Wild Boars can't reach the button, the Caribou are scared by the noise, and the Muffalo... uh, they don't seem to have operant conditioning, so they're just hopeless.

[Oblitus]

I researched Nutrient Paste on my specifically to feed my out-of-control animal horde. But it doesn't do that. My colonists dine on fine cuisine and exotic jellies, and they just laugh if I order them to use the machine. The Wild Boars can't reach the button, the Caribou are scared by the noise, and the Muffalo... uh, they don't seem to have operant conditioning, so they're just hopeless.

WM Smarter Food Selection allows to manually produce nutrient paste, BTW.

[tyriaelsoban]

if you put it in your prison rooms, the prisoners will feed themselves - it lessens the draw on warden skill pawns who may or may not have more important work to do than play room service to someone who tried to murder their friends a few hours ago.
Since mood is largely irrelevant to prisoners its very helpful there, why should i waste lavish and fine meals on a murderer?
It also reduces the maintenance requirement of having said prisoners.
So in short, yes ... it is worthwhile.
Then theres also the A17 colony i had for 5 years eating nothing but paste... because growing soy is hard on gravel in -140.

[cultist]

Since mood is largely irrelevant to prisoners

It's not though... if you want to recruit, you want their mood as high as possible. Even if you don't, low mood increases the chance of prison breaks.

[woolfoma]

Its all I use, the mood debuff is nothing significant. and mood problems are not hard to deal with if you manage your room qualities properly.

If you have a mood issue, I suggest having less colonists. in general trying to make twice as many people equally happy and stable needs almost twice as much stuff, on the same map.

Another mood tip is clothing, provide lots of durable clothing to minimize those mood debuffs.

Wasting an entirely good colonist to do what a machine can do instantly, on demand, and VASTLY more efficiently is not worth 4 mood points.

@zombull is uses 4 less food per meal but they have a -4 mood debuff. you can feed people on a farm 60% the size.