v0.34 Talk:Kitchen

Examples

Regarding this edit comment:

"top of the page is no place for examples, move it elsewhere"

The top of the page has had an (incorrect) example since it was imported/created in February. I find it quite irritating that you only decided to remove it less than a day after I spent my time correcting it with current values. I have moved the offending examples to a separate section (which I was in the process of doing before your most recent revert), so hopefully that satisfies your complaint. If not, I believe we will require a third opinion on the content of this page. --Loci 18:42, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The article is still overloaded with some not very useful recommendations, but at least is not so uninformative from the beginning now. --Emanresu 19:18, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

More than 4 ingredients

I just noticed that my kitchens have been making many lavish meals with 5 ingredients. Most of the time it is the normal 4, but sometimes 5. Is this a bug or are my legendary cooks just being over-indulgent? (It is not a problem at my fort, I have enough food for 100 years)– unsigned comment by 71.143.225.150

This can occur when you micromanage ingredients. Say your cook picks up a stack of plump helmets to use. You then forbid those plump helmets, and he goes looking for 4 more items. If you unforbid the plump helmets after he has started collecting the fourth item, he will throw the plump helmets in with the other 4 ingredients, making a 5-ingredient roast. --Loci (talk) 19:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not interfering with the cooks, but I have just about every other food operation going on at that fort (booze, cheese, milling, etc), so one of the other workers might be tasking the food before the cook gets it, but then the cook takes it anyway and forgets he had it, like you described.– unsigned comment by 71.143.225.150

I can confirm with no player interference that stacks of up to nine ingredients (and I guess potentially unlimited size) are occasionally formed on repeating lavish meal tasks. I presume one chef gathers up to three ingredients and is then interrupted by thirst or something, followed by a second doing the same, and a third finally gathering their own four ingredients and making a meal of everything that's been stored in the kitchen so far. Just found a couple of 9000+ value food stacks at the trade depot and wondered what was up. My stockpiles being tragically disorganised likely gives them much more time to get interrupted. (tussock, not registered) --218.101.96.27 04:35, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

A 9000+ value food stack is not at all uncommom for "regular" lavish meals, though. With just a little focus on high value ingredients and fairly big stacks (5+) it is rather the norm. You need to check the description to make sure there are actually more than 4 base ingredients listed. --2013 (talk) 01:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I can confirm the above happens with repeat orders as well. My max stack has been 13 different things (mostly quarry bush leaves), done by viewing the meal stack and counting the number of times "minced" appeared. Worth much more than 9000 (stack of 168 worth 146160– unsigned comment by 64.131.103.71). Likely caused by the above, dwarves gathering more ingredents because they went off to drink/sleep/eat/jump in the volcano. I actually do not mind, since I want my dwarves to have giant, multi-couse meals consisting of quarry bush leaves, more leaves, more leaves, some sugar, more sugar, and booze, but this is still a bug...– unsigned comment by 71.143.230.5

Not using alcohol

I placed my kitchen next to my alcohol pile, the cook prefers to travel back and forth, across it to get plump helmets for his cooking. I have some prepared meals made with alcohol, but it seems there is something making my cook prefer solid items only. If any one knows whats going on I would like some clarification. I have not forbidden any alcohol for cooking, and I have plenty of alcohol available to cook with.– unsigned comment by 166.147.120.145

Alcohol and other liquids cannot be used as the base for a prepared meal. This presumably leads cooks to prefer solids, to the potential exclusion of liquids entirely. (In my experience, cooks are notoriously bad at choosing all ingredients.) To work around this issue, you can create several small stockpiles set to "give" to the kitchen--say single-square plant, meat, cheese, and alcohol stockpiles. Your cook will be forced to take from these stockpiles, hopefully creating a more varied menu.--Loci (talk) 19:34, 5 September 2013 (UTC)