What do you feed your dupes in the early game?

[Flytrap]

I haven't played that much since launch. I managed to catch up on most things, but i am confused about food. Meal lice used to be the best, what should i feed them now?

[Stonehammers]

I usually dig enough tiles to find muckroot, then use the micromusher to make liceloaf.

[mrmashpotatohead]

I have been planting mealwood 5 per dupe, once that is running i ditch the Micromusher, as water is a valuable resource. I then swtich to the grill and make pickled meal, same calories and no water cost.

Plus the grill uses less power.

[Crugerus]

I start with meal lice and switch to bristle berry's as soon as I can and cook them in the grill. I then forage wild plants for sleet wheet and P peppers to make better food. I have 8-12 dupes and have tons of water without opening a gyser.

[Lucid]

I have been digging out muckroot and eating through nutrient bars while teching to farming, then jumping straight into mass mealwood farming.

Uproot natural growing mealwood if it is below 50% grown and you have farm tiles waiting. Leave bristlebriars to grow naturally where possible. With decent seed propagation you can get plenty of food for 6-8 dupes on mealwood alone.

[The Queen Salis]

I'm a dirty cheater who plays sandbox and gives my dupes 30 kilos of rations everytime I scrap a dupe project from the printer.

[Clonefarmer]

I dig to as much natural food as possible and plant meeawood for raw meal lice only. If the seed is really bad and doesn't have much food I'll make mush bars to bridge the gap till meal lice is sufficient. I typically stay on raw meal lice for the first 200-300 cycles. By then there is usually a big enough stockpile of other foods to dig up the mealwood.

Don't forget the portal gives off enough free light to grow 5 bristle berries.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1595162588

[Angpaur]

Originally posted by Clonefarmer:

Don't forget the portal gives off enough free light to grow 5 bristle berries.

Only 5?
I think the record was 21 bristle berries.

[Clonefarmer]

Originally posted by angpaur:

Originally posted by Clonefarmer:

Don't forget the portal gives off enough free light to grow 5 bristle berries.

Only 5?
I think the record was 21 bristle berries.

I don't know, could be. I'm just trying to help other players by letting them know you can grow bristle berry with the portal light.

[Doombunny]

early game, I rush research to farm box while subsisting on available plants and muckroot. One farm boxes are available, I set up meal lice farms until i get enough better food sources from a variety of sources (eggs/meat, bristleberry, mushrooms).

[intenselygoodtime]

Originally posted by mrmashpotatohead:

I have been planting mealwood 5 per dupe, once that is running i ditch the Micromusher, as water is a valuable resource. I then swtich to the grill and make pickled meal, same calories and no water cost.

Plus the grill uses less power.

THIS, exactly.

Now that water is pretty easy to manage (multiple 500kg stores of ice & snow for cheap cooing of Sieve water), I've gone ahead and started building ~10 Bristle Berries to offset 10 of the Mealwood plants to conserve on dirt (which takes WAY more effort to produce than water). I also no longer bother with farming Sleet Wheat -- only free-range harvested. Huge hassle to keep all the therms "just right" and it costs dirt.

On the note of "you can finally queue multiple infinite grill items," I've reported a bug that will cause your chef to get stuck in a "drop/fetch loop" when carrying meal and bristle to the grill simultaneousy. So watch for that behavior, or just go back to using 2 grills. It's still cheaper than the horrible Masher, and only takes 1 Wheezewort to cool.

[Stonehammers]

Yeah, I think the "just eat raw meal lice" advice is left over from before geysers and more pockets of sand were added, so water was kind of limited.

Now water isn't so hard to come by, so there really isn't a problem with making liceloaf, or pickeled meal anymore.

Reason I choose liceloaf is the higher food quality than pickeled meal, if I remember correctly.

[Flytrap]

Originally posted by Clonefarmer:

I dig to as much natural food as possible and plant meeawood for raw meal lice only. If the seed is really bad and doesn't have much food I'll make mush bars to bridge the gap till meal lice is sufficient. I typically stay on raw meal lice for the first 200-300 cycles. By then there is usually a big enough stockpile of other foods to dig up the mealwood.

Don't forget the portal gives off enough free light to grow 5 bristle berries.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1595162588

But getting light is one of the easiest things. A lamp uses 5 measly watts of power.

[Clonefarmer]

Originally posted by Stonehammers:

Yeah, I think the "just eat raw meal lice" advice is left over from before geysers and more pockets of sand were added, so water was kind of limited.

Now water isn't so hard to come by, so there really isn't a problem with making liceloaf, or pickeled meal anymore.

Reason I choose liceloaf is the higher food quality than pickeled meal, if I remember correctly.

Eating raw meal lice still works. Early game when the dupes morale requirements are low it doesn't matter much what you feed them.

Mid game as you promote dupes the their morale requirements increase and you need better food, but until then it won't matter much.

You can store raw meal lice in co2 to keep it from spoiling.

Dupes tend to eat the lower grade foods first it seems. So while they eat lower quality food stockpile as much of the better food as you can in co2 to preserve it for later.

Originally posted by Flytrap:

But getting light is one of the easiest things. A lamp uses 5 measly watts of power.

True, it's just an easy way to get a little food growing early.