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[Entropy]

I was not paying sufficient attention to exactly what was in my giant food stockpile.  Even though it was almost full, my dwarves suddenly started to starve to death.

Apparently it slowly filled up with processed intermediate food items like dwarven syrup, flower, and sugar.  My kitchens had just been cooking up all the meats and already edible foods while completely neglecting the foods that needed to be cooked.

Aside from just turning off the cooking of edibles, which would take excessive micromanagement to constantly look at the levels of inedible foods and turn on and off the cook flags all the time, could kitchens cook inedible food first and then move on to edibles?  

Perhaps just require lavish meals to use at least one inedible? That might be interesting regardless of this little problem.

Additionally, when cooking seeds, could we set a reserve so that this does not accidentally cook all of them and leave nothing to plant?

While on the topic of kitchens… when a cook meal job is in the works and it gets a lost or misplaced item (which seems to happen a lot, especially with rendering fat), could it just pick another rather than canceling the job?  It should only cancel where there are no more to cook.

[Eiba]

Aside from storage issues, I've never seen any reason to cook edible food at all... People say it rots, but I've not actually seen anything but raw fish and fat rot... (perhaps there's just not enough meat in my fortress...)

That said, more kitchen options could never hurt (personally, I think an "eat" setting to go with cook and brew would be most useful...)

[rylen]

Absolutely.  I had dwarven syrup just sit in a farmers workshop for years.  I'm going to need to micromanage to get rid of it.

Rylen

[Gauteamus]

quote:Originally posted by Eiba:
<STRONG>
That said, more kitchen options could never hurt (personally, I think an "eat" setting to go with cook and brew would be most useful...)</STRONG>

This would (at least for role-playing purposes) make possible the making and careful storage of some mighty fine vintage brews.

[Grek]

Perhaps drinks could go up in quality with age?

[Momaw]

Agreed; the kitchen should priotize things that can't be eaten raw.

Other food- and kitchen-related ideas:

- Simplify the Food readout in the Status window into categories of: Edible, Brewable, Cookable, Unprocessed, and Seeds.  Do we really care whether we have more fish than meat or not? Certainly we care less about that than we do about whether that massive pile of "Other" is stuff we can eat or not.

- Meals at the kitchen should always require one "food" ingredient like meat, fish, grain, whatever. And one "taste" ingredient like syrup, tallow, etc.  Alcohol should be considered a "taste" ingredient;  biscuits being made of finely minced dwarven rum is idiotic.

- Legendary chefs should acknowledge the basically ephemeral nature of their craft. Instead of masterpiece meals having the chance of making them upset, have it be that masterpiece meals are given away for free as a banquet, which raises the morale of the fortress... with the chef being pleased at the enjoyment everybody derives from his/her fine meal.

- We absolutely require set points for consumption and storage.  Min/max. "Save plump helmet spawn to a minimum of 20 units, and a maximum of 60 units; beyond that, cook them."

[ February 15, 2007: Message edited by: Momaw ]

[Lord Blue]

I don't like the banquet thing, how would we sell the meals, then? I think making them angry when they rot or aren't eaten for a few years would be better.

As for meals requiring one food ingredient and one taste ingredient, I do agree with you, but I'd like to add that seeds and raw processable plants (like wheat) should count as food.

[Seshat]

I agree - in general - with this. While I think meals comprising 'substance' and 'taste' ingredients is a good idea role-play-wise, it would also add to the challenge. Perhaps it could be added as an option?
I know that there have been winters when my dwarves have subsisted on a diet of seeds and quarry bush leaves.

I reallyreallyreally would love to have 'EAT' and 'MILL' as toggle-able permissions in my kitchen settings!

And I'd like to add my vote to the 'reserve X seeds' option, and to having a option to tell my kitchen to cook inedible-until-cooked foods first.

[ February 16, 2007: Message edited by: Seshat ]

[Poil]

quote:Originally posted by Seshat:
<STRONG>I reallyreallyreally would love to have 'EAT' and 'MILL' as toggle-able permissions in my kitchen settings!</STRONG>

I agree, but CONSUME would be better than EAT if it should work with drink too.

[Andrej]

Tithing would be great, but should be accompanied by a real colony mode:

1) The home kingdom/fort should offer products for trade that the colony can not produce on early/later levels, but that are essential for its development.

2) There should be external enemies that the colony can not withstand at early levels, and the home kingdom sends help to break sieges.

3) ...

How, demands gain real weight for the colony.

[Andrej]

Opps, this post should have gone here

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Momaw:
<STRONG>- Simplify the Food readout in the Status window into categories of: Edible, Brewable, Cookable, Unprocessed, and Seeds.  Do we really care whether we have more fish than meat or not? Certainly we care less about that than we do about whether that massive pile of "Other" is stuff we can eat or not.</STRONG>

Yes!  This is actually why I popped into this board.  I have 2784 "food" (8 meat, 0 fish, 0 plant, 1097 seed, 270 drink, and 1409 other) and my dwarves are hunting for vermin.

Another thing I'd like to see is that when a cook finishes cooking they haul their own damnable meal to the nearest food stockpile before cooking another.  They're going there anyway, aren't they?!?
Right now I have two kitchens out by the forges so my miners and metalsmiths can have a quick bite to eat (instead of a 4 day round trip to the dining hall) and the meals are rotting in the kitchen.