Pointless paste?

[Bosh]

Is there any real reason to use nutrient paste dispensers? In all my 2000 hours of playing rimworld, I've never once felt the need to use them. Even with a ton of colonists and prisoners I always have ample food supplies.

[Killer-Volt]

Its just frees up time for your colonists to do other stuff, unless you have misc robots who do it automatically its extremely useful.

[Finly]

It has zero chance of food poisoning for example, it also uses less food and automatic, so no colonists needed for cooking job

[gimmethegepgun]

More efficient, requires no labor, causes no food poisoning, and because colonists won't carry them around with them they'll almost always eat it at your base instead of eating it WiThOuT a TaBlE

[Dopamine Deficient]

I use them this way: they are great mid-late game in animal-spam reliant colonies, and gets better from that point on. The bigger the bugger the more it eats, to the point you can start having serious issues growing/keeping up with raw resources once the numbers seriously crank up. Basically draft-spam nutrient paste for your animals and anything you don't want to invest, or to heavily reduce raw resource consumption. If you don't have mods, this is one of the best ways to ensure your animals will be fed and avoid eating something else that could be useful, especially if they are next to their beds, and absurdly reduce the need of resources they eat: all it takes is less than a minute for a very, very long time.

[Hykal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-3GcucTuuI

Great for refugees, prisoners and certain guests.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Bosh:

Is there any real reason to use nutrient paste dispensers? In all my 2000 hours of playing rimworld, I've never once felt the need to use them. Even with a ton of colonists and prisoners I always have ample food supplies.

I've never used them. (Other than some initial experiments, hastily concluded...)

BUT, that doesn't mean they don't have a use or a definable benefit.

But, I've also never jammed knitting-needles into my eye-sockets, so...

Players who routinely use the Nutrient Paste mechanics and accompanying strats/reasons do so because they want to, not because it's always needed. It's optional in most cases, but a player could generate or happen upon a circumstance where they're a necessity. At that point, IMO, it's still their own "choice."

[Hoki]

all the different kind of food (raw, pemmican, NP, packed meal and the 'normal' Meals) all have a specific role they excel in:

-Meals are the dafault food. Pawns love a bit of a normal life and therefore gain mood by this type of food. Meals require a Cook.
-Pemmican and packed meals are travel food. They are long lasting, wont cause food poisoning and require a mix of meat and veggies and a cook.
-raw is raw. doesnt taste good, can cause food poisoning but since its raw it doesnt need a cook to process (except for a farmer and butcher ofc).

and at last because we're talking about NP:
-NP can be considered an emergency food. it gives the highest return in nutrients but has no taste (pawns hate this) which causes a debuff thats slightly above raw food. If you're short on food or workforce this is the way to go.

Unless you lack pawns or food NP is inferior to all other kinds of food but as soon as you do its superior.

[Hykal]

It's amazing how much time NP saves. I've had entire runs where NP is the only main food source and pemmican/survival meals are the travel food.

And if you have a crap cook, NP NEVER gives food poisoning.

[adobo]

Paste is a life saver. If your not using paste, your wasting valuable pawn time cooking. You can also attach one to your prison so you don't need to waste the good stuff on them.

Get power, get paste, then your basically set as long as the raw food keeps flowing. You can probably forget about cooking for the whole game or until you need the get rid of the food debuff.

[Hoki]

the main downside of NP is the mood.

if you need food use NP

if you need better mood stay away from NP if possible

[xTRACKERx]

i use the NP for all my guys except for the queen or King^^ . no more cooking. no more food poisoning. more time for other things to do. :) the mood debuff is not as bad as it should or could be and with good environment the mood will stay up all the time. :-D

[Henry of Skalitz]

They are a MUST HAVE for surviving in extreme conditions (sea ice and stuff) because of your very limited supply of food.

You can use it to feed prisoners which doesn't waste time of your wardens to deliver food and if you have quite a few prisoners you lose way less food than normally.

You can use it to feed everyone at the snap of a finger without needing a dedicated cook. Of course you will need one later in the game because packaged food and lavish meals but still worth it.

I also recall a way to basically stockpile the paste by constantly drafting and undrafting a colonist so he drops the meal in a forbidden stack and goes to grab a new one, just in case you need a quick caravan meal for a quest or food for animals (yes, you can use it as animal food!)

It does cause a small mood debuff, but as long as your colonists don't live in shared trash cans you can easily ignore it.

Later on I really prefer lavish meals if I have a ton of food because you just cannot ignore the insane mood buff from them.



I personally LOVE using the dispenser early game, I don't have to waste time of one of my starter pawns. That additional pawn not bothered with cooking can speed up development of your colony by a lot.

[identity001]

I've only got 700 hours but I too have never, and likely will never touch the Nutrient Paste machine. Or even build one for that matter.

[TwoTonGamer]

You guys are missing out!
Nutrient Paste dispenser is one of the best items in the game when the mood cost is affordable (like, especially, early game). No cook, no food poisoning and uses almost half (!) the food. Super efficient time saver.

(The linked video above is awesome, BTW.)

[Intrspace]

A simple meal (0.9 nutrition) uses 10 raw food items (0.5 nutrition)
A nutrient paste (also 0.9) uses 6 raw food items (0.3 nutrition)
It's almost twice as efficient. It's excellent if you need to feed your animals but all you have is colonist food.

And speaking of meals, do NOT get rid of your insect meat. Eating a simple meal made out of it only gives a -3 to mood, that's better than paste's -4 (combined they stack)
Fine and lavish meal bonuses also stack with insect meat.