Food strategies?

[taosaur]

Any tips on food? I'm on my first playthrough to hit the 50 day mark now, and in decent shape, but struggling to ramp up composting and/or find fertilizer and still having to keep a close eye on temps in some systems. Is artificial meat worthwhile? Other meats? What about fiber production, vs looking for it in trades?

What I have so far:

• Botany is #1 research priority.
  
• About 2 crop beds per crew, about 2:1 nuts vs other crops.
  
• Put crops in a separate storage from meals, with "eat direct from storage" turned off.
  
• Shut off or dismantle gas scrubbers once you have a couple big planters up.
  
• Have thermal regulators and crank them down in hot systems.
  
• 27% nuts, 9% fruit, 9% root until/unless meat becomes viable.
  
  See anything I got wrong there? Alternate strategies? I honestly got pretty far early on just from salvage and starting meals, but I suspect RNG-sus was kind to me. He has yet to bless me with new crew, though.

[mansman]

Never build your food processing on the outer edge of your ship. It needs to be on the interior to avoid accidental death caused by high temp systems. Once you get general botany techs, be sure to grab the chemical processing unit so you can make your own fertilizer.

As far as fiber goes I've never grown it or even bought it. You can get enough soft blocks from scrapping that I don't seem to have to use that part of the production tree. Another note on grow rooms is be sure to keep all your door vents closed for that room. It should remain almost completely isolated from the rest of the ship. This helps avoid times where you have a fire and the smoke kills your food too.

[taosaur]

Originally posted by mansman:

As far as fiber goes I've never grown it or even bought it. You can get enough soft blocks from scrapping that I don't seem to have to use that part of the production tree.

The point of fiber is to make fabric as a trade good and stop the tech tree there. You get a huge return, and the microweaver doesn't need isolation or scrubbers or anything like that.

I do keep ending up with botany up against the hull :/ There just doesn't seem to be space for it anywhere else early on. Now I'm building out solar panels behind a suit door to insulate the botany area somewhat, but yeah, good tip.

[JohnRando]

Fooding is an issue early on. Meat is good but is far on the research tree and there are other things to research. Till then, autopsy table will probably give you access to protein earlier than artificial meat. Worse comes to worst, algae dispenser will keep your crew alive to see better days.

Ideally i use only the big 5-slot growing beds, approx one for 2 crew to be safe. I build them by separate rooms of 4, one type of food per bed cause im lazy. I set them to grow "if<10" and forget about them. Botanists will work where needed. Separate rooms of 4 because that way in case of hull breach or fire, i lose only one room, not the whole batch.

Fiber and fabric are great trade goods early on. They grow significantly faster than food. Early game i use a double grow bed for fiber and found it to be quite sufficient for most of the trading until late game. I simply set them to grow fiber "if<10", weave them same ratio, and trade that in priority. This is the base of early economy, really really worth the space it takes.

I never felt the need to micromanage temp regulators ; if i have heat or cold issues, i simply add more regulators, default setting. Setting the desired temp higher or lower will not make the regulator work faster anyways. The big regulators are much more efficient for the same power, though ; added cost is space.

Gas scrubbers do not scrub CO2 afaik. But hazardous gasses from the odd fire can kill your plants. I keep some scubbers inside the growing rooms for that reason.

You can find new crew in derelicts sometimes, or force luck and recruit prisoners if you can take some. Early game you don't want to do that though, as prisoners are mouthes to feed.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Originally posted by taosaur:

Any tips on food? I'm on my first playthrough to hit the 50 day mark now, and in decent shape, but struggling to ramp up composting and/or find fertilizer and still having to keep a close eye on temps in some systems. Is artificial meat worthwhile? Other meats? What about fiber production, vs looking for it in trades?

What I have so far:

• Botany is #1 research priority.
  
• About 2 crop beds per crew, about 2:1 nuts vs other crops.
  
• Put crops in a separate storage from meals, with "eat direct from storage" turned off.
  
• Shut off or dismantle gas scrubbers once you have a couple big planters up.
  
• Have thermal regulators and crank them down in hot systems.
  
• 27% nuts, 9% fruit, 9% root until/unless meat becomes viable.
  
  See anything I got wrong there? Alternate strategies? I honestly got pretty far early on just from salvage and starting meals, but I suspect RNG-sus was kind to me. He has yet to bless me with new crew, though.

Understand that your crew doesn't need to eat well every morning and night of the week. I generally tune my meals to the bare minimum to be 'green' for all categories and roughly equal in ratio, I think it comes out to about 12% each, though my memory is foggy, it may be between 9% and 11% of each main foodstuff (nuts, vegetables, fruit, meat). I forbid my kitchen all but one night a week and force algae meals every other day, and that can stretch the beginning food supply out for a few months I believe. It isn't perfect, and your crew will have bouts of poor health, but they should recover if you ratio the meals properly.

Also, yea, eat direct from storage needs to be completely off, and a seperate small cargo area can be setup near the kitchen to hold 'space food', and in emergencies you allow their consumption.

[Bobucles]

For early game, lean on the algae machine as much as possible. It is very competitive with meals in terms of water efficiency, but is incredibly easy to maintain. Your crew can survive a few weeks of algae before they start getting sick of it, at which point they'll need real food. Alternate between algae and real food until a permanent food solution is ready. Regular salvage will stretch out your kitchen supply for months.

All crops produce roughly the same kcal value per day, with better foods taking longer to grow as a result. Nuts give the most kcal per resource invested, so try to pack your meals with tons of nuts.

Grab a lvl 3 botanist ASAP. Botany is a very low demand job, so a single crew can feed many, and lower tier workers will hamper crop growth.

[taosaur]

I haven't resorted to algae yet, but I guess that safety net is there for a reason. Salvage does go a long way with a small crew.

ETA: Also, finding fiber production is totally worth it even if you just have one bed going - it will keep you in as much fabric as you can trade.

[小阴茎]

Originally posted by mansman:

Never build your food processing on the outer edge of your ship. It needs to be on the interior to avoid accidental death caused by high temp systems.

Well this is awkward...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2674251154

OP I traded for meat early on selling tons of hull parts and random stuff like steel plates. The chemical refiner solved my fertilizer issues right away. I have one refiner for making chemicals and another by it for making fertilizer/missiles/the other stuff. I grow my meat not but early on I would just buy meat if it was below 700 creds.

[iffirn]

Before you can produce meat you can simply add alien meat to your food. The crew will not be happy but they will get their proteins. As soon as you can produce your own fertilizer from chemicals, you are safe in terms of food.