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Variety Matters Redux

• Major performance improvements for large colonies! Cooking operations are now much faster, especially noticeable with diverse food varieties.
  
• Fixed settings menu freezing - you can now adjust mod settings smoothly without lag.
  
• Optimized memory usage to reduce game stuttering and improve overall responsiveness.
  
• Enhanced cooking AI - chefs now select ingredients more efficiently while maintaining variety preferences.
  
• Fixed a bug where ingredient spoilage preferences weren't working correctly during cooking.

• Improved the food searching algorithm to locate items not currently stored in the pawn's recent meal memory to reduce micro-management. The new algorithm also has superior performance.

• Variety presence is now affected by whether a pawn experiences a negative mood debuff from consuming the food. This enhancement ensures better compatibility with mods that introduce new foods, precepts, genes, or traits.
  
• Lack of variety associated with Insect and Fungus meat is now contingent on whether the pawn holds the Despised precept for insect meat.
  
• General bug fixes.

• Better visualization of recent meals, their variety, and reasons for lack of variety.
  
• Enhanced compatibility with popular cooking and food-related mods.
  
• Reduced variety need for prisoners and slaves.
  
• Improved performance.
  
• Enabled variety need for Gourmand pawns with specific requirements and mood impacts.
  
• Option to adjust the mood impact of the variety need.
  
• New setting to treat all meal qualities (Simple, Fine, Lavish, Gourmet) as the same type for variety calculations, integrating seamlessly with mods like Vanilla Cooking Expanded. Enabled by default, can be toggled in settings.
  
• Nutrient paste meals are now so unappetizing that they do not contribute to dietary variety, unless a pawn has the appropriate precepts.

Pawns now have a new need: variety in their diet. This mod introduces a unique gameplay dynamic where pawns require different types of food to stay mentally healthy and happy. Instead of just eating for survival, pawns will now seek out a diverse range of meals to satisfy their craving for variety. This new need adds an engaging layer of complexity to the colony's food management.

• Diverse Diet Requirement: Pawns will experience mood penalties if they repeatedly consume the same type of food. A varied diet is key to keeping their spirits high.
  
• Enhanced Cooking Gameplay: Cooks in your colony are now more autonomous and will prepare meals with a variety of ingredients without the need for player micromanagement, ensuring a diverse diet for the pawns.
  
• New Challenges and Strategies: Players will face new challenges in food procurement and meal planning, leading to more strategic gameplay when it comes to managing resources and keeping the colony thriving.
  
• Detailed Needs Visualization: The mod includes a needs bar for each pawn. Hovering the mouse over this bar provides insights into their variety requirements, current satisfaction level, recent meals, and the diversity contribution of each meal.

By integrating this mod, you're not just adding a feature; you're enhancing the depth and realism of your colony's daily life. It encourages players to think more critically about their food sources and meal choices, turning the act of feeding your pawns into a more immersive and rewarding experience.


A food must provide nutrition and either joy or be at least tasty raw to count as a variety. Rotten foods do not count. Cultural and preference variations apply, such as cannibals treating human flesh differently.
Option 1: Ingredients Only
This mode focuses exclusively on the variety of ingredients. Meals are considered varied based on the different ingredients they contain, irrespective of the meal type. It's ideal for players who play without many mods that add additional meal types.
Option 2: Meal Name Only
This option simplifies the variety mechanic by considering only the type of meal consumed, disregarding the ingredients used. It's particularly well-suited for gameplay with a wide array of meal types introduced by mods, where the meal itself brings the variety.
Option 3: Both Ingredients and Meal Name
The most player-friendly option, this mode tracks both the meal's name and its ingredients. A meal is considered a new variety if either its name is different, or it contains a different ingredient. This approach is perfect for those seeking a challenge that is not too demanding, allowing for varied gameplay without extensive micromanagement.

The base variety expectation depends on a pawn's current thought expectation and can be adjusted in settings.

Pawns remember foods eaten up to 2.25x their current variety expectation, requiring around half of their diet to be new varieties to meet this need.

Pawns have a preference for new varieties and will choose meals accordingly, requiring less micromanagement.

Cooks will use a variety of ingredients, with better cooks having a longer memory for ingredient diversity. Note: cooks prioritize ingredients based on proximity to the stove.

Options include preventing meals with different ingredients from stacking and adjusting the number of ingredients tracked in meal stacks. These features vary based on the selected variety option.

• Prisoners and slaves have a reduced variety need.
  
• Gourmand pawns have unique variety requirements and mood impacts.
  
• Ascetic pawns do not require variety.

• Github repository is here [github.com]
  
• The original mod this mod is based on is here

Banners: Mewn Goddess
Mod: HTxL