Struggling with carnivore achievement

[Ash//Fox]

Restarted my game just to pick this up and it's brutal, about 30 cycles in and 7 dupes. Half my colony has been starving for 10 cycles now, I have 3 max size stables and none of them have been producing almost anything yet. I tried taming a pond of paku but they refuse to eat from my feeder for some reason, I've used the same build on previous saves on this seed and it worked fine but I'm getting nothing, 100% wildness and producing just enough to replenish. Currently I have about 40k out of 400k calories consumed.

one stable has 3 baby hatches and 3 eggs, the other 2 only have 2 hatches.

Is this salvageable? I am trying to get my power grid setup but I don't know if I'm just screwed by not getting incubators setup ASAP

[cswiger]

You aren't likely to make the achievement unless you play almost perfectly. If your dupes get half of their calories from meat / BBQ, you need 8 of them for 100 cycles. Since you can't get 8 dupes until cycle 27, you need to eat meat more often, or move towards 10 dupes.

Yes, you need to rush Incubators ASAP. Leaving eggs in your ranches results in the critters being cramped and they stop laying eggs. Same thing applies to Pacu, unless you leave their pool open to a large area. Getting some Shove Vole eggs makes things easier, but you can certainly make do with Pacu as well.

[Angpaur]

If you have 7 dupes and each cycle they would eat 7000 kcal, then in 51 cycles you should reach 400k kcal. So now you just need to make sure your dupes will get that meat each cycle.

[Ekimmak]

If you want Carnivore, you have to aim for it from the absolute start. Give up on basic amneties like plumbed washrooms, you need to 100% aim for the meat.

The goal is to have a ranch with at least 13 Hatches (with 2 eggs already being converted to meat daily), and a base with 8 dupes, by cycle 50. If they swap over to pure barbeque, then it'll be touch and go, but you'll make the achievement. And nothing saying you can't increase to 16 hatches, and have 10 duplicants (or less if you have a few Bottomless Stomach dupes), so you get it earlier. But Carnivore is always down to the wire for me, because meat production is somewhat inconsistent.

I always take a mechatronics engineer as one of the first dupes. That way I can get the shipping system for the hatch ranch set up earlier, it can do the self-drowning system, and the hatches have virtually not time with the cramped debuff. I usually see the first eggs from the ranch by cycle 20-30, and if I have full ranches before reaching cycle 50, then I'm good.

This used to be SO much easier, and I think it is if you don't have DLC enabled. You could get Shove Vole packages from the care packages, and starvation ranching those are worth 20,000 KCal of meat each. But if DLC is active, you can't see them until you've found the asteroid they live on, and no way you'd have that in any decent timespan.

[Ekimmak]

The most important point is "Don't get greedy". If you think "Hey, I really should get more eggs produced each day, I'll increase ranch size", then that's going to be one less barbeque that day, while waiting five days to get an extra egg, and another 20 days after that to get the of extra meat. That could cost you the run.

If you want to keep trying for it, I'd recommend save scumming each care package to try and get the 12000 BBQ or 8 Pacu care packages, and use those to stretch your base's lifespan on meat while waiting for more hatch food. Also bait the drowning trap by sweeping a bit of sand into the drowning pit, that'll get them to "evolve" sooner.

[Adolf Rozenberg]

you need stables with pacu

[POWER WITHIN USER]

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

I tried taming a pond of paku but they refuse to eat from my feeder for some reason

Use algae for taming them, the feeder only gives them like 20 out of the 140kg/c that they need so they'll eat that more often compared to seeds which gives them access to 20 seeds out of 0.3 which means they'll fill up completely.

Is this salvageable? I am trying to get my power grid setup but I don't know if I'm just screwed by not getting incubators setup ASAP

You can get your power grid set up really early by spamming a couple large batteries and micro managing the activation of coal generators, it's still better than using manual generators.

[rajwarrior]

Remember, you can't plant ANYTHING. I made the mistake of planting thimble reeds (Not food, right) and it disabled achievement.

[cswiger]

The OP is doing carnivore, not locavore....

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by POWER WITHIN USER:

Use algae for taming them, the feeder only gives them like 20 out of the 140kg/c that they need so they'll eat that more often compared to seeds which gives them access to 20 seeds out of 0.3 which means they'll fill up completely.

Exactly this for the pacu. Feeding them seeds or any of that other stuff will result in vastly increased taming times where they just wont eat because they're not hungry. Algae works very efficiently and when combined with ranches helps get you over the hump. I tend to complete my carnivore achievements by turn 70-80 with plenty of time to spare.

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by way2co0l_2003:

Originally posted by POWER WITHIN USER:

Use algae for taming them, the feeder only gives them like 20 out of the 140kg/c that they need so they'll eat that more often compared to seeds which gives them access to 20 seeds out of 0.3 which means they'll fill up completely.

Exactly this for the pacu. Feeding them seeds or any of that other stuff will result in vastly increased taming times where they just wont eat because they're not hungry. Algae works very efficiently and when combined with ranches helps get you over the hump. I tend to complete my carnivore achievements by turn 70-80 with plenty of time to spare.

When it comes to the starvation side of things, what I tend to do is prioritize digging in the early game. You tend to find more muckroot and extra hatches that way so I keep at least 1 dupe permanently on that and it supplies the vast majority of my food. I also take great care to not uproot any natural plants I find, instead digging around them even if it hurts the efficiency of my layout or stairs. Set them all to be auto harvested and try to trap shine bugs in small rooms built around the bristle blossom. If unable to trap them I'll put a container for their eggs set to sweep only so I can move one there and immediately remove it from the container so it'll hatch in the room and give me another usable plant.

Then it comes down to getting maximum usage from all food sources. I block access to all the base stuff and keep 2 cooks permanently refining everything into better calorie variants. I also tend to keep 1 cook making mush bars that I convert into fry before I let them eat. It's terribly inefficient but a life saver when digging stops turning out enough food and yet my ranches aren't able to make up the difference yet.

[SkaiCloud]

You have to rush to space and hunt Shove vole. Their meat is 13,000 kcal and leave their meat up in space since it will deep freeze and sterile. Turn those into BBQ and you should hit that achievement by cycle 75. I honestly can't get that achievement without hunting them so yea, there ya go. Hunt Shove. Oxygen mask is just fine in space or no mask at all. There's usually enough of them for you get the achievement.

[Corona Varus]

Originally posted by SkaiCloud:

You have to rush to space and hunt Shove vole. Their meat is 13,000 kcal and leave their meat up in space since it will deep freeze and sterile. Turn those into BBQ and you should hit that achievement by cycle 75. I honestly can't get that achievement without hunting them so yea, there ya go. Hunt Shove. Oxygen mask is just fine in space or no mask at all. There's usually enough of them for you get the achievement.

Agree. Ranch all three hatches, pacus, and voles.

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

I tried taming a pond of paku but they refuse to eat from my feeder for some reason, I've used the same build on previous saves on this seed and it worked fine but I'm getting nothing, 100% wildness and producing just enough to replenish.

Regarding this issue. I just experienced something similar and upon examination it appears to have been due to my feeder not being low enough in the water so they weren't eating from it. It looked like it was low enough but apparently it wasn't as I just rebuilt my feeder, placing it a little lower this time, and now they're eating from it the way they're supposed to.

[ciberwolf]

But does pacu meat count for the purpose?

[Ash//Fox]

Originally posted by ciberwolf:

But does pacu meat count for the purpose?

yeah I'm pretty sure it does, I read on another thread some guy did it with just pacu farms