Cooking is driving me nuts!

[Bill Garthright]

How can I get my characters to cook more than one piece of meat at a time? They just stand there until I come back and remove the one dried meat that's all the cooking stove can hold (even a campfire holds five!).

It takes so long to cook that I can't keep up with the demand.

Now, I know how this is SUPPOSED to work, I think. Indeed, I bought a small shack in Blister Hill earlier in the game, and the stove worked just fine. I had a food barrel next to it, put one person on cooking duty, and that was that.

But the same setup won't work in my base. My cook won't take raw meat out of the meat barrel, either, but that's not such a big deal, since I can just load up his inventory. But he won't take the finished product out of the stove, either to his inventory or to the food barrel right next to him, and he stops when there's ONE in the output side of the stove.

I can't set up a dedicated hauler, either. At least, when I try, the hauler doesn't do anything. My people making building supplies and iron pieces also just stop when their machines are full. They won't haul them to the dedicated storage bins. They just stop working.

On the other hand, the miners DO haul stone and iron ore to their storage bins. And my engineers will get building material directly out of those machines when necessary (but not out of the storage bins I've set up for them - and yes, they're the specialize storage types which will only hold one particular item each).

Am I just running into a whole series of bugs? I had a wind generator at my base which seemed to work perfectly, but none of the power it produced went into my base. I finally dismantled it to get some of the parts back.

The rest of this I can live with. But I can't continue with that kitchen stove problem. Any suggestions?

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

set job cook at camp fire/stove.
its how you do all repetitive jobs.

you can set them via hold Shift then left click on the object.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

set job cook at camp fire/stove.
its how you do all repetitive jobs.

you can set them via hold Shift then left click on the object.

That will work for 5 at a time. You can only go over that if there is a valid containrer (ie food store) to place the stuff in. For soem reason the AI wont just loot the stuff and keep cooking.

[Frofro80]

Wherent there some problem with storage if it was to cramped? Try to have storage for food in the open and set the priority to Hault to food storage then cook.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

set job cook at camp fire/stove.
its how you do all repetitive jobs.

you can set them via hold Shift then left click on the object.

That will work for 5 at a time. You can only go over that if there is a valid containrer (ie food store) to place the stuff in. For soem reason the AI wont just loot the stuff and keep cooking.

works fine for me
i use multi stoves for different itmes and i haven't had any issues.
set perm job to cook
and away they go.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

I have also soem issues in my games that soemhow some people forget to do what they usually do. like my armorsmith who decides to end up aimless because he fills his inventory with armor but doesn't deliver it anymore to the plenty of available chests. however that worked fine a few days ago. Sometimes pathfinding seems to break a bit and people get stuck in their doings.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

That will work for 5 at a time. You can only go over that if there is a valid containrer (ie food store) to place the stuff in. For soem reason the AI wont just loot the stuff and keep cooking.

works fine for me
i use multi stoves for different itmes and i haven't had any issues.
set perm job to cook
and away they go.

I meant as if you had a campfire only. Same principle as mining without a storage container.

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

I have also soem issues in my games that soemhow some people forget to do what they usually do. like my armorsmith who decides to end up aimless because he fills his inventory with armor but doesn't deliver it anymore to the plenty of available chests. however that worked fine a few days ago. Sometimes pathfinding seems to break a bit and people get stuck in their doings.

This is because the game chooses one to be a primary storage container, then after that container is full it does not really do very well choosing other containers to use afterwards. Sometimes it will fill other containers and sometimes it just goes aimless.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

ah yes
it cooks 5 then stops.
then you gotta move the cooked into your backpack or inventory and it will start back up automatically if set to a job and if you have more raw meat.
but i am out in the boonies with no local storage either so that behavior is normal.

[Bill Garthright]

Originally posted by Frofro80:

Wherent there some problem with storage if it was to cramped?

OK, I'll try this. Thanks. I did try rebuilding the stove and food storage barrel, but they're still right next to each other (not so close that they touch, though).

I know how to set repetitive jobs. I know how to order multiple instances of food crafting, and even repeating food crafting. And this worked fine in my shack in Blister Hill. But it just doesn't work in my base.

I'll try moving the barrel out in the yard somewhere. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Bill Garthright]

OK, Frofro80, that did the trick. I moved the food storage bin outside, and the stove started working just fine. Wow, such a simple thing, but it was driving me nuts!

Thanks for the help!

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Bill Garthright:

OK, I'll try this. Thanks. I did try rebuilding the stove and food storage barrel, but they're still right next to each other (not so close that they touch, though).

Ya, sometimes it is wonky. Other times it ignores the container if it is the 2nd. The big thing is to jsut wathc it. I have seen soemtimes my people jsut get stuck evne after using the containers.

I also might help to do a save/load or a navmesh rebuild. Possibly even an import to fix the container pathfinding.

[Bill Garthright]

OK, I've got to say that cooking is STILL annoying. Moving the food storage bin outside (where it was supposed to be from the start, I think) made my cook start moving the finished food there. Well,... mostly. But cooking is still wonky.

And the funny thing is that everything else in my base works just great. I've set up everything to work automatically, and it typically doesn't need my attention at all. But I still have to micromanage cooking, if not as much as I did previously.

Mainly, my cook won't get raw materials on his own. He won't get raw meat when he runs out. He won't get bread. He won't get cactus. (But my engineers WILL get cactus from the barrel when they're building a new farm plot or upgrading an old one.)

I don't think he'll get water, either, but I stopped trying to make chewsticks when he would not deliver them to the food barrel. However, that might have been because I was trying to make a variety of stuff.

And that's the other problem. I can set my armor craftsman to make a variety of stuff on repeat, no problem. But not the cook. I've got bread, meat, and cactus, but not a huge amount of any of it at one time. So I wanted to make a variety of food from that. Nope. I have to make ONE type of food at a time, apparently.

And even then, as I say, when my cook runs out of raw materials, he won't go get any more. This wasn't a big problem when I had a small base and nothing but raw meat to cook. I could just fill his backpack with every bit of it we had.

But it's hard to do that with bread, since we need to eat, so we can't wait to accumulate a huge amount of bread before we start cooking with it.

I take one squad out exploring and fighting, while I leave the rest of my faction in the base. So it's a pain when I have to keep micromanaging the cook. I don't understand it, since everything else automates just fine. It's only cooking that's fubar.

Hey, I can't complain TOO much. I love this game. I've played it almost 400 hours in the past three years (off and on, mostly). Even with this annoyance, Kenshi is great!

But it IS annoying.

Of course, it will get fixed eventually, I'm sure. I've seen a lot of improvements in the game in the past three years, and not just the map. But I have to ♥♥♥♥♥ about SOMETHING, right? :)

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

Originally posted by Bill Garthright:

And that's the other problem. I can set my armor craftsman to make a variety of stuff on repeat, no problem. But not the cook. I've got bread, meat, and cactus, but not a huge amount of any of it at one time. So I wanted to make a variety of food from that. Nope. I have to make ONE type of food at a time, apparently.

Armours are differant
they require two ingredients, that's it.
cooking requires many depending on the item being made
make different stoves to cook different items
then you won't have the issue. it's how i work around it.

but some items require odd amounts so if you have something different in the query it won't make it because it still has mats for the item before it.

[Bored Peon]

It sounds liek you got somethign buggy with something.

1. What is the list of jobs your cook has in order?

2. What mods are you using (if any)?

The fact the cook wont get more supplies is a sign something is wrong.

[Bill Garthright]

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

make different stoves to cook different items

Thanks. I'll try that.

I thought about it earlier, but I didn't think it would make a difference, since the queue would be the same for every stove in every location. But I think I see what you mean.

With a little micromanaging at first, I can probably get my cook to start making a different food at each separate stove. So when he runs out of ingredients for one dish, he'll just go to the next stove. He still won't get ingredients himself, but it will be easier to load him up on a variety of stuff.

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

1. What is the list of jobs your cook has in order?

I tried lots of things in different orders: dustwich with meatwrap, meatwrap with dried meat, chewsticks with dustwich. None of it worked. I had to stick with one item only and, even then, fill up his inventory manually.

I'm going to try the multiple stoves idea (eventually, when my exploration party returns to the base), but are you saying that you DO set up multiple recipes in your cooking orders, with no problem?

2. What mods are you using (if any)?

The fact the cook wont get more supplies is a sign something is wrong.

I'm using a few simple mods, but nothing which should affect cooking: Camp Bed (so my guys can sleep when exploring, without carrying around a sleeping bag), Meat from Animals (makes more animals have edible meat, though I don't think we've actually killed any of those animals yet); and Kensicons (just a graphical change to the icons).

Recently, I added 256 Recruitment Limit, but I had this problem before I started using that.

So, your cooks DO get their own ingredients? All of them?

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

Originally posted by Bill Garthright:

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

make different stoves to cook different items

Thanks. I'll try that.

I thought about it earlier, but I didn't think it would make a difference, since the queue would be the same for every stove in every location. But I think I see what you mean.

With a little micromanaging at first, I can probably get my cook to start making a different food at each separate stove. So when he runs out of ingredients for one dish, he'll just go to the next stove. He still won't get ingredients himself, but it will be easier to load him up on a variety of stuff.

how i do it is i dont have 1 cook
i have a seperate cook for each stove
this way they dont get confused and they will work the station they are assigned at.
i make dustwhichs at one and chewsticks at another. it works rather well for me.
i had your same issue and that's how i fixed it.