Tough having a proper dining room, pawns keep eating without table at work

[Boloss31]

hi i'd like to make my pawns take their meal altogether at the same time. I let them two hours of free time at twelve, + hours of hobby, i have table fridge beer meals sushi, they never gather around the table for lunch and diner.
How could i correct that?

[Canute]

The problem are, you manualy can force the pawn to eat, but you can't shedule that.
The pawn's seeking food when they are hungry and since they become all at a different time hungry you can't time this.

I don't know a mod that would add such schedulte but the workshop is big.
It allways was and old idea that pawn's force eat after they wake up and didn't start some outdoor job.
At last since a few version they carry a meal with them so they can eat at the field and don't walk the long way back to eat.

[PicaMula]

If you really want them to eat all the same time I can't help you, but if the problem is more related to the fact that they will eat without a table (like the title says), that is because pawns will walk a set maximum distance to a table to eat a meal, if they can't find a table inside that distance they will eat without a table like troglodytes.

You can either make some makeshift dining rooms all around the base or install a mod that changes how much they will walk for a table. I suggest the mod table diner, I use it in all of my games, you can configure this radius for each individual table, and also overwrite the radius for specific pawns if you wish. Here's the mod page: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1430086135

[cultist]

It's very common for pawns to eat when they wake up, as sleeping is often the longest time they go without food.
It's not uncommon for around 50% of my pawns to have breakfast together, as they mostly wake up at the same time, and are usually all hungry at that point. I run standard schedules, where I only assign "sleep" and "anything" unless I'm in the middle of some major emergency or I need every hand on deck (during a big harvest for example, to prevent crops from rotting in the fields).
However, you'll never be able to time it so every pawn sleeps at the exact same time, even if their rooms are identical in terms of bed quality. Add on top of that quick sleepers and night owls, who are usually destined to eat alone forever.

It would be nice to be able to assign "meal times", but it's just not very practical given how quickly the hunger bar drops in general, and how severe the penalties for hunger and especially starvation are. You're always better off letting them carry a meal and just eat whenever they want.

You can counteract the "no table" penalty by placing smaller dining stations around the map. It only takes a wooden floor, a decent sized room and a piece of art to get a decent dining room. Throw in a bit more wealth or art and you should have an impressive room. It might also be worth noting that any room a pawn eats in is counted as a dining room, even if it's not technically called that and even if they eat off the floor. You won't see this unless the room is at least decent though, as there's no "ugly dining room" debuff (thank god!)