Can't get nutrient paste to work

[Mnemovore]

As the title. The machine is powered, has hoppers on multiple sides, hoppers pointed in all directions (to see which of them will actually work) food going into the hoppers (and rotting there).

The food won't actually go into the hopper and colonists won't eat out of it. What (if anything) am I doing wrong?

[BulkVanderHuge]

Wierd, I don't seem to be having that problem. Though I did notice colonists won't eat from the dispenser if there are any other edible things around (fruit and veggies). I just make sure it's the only available source of food for them and it'll work fine.

If you're putting fruit, veggies, or meat in the hoppers. Try building the dispenser in a freezer so the food won't rot. Also as an added measure build the dispenser sticking out slighty from the freezer and lock the freezer door (forbid) and they won't take anything out of the hoppers.

[ministrog]

Originally posted by hi:

pawns seem to have no problem eating paste stored in stockpiles. The easiest way I found to stockpile paste is to put 1 unit of steel on the place pawns get the paste from. Then restrict a hungry pawn to the tile of the paste dispenser. When they are standing on the tile holding R causes them to rapidly switch from being undrafted (takes a meal) to being drafted (drops a meal) which causes them to empty the nutrient paste dispenser. Since taking a meal takes no time you can hold R when the game is paused. Also pawns will pocket paste from stockpiles (they seem to prefer taking the better meals though).

Yeah that's one way of doing it, but it's not implemented properly enough for my taste. I do this in extreme biomes to survive but that's another story for another day. I actually never tested buying paste from traders and starving my people. It's good to know they still lug paste like they do normal meals.

This reminds me, you can actually forbid the raw food in the hoppers and pawns can still come by and top up. In saying that, you can't set a bill to designate a hopper for, lets say, rice. This is annoying because as soon as you run out of a certain raw food, you'll have to come back and forbid it again.

[Silver]

I've been playing for months and have never found a way to get the paste dispenser to work. I've spent a few hours experimenting and reading forums but I'm pretty sure it's just a broken feature.

If I ever find a way to fix it, I'll keep this thread in mind to let everyone know.

[Majere]

welp i have never seen it not work. Not really sure why it doesnt work for you. The feature cant possibly be broken if it works for everyone else. Do you have MODS installed? Are you doing something like making it inaccesible ?
something else has to be going on, like perhape better food option?

[Glerk]

Why the necro?

[Chalchiutlicue]

@GlerkTheFlurp
Please don't spam with useless informations.

It doesn't work at my site either.

[Majere]

can you record a video of it not working and then post a link on youtube????

[Glerk]

Originally posted by Chalchiutlicue:

It doesn't work at my site either.

@Chalchiutlicue
Please don't spam with useless informations.

[M]

Same issue, colonists NOT using the dispenser at all WTF lol. Built it free on all sides with a hopper facing every direction right next to it, nope. The hell?

[Zandbergen]

I tried food restrictions > paste, didnt worked. Its probably a mod thing, it happened in my first mod game. Before that, never experienced problems. But I played with the paste only one or two times before.

NOTE: weird, one guy eats from it, the other two rather starve to death or eat rice. And no : no differences in restrictions. He only is the mysterious stranger,

Deleted current game and going vanilla now. No time for this crap

Originally posted by Oldstead66:

I also had issues with my people taking rice -out of the hopper- instead of using the dispenser.
It couldn't be distance, because the hoppers are like, right next to the dispenser.


I thougt it might be related to eating 'raw' gave less of a debuf that nutripaste. I would have suggested modifying the debuff from -4 to -1 to counter, but it's a whopping -7 for raw food, -4 for nutrient paste.

Finally, not 5 minutes ago, I found the reason for my problem. During me writing here suggesting the above idea of modifying the debuff, I had loaded my game to check the exact debuff numbers. And, during this my stonecutter removed the rock chunk lying in front of the paste dispenser. Lo and behold, my people flocked to the place to get a serving of nutri-paste.

So, to anyone having problems. Try to ensure nothing blocks the nutripaste-item from being placed in front of the dispenser.

Great idea to check! Maybe also dont place a door in front of it. When you build it, you see a circle in the blue brint in front area, like when you build a butcher spot. Make sure that one is free. Maybe rebuild the whole dispenser to get rid of this flaw, maybe on a different spot.
For the rest, the dispenser is like a wall, so you can freeze the back with the food pods in a cool room, and the front right in the dinner room.

[Majere]

it has to be related to a mod you have installed. I used prepare carefully and created a guy, that literally wouldnt sleep in a bed. He for whatever reason just slept randomly outside freezing to death rather than use a bed

[Zandbergen]

Originally posted by Majere:

it has to be related to a mod you have installed. I used prepare carefully and created a guy, that literally wouldnt sleep in a bed. He for whatever reason just slept randomly outside freezing to death rather than use a bed

Can be a weird game mechanism. Today, a pawn refused to haul because he had to use a door to reach the stock zone. There was plenty of room in for the wood, but he only started to haul when I expanded the zone to outdoors.

Maybe the game fails when you build a room around a stocking zone that was outside before, even when all they need to do is use that %&@ door!

[Average Quick-Fix Enjoyer]

i know this is old, but to anyone still suffering this problem. What you need to do is place your nutrient paste dispenser and place hoppers behind it, with the rectangle facing towards the dispenser. Once you put something like rice in, the moment you run out of food, a settler will go to the dispenser and make paste to eat.

[ministrog]

I haven't experienced anything since a long while now. Patch 0.8 and 1.0 did a great job increasing pawn food grabbing range. Only if you got a massive base with a lot of colonists.... then reduced responsiveness of pawns (i guess to help performance of game) might have colonist go without. Then when they're starving they'll rush to any food source.

To add to many who've added tips here, depending on how you design your base, you can have hoppers inside freezer rooms. Also use 2 hoppers minimum. What happens frequently to me is when i zoom out the camera, exact numbers of rice in a hopper isn't shown. If there's 5/6 rice (i think the dispenser need 6 to even operate) the stack looks exactly like 75. The second hopper should allow other foodstuff like your 50,000 potatoes to find a home.

[M.K.]

Originally posted by Oldstead66:

I also had issues with my people taking rice -out of the hopper- instead of using the dispenser.
It couldn't be distance, because the hoppers are like, right next to the dispenser.

If you give the colonists ANY choice of food other than Green Goop, they will eat the other foodsource.
Even if it is a blob of insect jelly on the other side of the map, in a cave, guarded by 25 crawlies.

To get them to eat Green Goop, you *have to* change their food allow setting to ONLY allow Green Goop.