Varied Diet
Makes your colonists think about what they eat.
🍽️ New "Food Variety" need that decreases over time. Drops to 45% or 20% — mood debuffs follow.
🧠 Every cooked meal remembers its dominant ingredient. Colonists remember their last few ingredients — eating the same thing again doesn't count.
❤️ Every colonist has a randomly assigned favorite ingredient. Eating it gives a mood bonus.
🥣 Nutrient paste gives an extra debuff to everyone except those who love it. Some people just grew up on simple food.
🌿 Raw food and bought meals restore less variety than home-cooked meals.
🔢 Variety queue size can be set from 1 to 5 in mod settings — the larger the queue the harder it is to maintain variety.
⚙️ Paste mechanic and queue size can be changed in mod settings.
How it works:
Ingredient memory
Every cooked meal remembers the ingredient used most during cooking. When a colonist eats a meal — they remember that ingredient. The food variety need is only restored if the eaten ingredient differs from the ones in the queue. The queue size can be set from 1 to 5 in mod settings — with a queue of 1 only the last ingredient is checked, with a queue of 3 the last three are checked. If a colonist ate rice, meat, rice — eating rice again will not restore the variety need even though it was not the last thing eaten. If a colonist keeps eating meals from the same ingredient — the need stops filling and gradually drops. To keep the need up — cook meals from different ingredients.
Mood debuffs
When the Food Variety need drops below 45% the colonist receives a -3 mood debuff. When it drops below 20% the debuff grows to -8. Keep your colonists eating varied meals to avoid penalties.
Raw and bought food
Raw food restores only 20% of the base value. Meals bought from traders or obtained without being cooked by your colonists restore only 40%. Colonists appreciate home-cooked food more.
Favorite ingredient
Every colonist has a randomly assigned favorite ingredient. If a meal is cooked with that ingredient as the dominant one — the colonist gets a +3 mood bonus. This bonus is independent of the Food Variety need and applies regardless of the current variety level.
Nutrient paste
Nutrient paste is a separate mechanic that can be toggled in settings. When enabled — paste gives an extra mood debuff to all colonists. Exception: if paste is a colonist's favorite ingredient — they receive no debuff and instead get a +1 mood buff.
✉️If you have any questions, ideas or suggestions — feel free to leave them in the comments✉️
