Make colonists eat at a table? They usually don't...

[Goif!]

My cook just developed PTSD due to eating without a table.

[pat]

I've read that they won't eat at the table if it's too far away. I just build the dining room in the middle of my base right beside the food storage and they always eat there.

[Foster]

Yeah, if they have to walk too far, then they will just eat where they are standing. It's pretty unavoidable with certain jobs like hunting, they won't walk the way back just to eat. They'll just consume the meal they brought with them.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by t4rss:

I've read that they won't eat at the table if it's too far away. I just build the dining room in the middle of my base right beside the food storage and they always eat there.

This sounds reasonable, but the radius is waaay too small. I am not expecting hunters to be patient enough to go back, but my tailor, warder, and butchers sometimes eat on the spot too...

[KalkiKrosah]

Something to make you laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvXxtFKTwcU

[Goif!]

Originally posted by t4rss:

I've read that they won't eat at the table if it's too far away. I just build the dining room in the middle of my base right beside the food storage and they always eat there.

Originally posted by Foster:

Yeah, if they have to walk too far, then they will just eat where they are standing. It's pretty unavoidable with certain jobs like hunting, they won't walk the way back just to eat. They'll just consume the meal they brought with them.

Did not know these things... thank you for the help, guys!

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

Something to make you laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvXxtFKTwcU

Hadn't really realized how surreal the game was until now heh... but now it makes me wish for my starting kitty back :(

[Myriad]

I've never noticed this before b19, but I've noticed lately that if my pawns are urgently hungry, they'll eat on the spot instead of walking ten feet to a table.

[KalkiKrosah]

If the biome allows it just build wooden tables and stools all over the map. Maybe even a 3x3 room to house it in if you are feeling generous. Just be sure to unhome it and deselect it as a gathering spot. Otherwise your cleaners will go mad and the parties spots will make little sense.

Its good constructing experience and your hunters will appreciate having a fallback point if the actual base is too far to outrun the mad animals. And raiders and mechanoids will waste time beating that area up and not the important stuff.

[tukkek]

Agreed that table range is way too short: my colonists are not even halfway across the base and still they'll sit on the ground, eat and complain about it instead of taking 20 seconds to walk to the dining table. Is there any mod that solves that?

[Amrak]

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

If the biome allows it just build wooden tables and stools all over the map. Maybe even a 3x3 room to house it in if you are feeling generous. Just be sure to unhome it and deselect it as a gathering spot. Otherwise your cleaners will go mad and the parties spots will make little sense.

Its good constructing experience and your hunters will appreciate having a fallback point if the actual base is too far to outrun the mad animals. And raiders and mechanoids will waste time beating that area up and not the important stuff.

Will they use it if it is unhome? I ask because I have the automatic home area turned off, and took me forever to figure out why my pawns was not cleaning new bedrooms I just built, I also could not tell them to clean them. Set to home and they rushed in to clean.

[Cellar_Cat]

I wish this debuff would only apply if they eat in the home zone without a table or something, it's ridiculous that either the map has to be plastered in tables or people who are going out hunting or hauling will always mope about it. Who goes hunting and cries about not finding a table in the woods...

[Jaasrg]

Doesn't this originate from pawns carrying a meal around with them?

[Cellar_Cat]

Originally posted by Jaasrr:

Doesn't this originate from pawns carrying a meal around with them?

That, and I think also not eating until they're desperate. I spent a while following them around trying to solve this when I first started playing, but in the end it just wasn't worth the effort. Their AI is just designed to be miserable about tables unless they spend their whole lives within a few metres of one.

[Mdaddy924]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504716613
This increases the radius they will seek a table at

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1076950211
This allows your social minded pawns to take time to accelerate any mood debuffs your pawns are suffering (ie. Ate without a table or Ate human corpse)

[Amrak]

I did some tests yesterday. Vanilla game. Added 2 tables outside my base and it worked really good. Since adding them I have not had the caravan and all their animals flood my base. My pawns like eating and socially relaxing at the outside tables and I have only had one "At without table" which was my miner away from base mining.
Another plus is when raided, the raiders try to destroy the tables while I shoot them from the doorways. LOL
The tables are close to the base in my home zone. Now I want to see if the miner will use a table outside the home zone and not marked as home zone.