Suddenly, no more food?

[Frigidman]

I had been running for hundreds of days (I'm up to 320 now)... where I had 5000+ food available across mixed things, veggies, meats, fish, bugs, breads. Then, suddenly... everyone was hungry and my food number was zip! Now I'm trying as I might to get food going again, and it just won't have it. Everything that is caught/killed/grown gets eaten up before any mess halls grab it. I call for trades from others and then there is a mass mob rush to the trade depot to eat up all the food that comes in.

I have like 450 people, and the 'consumption' keeps showing upwards of 900...

I dunno what happened. I feel bugged.

[ellacharmed]

Does the log show any debug lines? You can post to a pastebin.com site if you need assistance in interpreting, or we can take this discussion to the official forums at paradoxplaza where there's attachment features in the forum software.

The food numbers are 0 across all the UI - the top bar and statistics screens and each Food storage, I mean - for all food types? Confirm this is not just a visual bug (ie calculations not showing up) or actual 0 food...raw and processed.

Did you have massive influx of Survivor arrivals, births etc?
And less Deaths due to having steady supply of Medicines and medical care, cleared all pollution piles?
Survivors living longer?
Could it be the consumption had exceeded production for a few weeks/months and just now have to deal with this consequence?

Are the Statistics screen any help in determining the pattern, any help in the analysis to explained what's happened?
We might need a series of photos or a video...

I'm no longer playing due to current lack of PC access, so I cannot be sure if this is a new bug introduced, but I don't recall having this issue before.

So, now for some game data to establish baseline:
Do you just have the base game or the DLC(s) as well?
Normal mode or scenario, which? What difficulty level?
If you have Saves for other difficulties as far along as this Save, does this occur in all difficulty levels once you reach this stage of the game (@ 320 days) ?

[Frigidman]

Before I get back into and take some shots, I'll answer a few of these:

- The number isn't flatlined at zero... I do see things pop in real quick, but then vanish cause 450 people are suddenly hungry.

- I have the full game with DLCs, and was working on a middle stage of 'the big bunker'... not sure if one of the rewards I accepted caused a food wipe or not.

- Playing the normal main scenario on middle-of-the-road difficulty (75% i think?). I have not played any other game/mode... still working through my first run.

- I have had a sorta-steadyish 400-450 survivors for awhile now... I lose about 50 during a fallout, or major flu outbreak because I dont have tons of medical tents (its my way of keeping population control lol).

- Normally I would see I have 4000-6000 on the 'food' line (the big overall number), where if I hovered it, would be hundreds of fish, venison, prime meat, corn, carrots, and then many bugs, and a couple hundred mixed meals.

- The only number now under food is my massive pile of Flour (which they don't eat, obviously). Then I see like some fish come in, and it vanishes, or some corn comes in, then it vanishes.

- I have 4 mess halls making mixed meals from all the meat/veggies I had. Another extra mess hall is making insect dishes. 2 bakeries making bread. And 1 leftover cookhouse just making veggie dishes.

- I had recently seen a slow rate of making mixed dishes, and I re-arranged how firewood was made and stored closer to the mess halls, which then boosted their production considerably (that was about 40 in-game days ago though).

I'll try to get some screen grabs later. I cant understand why it feels like suddenly someone ran in and stole all the food from my camp. Almost like some change did an accidental inventory wipe on food (but I still have all the other items, like metals/plastics etc).

Its just so weird.

[Frigidman]

Well, after a few days, things are recooping. Now after ten days I'm back up to a thousand on the food overall, and mixed meals and insect meals are stocking up again.

Really don't know what happened.... but it took a bit to recover cause everyone was eating every scrap of food for a bit till they slowed and whatever.

Oh well....!!!

[ellacharmed]

Remember layout also plays a part. Distances to and from production to storage and then to buildings that use them as inputs.

Without any photos/videos, no one can really say what's happened to help analyze. And if this is a bug, we'd see more reports here and on paradoxplaza. I do read sporadic reports like yours once in a while, but always without any media, so I could never see what they see...and as I'm not psychic...

But glad to hear, things have recovered!

If you do think devs should take a look at the Save anyway, just Write Feedback via in-game - go to Pause and there's an option to do that on PC.

[Frigidman]

It could very well be a case of just circumstance.

But even a photo of the layout now..... which worked before 'the great food purge' and then suddenly seems to work after (was up to 9000 total food by the time the game ended last night)... may not even shed any light on the issue. I do have storage tents near mess halls, and set to request items they use, and disallow other items they dont... having stuff move around.

Also, I cant figure out the 'production' vs 'consumption' numbers. The production number was always half of the consumption number no matter what I did... yet I'm stock piling mixed dishes and insect meals in the hundreds now. I added two more mess halls near the end, and ended up with evem more meals stockpiling... but my production number remained the same. *shrug*

Either the case, steam forums lack considerably in making adding images easy ;) , so I'm just not going to bother at this point and chalk it up to 'a catastrophe which I overcame'.

Heck, shortly after I got food stacking again, I got hit with a pandemic that infected 300 survivors. Amazingly after that, only 2 actually died from infection. Yet earlier in the game (with the exact same amount of people and medical tents), I would lose roughly 50 survivors during a pandemic of only 150 infected.

This game is not for its very randomness. There is no combination that continues to work it seems.

Heck, I've even seen survivors "catch" (like a pandemic), breaking their limbs... dozens after each other, when I had a hundred quality tools and clothing available and in use lol.

Anyways, we can just wrap this up. If it is a bug, it's way too obscure to pinpoint/fix if its possible.