Food...

[JokersWild]

Okay, So I was a few days in. I had a total of 8 colonists. I had 2 guards, 3 berry farmers, 1 researcher, 1 furnace tender and 1 miner. I was researching the bread but it takes off so much food per day it is unreal. I understand berry farmers are not the most effeciant, but would think 3 to be enough to cover 8 total. That is almost a 1:1 ratio. So, then all but 1 berry farmer died off from starving and I just had that one guy picking away...He only had to feed himself and still starved?!?
Either I am doing something completely wrong or something needs some big balancing.

As of right now, I have 0 colonists and 0 food. I am guessing there is no way to get food without colonists? THAt would be SUPER awesome as I just spend a few hours building up a base only to find I need to restart yet again.

[Zun]

Researching wheat farming takes 5 x 10 berries, which is a total food value of 30. With 8 colonists, that is 3/4th a day worth of food. If you're on the edge of starving it may be wise to make more berry farmers first, before researching wheat. I'm not sure how the berry farmer couldn't sustain himself, that's a bit weird. He may just have gotten unlucky (starved just before he could deposit them in the stockpile, I don't think they eat from their inventory at the moment).

You can spawn in some food (using `/loot berry 100` in the chat you open with 'T'), though it is sort of cheating. The alternative is to gather wheat seeds from destroying grass and planting/harvesting manually, but I'd not recommend doing that.

We're still not sure what a proper way to 'reset' your food would be so you can retry building a colony if it fails catastrophically.

[Kahlex]

Good morning! Before having any other professions, you will want to have your first 6 colonists to become berry farmers and 1 scientist to get to wheat farming and bread baking. 1 colonist should be enough if you either wall in or trench in your colony before spawning colonists. After getting a good food production going, this is where the colony grows up very fast!
I usually make my colony underground (beds, productions, mining) before spawning anyone and then wall/trench my colony and then spawn berry farmers. Another advantage of this start is to start making straw early enough with wheat farmers to be able to make more beds / recruit more citizens earlier.

I hope this helps you get a better enjoyment of the game. It is very addictive once you start :)

[JokersWild]

I have been making mine against a hillside. I have it walled in except for 1 enterance and walls are 2 wide generally with at least a 2 space drop if I have parts inside my wall I still need to remove from the hill. My actual bed area and such is in the hill along with everything else. My area inside the wall is about 25 wide and about same deep (not underground deep).

My first 2 people were berry farmers along with 2 slingers. The slingers are more there for the linging morning walkers that come in.

My berry farmer died the follow day that all else died, so not sure if it was just a lingering thing since he was sleeping prior.

Switching jobs would be something I would say a great thing to push forward. I had a ton of ingots that I didn't really need just yet and would have loved to switch him over to farmer, but was no way to as of yet (that I know of?).

[Kahlex]

Hi!

At the start of the game, you might want to micro manage your colonists more. You can effectively delete a worker area to have him take another job.
You can easily do it with miners early on since they do not "grow" their work places. Assigning them to copper to get you enough materials early on and then to science or food production, even as a guard at night, can be very effective.

When you have enough colonists, this become much less needed as they are all sustained by your bread production. Once you hit the "shop and mint" research, your colony size will explode if you manage it properly. Then if becomes a matter of having enough guards and especially, enough "ammunitions" to get rid of all the monsters!

Enjoy!

edit: The colonists eat in the morning most of all. So if you see that you do not have enough food for them, you can start deleting all the jobs not relevant to food production ( easily done by picking up the production cubes or miners area ). That way all remaining colonists will concentrate on survival by working on food production instead.

Tip : Having beds next to your miners and guards can increase your production and security by quite a large amount!

[Caz]

Watch your Food/Day number. If it's yellow, watch it closely to see if it goes white or red before the end of the day. If it stays yellow or goes red, you need more food production. I've found riding that line is very easy if you're patient.