I miss the self fed prisons

[woolfoma]

I wish we could still use nutrient dispensers in our prisons so we don't have to make meals or have people walk over to them with the meals
I used to be able to support way more prisoners because they never needed to be interacted with, just pile food in the hoppers and recruit the survivors

[christhekiller]

I didn't even know that was a thing until it was no longer a thing!

[Japzzi]

Same here! o; I had one of my wardens starve to death because he found it more important to give the prisoners food than feeding himself

[Tynan]

This should still work. Hmm.

[Igabod]

you know you can put a 1x1 stockpile for just simple meals in the prison and the prisoners will eat from that whenever they get hungry, freeing your warden to do whatever else needs doing. Though this usually works better for the prisons which house everybody in one big room. You tend to waste a lot of food if you do one in each room in the prison. But if you are like me and produce way more food than you eat this isn't such a big deal.

[Wex]

To circumvent this problem, I feed raw potatoes to my prisoners.
A zone for storage, critical setting.

[Igabod]

To circumvent this problem, I feed raw potatoes to my prisoners.
A zone for storage, critical setting.

I never grow potatoes. Strawberries are way better, they don't upset people when eaten raw. A happy prisoner is a compliant prisoner.

[mumblemumble]

cant you just tell the warden not to feed the prisoners so they will feed themselves?

I'm pretty sure they will still take food from it before dying...

[Igabod]

cant you just tell the warden not to feed the prisoners so they will feed themselves?

I'm pretty sure they will still take food from it before dying...

nope, if you click on a bed in the prison you'll see an orange area light up showing what the prisoners can access. NPD and plant pots (for some reason) are not within the orange area. it appears from Tynan's post that this was not intended though so it will probably be changed in A8.

[christhekiller]

cant you just tell the warden not to feed the prisoners so they will feed themselves?

I'm pretty sure they will still take food from it before dying...

Nah. I had a nutrient paste machine in a prison and my main warden (the one whose primary job it is to warden) get sick so I was keeping him in bed. I didn't even realize the prisoners were starving until I noticed two had died.

[Cimanyd]

To circumvent this problem, I feed raw potatoes to my prisoners.
A zone for storage, critical setting.

I never grow potatoes. Strawberries are way better, they don't upset people when eaten raw. A happy prisoner is a compliant prisoner.

That's what "friendly chat" is for. That, and social training. And recruiting. But still, it keeps the prisoners' morale way too high to mentally break.

Strawberries are better raw, but otherwise a bad choice, since you get more potatoes. Also, berries, potatoes, etc. provide less nutrition when raw than when in nutrient paste or a simple meal. (10 potatoes: 50 nutrition. meal/paste made of 10 potatoes: at least 70 nutrition. research + paste made of 9 potatoes: at least 70 nutrition.)

Raw meat has 10 nutrition, instead of 5, so eating raw meat appears to actually be more efficient than cooking/pasting it. So, if you're trying to feed raw food to prisoners, go with meat. Possibly even human meat. I've never tried it, but friendly chatting should still counter the big eating-raw-humans morale penalty.


On topic: Huh. I thought I read somewhere (here or reddit) that that was intentionally removed since people were confused about why colonists wouldn't use a prison's NPD, but I don't think it was a Tynan post. It was probably either wrong or I'm not remembering right. (I've definitely read that prison NPDs don't work, like this thread says, so I never tried one)

If this changed, I'd love to use it; it would save the cooking time for prisoners while letting my colonists still get cooked meals, and it might save some hauling.

The nutrient paste changes in the next alpha would probably help even more, unless friendly chatting changes too.

[woolfoma]

This should still work. Hmm.

so we might get this back ?!?
btw guys, the reason you can't do it is because anything in prisons can't be interacted with (dead bodies in prisons can't be cremated until hauled out)

[christhekiller]

I usually grow a mixture of both potatoes and berries. Berries I keep stockpiled in case there's a solar flare and my supply of meals doesn't outlast it, and I'll have the potatoes be whats first cooked into meals and made into nutrient paste

[ccheuer]

I wish we could still use nutrient dispensers in our prisons so we don't have to make meals or have people walk over to them with the meals
I used to be able to support way more prisoners because they never needed to be interacted with, just pile food in the hoppers and recruit the survivors

put a storage section set to high priority in your prison that can only take food, same thing.