https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxqRvRGaOIMHABXQD5ucX3HLPYpH0td69z

A newer version of this mod with an improved, easier to understand formula has been released: Variety Matters Improved!

no error on the revert. so something you changed was causing error

dont think its food specefic as i went and added xml to see if that fix it but was still a error. it might be related to items that have no food madae of setting. it did it for jerky and cheese which have no setting for made of but some roasted was fine.

when they eat everything is fine to the momenty they finish then teh bellow error pops and the food goes poof they get no food or any varity added

the error is
JobDriver threw exception in initAction for pawn Ominotago driver=JobDriver_Ingest (toilIndex=9) driver.job=(Ingest (Job_2385973) A=Thing_MealJerky5956001 B=(114, 0, 207))
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index must be within the bounds of the List.

Thanks, I'll just revert the changes, since the update was just settings cosmetics and some code optimizations (that apparently weren't that optimal if they broke my null check).

Do you happen to remember what your pawns were eating when this happened?

this happens when a pawn eats a food that variety cant place.

a bit of bad news. after update it seems that if a food isnt on the list it will throw a null error then destory the eatten food so that a pawn basicaly doesnt get any food. might want to add a check to prevent a null error if a food isnt part of system for variety.

Yeah, actually my solution was to install better workbench mgmt and use it with the rest of Variety Matters. Works great. Again, thanks

@Panda - I took a look, and I wrote that feature to work with meals that use the vanilla Cooked Meals as a parent. I'm guessing Rice Cultivation and VGP may have created their own parent meal.

I'm not really inclined to improve that feature, because Better Workbench Management has the same feature for both food and medicine (I didn't remember that when I added the option to this mod).

More info on my "count all meals" issue, it's working between vanilla fine and simple meals, just not for modded meals (in either direction). Using VGP and Rice Cultivating Civilization for meals.

Regardless, thanks for your work on this mod, it's really added a lot of depth to my game.

(sort of like project zomboid, with the spices you can add to the game salads)

its also cool how we as people can treat slightly different meals as a variety meal..
like if i eat boiled rice, i can add a slice of bacon on it (chopped up) and scoop it with a toast

or another day i could to the same, but just have some peas mixed in, and a bit of curry powder, but both meals are different :)

You're amazing :D

Yes. The first counts as pork and rice and the second as beef and beans. A lavish meal made of pork and rice and a fine meal made of pork and rice would hurt variety.

Does a lavish meal made of pork and rice count as something different than a lavish meal made of beef and beans?

Or is it just a lavish meal (even if it has different constituent parts). I like having to grow different veggies but I dont want to micromanage making tons of different meals.

@Drazzil - I'm not getting that error. Perhaps Vanilla Brewing did an update and fixed it on their end?

@pick - Yes, they are save compatible. VGP should be compatible.

@Panda - I'll look into it.

I can't seem to get "count all meals" to work. No matter whether it's on or off, and even if I start a new save, my pawns only count that specific meal type in determining whether to stop a task. I have a lot of mods... I don't think I have anything conflicting with this specifically but it's impossible for me to rule it out yet.

Comments are working now, so I'll ask a second time here,

is this and the stockpile mod save game compatible?

And please add VGP support if that's not a thing, thank you :)

I'm also getting the below error.

I'm getting this odd error:
"XML error: Duplicate XML node name modExtensions in this XML block: <ThingDef ParentName="MealCooked"><defName>VBE_SimpleCocktail</defName><label>simple cocktail</label><description>A simple cocktail quickly mixed from a duo of"...

... and it continues on. This particular issue come up with "Vanilla Brewing Expanded", but a few other modules also bring up the same problem. Is there a chance this'll be addressed?

Hm. Perhaps the default setting should be dynamic depending on the loaded defs at runtime? That would help a lot with fiddling over whether a user has no food-mods, has Vanilla Plants Expanded, has *both* Vanilla Plants Expanded and RimCuisine; whether they're using a meat-optimization mod ... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Such an approach obviously wouldn't be perfect (some modded content may be available early-game, other might require late-game); but it might be better than balancing around a *particular* number of varieties!

Ah, so it's adaptive how much they remember. I like it!

Yeah, I might need to turn it off until there's a way to switch it up based on animal size.

@Chrispy - Right now pawns go through kind of a memory cycle. They remember up to 2x their variety expectation and then forget a littler more than half of it. I'm not wholly satisfied with that system, but haven't find any tweaks I like better yet.

The "meat optimization" mod would make getting variety harder. You could reduce the settings for required varieties, but that might make satisfying variety too easy.

What we need is a mod that divides meat into "big game, small game, poultry, pork and fish."

@ELLIOTCABLE - I'm fine with suggestions, but you might want to put them in the balance feedback discussion so they are easier to find when I'm actually making changes.

Anything that the game remembers as an ingredient that has nutritional value counts as a variety. I suppose it wouldn't be hard to make exceptions for foods like flour, but I honestly hadn't even considered that.

How long do pawns remember what they've eaten?

Also, would there be any ability to remove a single variety of meat from every becoming stale? I ask, as I use a mod that condenses most animal meats into 'chicken' meat. This may become a problem.

What about simply making every "type" of meal a new variety, and discarding "normal vs. prepared" entirely? i.e. "Simple meal with apples and rat meat" is three types, not two; "Fine meal with apples and rat meat" the next day is a fourth type, and "Simple bake with apples and rat meat" is a fifth type within three days?

(Obviously, an associated increase in the base variety requirements of pawns would have to come along.)

As for flour: Isn't that a plant product or some other non-food category? I'm surprised it counts as a variety at all!

Let me know if you're happy with how it works now, and don't want any more balancing feedback; I'm happy to shut up! lmao.

@ELLIOTTCABLE Delete the PostModPatch_VCE.xml file.

The problem with VCE is exactly what you said. If you grow wheat, bakes replace meals, if you research soup, they replace meals. The change makes variety important because meals + bakes + soups > just one of them. But you are probably right that the prepared variety is too limiting.

Bakes are particularly problematic since they all use flour. Making them prepared means simple + fine + lavish are 3 different varieties. Keeping them the same means your pawns get really sick of flour.

I think you are right that prepared needs a tweak so you can benefit from more than one bake every few days, but I do like the general system that punishes you for replacing meals and rewards you for supplementing meals.

(Ran out of space!) ... Flagging *all* Simple Soups as "prepared", and thus ignoring ingredients, thus tanks soups' (and ditto bake's) usefulness, sadly. Perhaps I can talk you into reverting that fix?

Desserts, cocktails, cheeses, etc couldprobably remain a "Prepared" type, I guess; although, again, that loses a lot of opportunity for variety ... idk. Perhaps the entire "Prepared" mechanic needs a balance pass!

Ah, okay, and with the update, some things with Vanilla Cooking Expanded are wonky, sadly. )=

"Bakes, cheese, and soups are now prepared": bakes and soups are both effectively slightly-differently-balanced "meals" (i.e. a Simple Bake, or a Simple Soup, are intended to be mechanically the same as a core-game Simple Meal ... just with different cost considerations, with Bakes being more complicated but overall cheaper to produce for the same nutritional benefit, and Soups being *slower* to produce / must be prepared ahead-of-time in bulk but, again, being cheaper for the same nutritional benefit.)

Generally speaking, if you have researched soups, and aren't suffering badly under some short-term event, you'll be pumping out (Simple|Fine|Lavish|Gourmet) Soups instead of <Tier> Meals. Similarly, if you're bothering to grow wheat, you'll simply entirely replace <Tier> Meals with <Tier> Bakes.

maybe vegan meals are bland in real life? (joke) :)

I'll look into why vegan meals are bland and run a test with that mod installed. That image isn't right, so something must be causing your non-vegan to not register variety. Hopefully, it is something in vegan meals.

Also, I think one of my characters is bugged - out of two, one of them (a vegan) is sitting happily at 4/4 varieties, and doesn't have a debuff; but my other (non-vegan) *says* they have enough variety, but are at 0% variety / -12 mood despite having 4/4 varieties? Am I doing something wrong?

https://imgur.com/NHQWHzM

Support for vegan meals , please? they're counting as "Bland" instead of the normal kind as non-vegan meals do. (=

Variety Matters Stockpile is a new mod to help cooks use a variety of ingredients. Create a stockpile near your stove that only holds 1-stack of ingredients and won't refill until (nearly) empty.

this mod is retarded, it does not make your pawns want to eat diffrint things, they still go for the same damn dish every damn time! gee, how meany kinds of soup can I make? becouse thats the only damn thing they will eat! I made like 60 things from sushi, to ice cream, to soda, to deep fried fish to baked goods, to deserts to booze to stews......every damn meal my mods will let me make with every modded plant I could grow and every modded meat I could hunt/fish, and they still only ate one type of food every damn time and bitched about having a "simple" menu! so if you want to cook 20 kinds of one meal, this is the perfect mod for you, if you want all the foods you can cook for your pawns to matter, dont waste your time here.

Oh, im dumb :D Thank you a lot.

Are you getting errors? It should be perfectly compatible with stews being tracked as normal. The base expansion is "integrated" because I made bakes and soups prepared (so they count as their own variety). I was planning on making stews bland (since they hide the taste of ingredients), but I never got around to it because I don't actually use that mod.

I don't think Sushi needs any changes - sushi should be a normal food so you benefit from using different types of fish, but I recommend disabling rice from non-sushi meals or your pawns will get really sick of rice.

Also, will you add compatibility for VCE stews etc.? Would be really helpful :D

Alright, thank you for the answer.

Caveat: Two meals with just corn and two meals with just rice (4 meals, 4 ingredients) is equivalent in variety to two meals with both rice and corn (2 meals, 4 ingredients), so you also don't need to try to minimize the ingredients.

No, but you wouldn't want to force that anyway. One meal with just rice and one meal with just corn is better for variety than two meals that both have rice and corn. The actual problem is when your cook makes ten meals with just corn even though rice is also available. That's not something I can easily fix. The Best Mix mod can help with that a little.

Is there any way to force cooks to make food with more ingredients than 1? Like making them cook simple meal from corn + meat and not only corn. I didnt tested the mod very much, sorry if i didnt notice some info is the description.

When pawns look for food, one of the factors they consider is taste thoughts. That's actually what causes pawns to choose lavish/fine meals. However, the thoughts from eating code is in a separate method from the food choice optimization (because it's also used when eating) and is less likely to be overwritten.

So yes, I was hoping the change would make this mod work better with mods that fundamentally change food choice, but I haven't studied or tested those mods, so I don't know if my plan worked.

Could you expand on the note from the last update?

---

Added half-day +1 thought when pawns eat a new variety. This was added primarily as a more effective and more compatible method for affecting a pawn's choice of food and replaces the old method of food selection tweaks.

---

It's not clear to me how a +1 thought replaces food-prioritization? Is this a vanilla mechanic I'm just not clear on?

Also: Does this mean this mod is now compatible with mods that fundamentally change the food-searching algorithm, like Room Food or Pawn Rules ? :D

I noticed Pawns wont make 4x Meals anymore for some reason after the last update

I've never used real dining, but looking at the features, they should work side by side.

Is this compatible with real dining mod? I like their dinner system, but this looks better at making your pawn eat various thing

That makes more sense... your frist statement woudl ahve affected drugs too, if I remember it correctly...

Vampires by Jecrell don't consume food but lower other pawns blood level and fill their own vitae need. they're fun on your team but horrible enemies.