How to make staff canteens work

[Norxiam]

I've seen in most discussions about the staff canteens and how everyone thinks its a bug, but it isnt, and its really easy, link a kitchen with a staff canteen, if you set a kitchen to the staff canteen, you'll notice that it will disappear, but what happens next is that those cooks in the kitchen will clean the dishes, and replace them. also to note, the kitchen that you've linked to the staff canteen will say that it isnt linked the anything, just ignore it. hope this guide may have solved the problem. :]

[Note: this probably may not work]



here is my guide listing the exact same thing and little more information but with proof:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=825248637

[Norxiam]

i will make a guide showing you proof that it actually works

[☭ Little King Trashmouth ★]

Well no, why linking kitchens to staff canteens? The thing is, that staff gets different meals, it is not cooked in the kitchen and staff won't eat prisoner food. Or have you different experiences?

[Super Earth Ceremonial Guard]

You make no sense.

[Note: this probably may not work]

^ You even admit yourself it doesn't work.

Why doesn't it work?

Because your kitchens do not cook for the staff canteens. All they do is provider clean trays. So all you need to do is add a sink. That's it. Job done. Add a sink. Either to your kitchen or a tiny staff sink room next to the staff canteen.

Your WORKMEN bring food to staff canteen, NOT cooks.

Your staff food gets delivered EXTERNALLY. NOT from your kitchen.

So if there's a delivery problem that means there's a problem between point A 'deliveries' and point B 'staff canteen' (too dangerous? not enough workmen? big job going on? long wait for your workmen at locked doors?)

If there's a tray problem that means there's a problem with not enough clean trays being sent out (not enough sinks. ONE COOK PER SINK remember)


Having a kitchen close to the canteen will help a little of course.. shorter time to move from sink to serving table.

Also having more than one serving table will bork up the AI as you only need one serving table for the staff canteen (you won't have more than 40 staff eating at the same time. one serving table = 40 people. if you have more than 40 guards all piling in at the exact same time to eat at the exact same time then there's something seriously flawed and wrong with your prison.. not a bug! )

[Trixi]

if you have more than 40 guards all piling in at the exact same time to eat at the exact same time then there's something seriously flawed and wrong with your prison.. not a bug! )

Or your prison is just big!

[TheAofThings]

simply doesn't work.

[Yumakooma]

I have had issues with staff canteens. For me, they work perfectly to start with, and kitchen staff in the kitchen next to it will be taking trays from the staff canteen and cleaning them before placing them on the serving table for staff as they should. That is until I make a second kitchen somewhere in my prison, linked to its own canteen. This seems to make kitchen staff in both of my kitchens stay in their locations, only cleaning dishes of prisoner canteens and ignoring the staff canteen.

I am using only one mod in my game, "Tweaked Staff Food" by murgh. It works perfectly and fixed the other problem I was having of staff meals only reaching one staff canteen - and it is certainly not the cause of my dirty tray issue.

I do have a workaround which requires a bit of attention to pull off. Basically, every night when the prisoners sleep and my kitchen staff are doing nothing, I go to the food distribution screen and make my main kitchen unassigned from any canteen. This causes them to clean the trays left at tables in the staff canteen from the previous day and then put the cleaned trays on serving tables which need them most. When they are done, I link the kitchen back to its canteen and just let the staff canteen build up over the day, until I clean it the next night. I suppose building an unlinked kitchen would work but something like that can be a blemish to look at when trying to make somewhere nice... so I thought I would just post my method.

EDIT: the only thing other than having two kitchens that could cause this error that I could think of was fiddling with food distribution logistics manually, and making the lines full rather than dotted. This also seemed to coincide with whenever I have gotten the issue, but I could never find a way to reset the lines to dotted to test if its really the sole cause.