Hot and cold food.

[Destyvirago]

I was thinking if we could maybe get an option to serve cold food in addition to the hot meals we can currently serve the prisoners. When I speak of cold food I am referring to food that can be served straight from the refrigerator such as precut slices of bread and cheese and salami ect. Since no heating is required and almost no preparation, it should be easy for even a small kitchen to make meals enough to feed a large prison population.

Naturally a cold meal is a poor substitute for a hot meal, but it should reduce the food needs of the prisoners. As long as a prisoner gets 1 hot meal a day he should not complain too much. If you can manage to serve a prisoner more than 1 hot meal a day he should be more content and less likely to make trouble.

In practice this would be regulated in the regimen screen where you get the option to set "eat cold meals" and "eat hot meals". The cost of having a prisoner should be affected by how many meals they get each day and what type and quality they are. At the moment this is set as a value for every meal served each day, but I think we should be able to specify quality/amount for each mealtime we set in the regimen screen.

To make an example:

Breakfast at 09.00 cold meal/low variety This should get the prisoner started for the day and should be a pretty cheap meal
Dinner at 16.00 Hot meal/medium og high variety This is the main dinner of the day but depending on prison population there may not be enough for everyone.
Evening supper at 21.00 This could be a cold meal or a hot meal depending on how many the kitchen managed to feed at Dinner time. If many are still hungry it would be wise to use a high variety cold meal so everyone can get some food at least. If most got feed you could do a low variety hot meal.

Basically I think it could be fun to have more options for feeding the prisoners. This way the players can decide if they want to give the prisoners bread and water or 3 hot meals a day. Bread and water is cheap, but too much and the prisoners get restless but if you feed them more than 1 hot meal a day they become more content. The interesting managing aspect lies in finding a balance between what your kitchen can produce and the cost of the meals.

What do you guys think?

[Zynad]

That is actually not a bad idea, +1

[djchill]

I like this. Good idea

[HerrJoebob]

Makes a lot of sense to me too, I like it.

[Woldking2]

Pretty good idea, +1

[rsdworker]

some prisons have both - cold and hot at mealtimes - depends on size of prison
but also vending machines and prisoner food carts to serve to prisoners who locked in

[christopher1006]

I like this idea, if you were to integrate it with climates then you would have to look at what the temperature was outside. Naturally you aren't going to be thrilled with a hot meal on a 105 degree (Fahrenheit) day as much as opposed to some cold sandwiches and drinks or a cold sandwich in the winter as opposed to a hot meal.

[Sikee Atric]

This is a good idea. +1

[paktsardines]

I was thinking if we could maybe get an option to serve cold food in addition to the hot meals we can currently serve the prisoners.

And we should be able to upgrade the fridges.. and upgrade the stoves and the sinks. We should be able to send our prisoners to university, and take them out shopping. They should also release 'Prison Architect: Pets' expansion pack.

[Ric666]

I was thinking if we could maybe get an option to serve cold food in addition to the hot meals we can currently serve the prisoners.

And we should be able to upgrade the fridges.. and upgrade the stoves and the sinks. We should be able to send our prisoners to university, and take them out shopping. They should also release 'Prison Architect: Pets' expansion pack.

No need to be sarky.

It's a pretty good idea to be fair. It doesn't bring in any relationship/sims crap that I've seen in other threads. It at least sticks to solving basic needs.

+1 from me.

[paktsardines]

Sorry. Sarky aside, I don't really see how, gameplay-wise, it's any different to having high-variety and low-variety meals. Both cold meals and low variety meals are not very satisfying. Both hot meals and high variety food are satisfying. It seems redundant to have both. Maybe replace 'food variety' with 'hot and cold meals'. Whatever the label, the gameplay remains the same.

Christopher's climate suggestion is interesting because there's an element of gameplay to it (guessing the weather for when your food will be ready), but it's a layer of complexity that's probably not worth it.

[DringwrBach]

I'm with Sardine Man here.

A lot of faff for no payoff.

[HerrJoebob]

I'm with Sardine Man here.

A lot of faff for no payoff.

I disagree, if implemented properly (cold food is always available, say) it would give you options to spot-fix problems before they become long term headaches. For instance, with the hot-only option that takes 4 hours to make and 2-3 hour meals, it's common to get hunger spirals where a prisoner gets himself thrown in solitary during most every meal...

[111none]

Sorry. Sarky aside, I don't really see how, gameplay-wise, it's any different to having high-variety and low-variety meals. Both cold meals and low variety meals are not very satisfying. Both hot meals and high variety food are satisfying. It seems redundant to have both. Maybe replace 'food variety' with 'hot and cold meals'. Whatever the label, the gameplay remains the same.

Christopher's climate suggestion is interesting because there's an element of gameplay to it (guessing the weather for when your food will be ready), but it's a layer of complexity that's probably not worth it.

i not to keen on the idea as our friend here says, but i think the thread creator means that it could make prisoners even more unhappy

[Destyvirago]

Indeed my suggestion was a intended to provide a way to stop hunger spirals and give the player a meaningful method to control the feeding of the prisoners.

In a perfect prison the kitchen and canteen should always be big enough to feed every prisoner with a hot meal, but perfect is boring and since we will have control of a growing prison there will be times when prison population will be bigger than the kitchens ability to make hot meals for everyone.
Cold meals is meant to get some food to every prisoner before the need reaches critical levels. A prisoner that gets a cold meal should be much less likely to riot than a prisoner that missed out on his last 2 meals because the kitchen could only make 40 hot meals and the prison population is 100. Still in order for this mechanic to work the prisoners will want hot meals and if they go too long without one they will get restless an more likely to make problems and complain for other needs that are not met. Prisoners that get 2-3 hot meals a day should be more content and make less problems when other needs are not met, but the expenses for so many hot meals should greatly reduce the profit from each prisoner making it also an economic question.

So basically my suggestion is about giving the player options when dealing with a growing prison population that needs food and how quality of food affect the prisoners and their behavior as well as the economic aspect.

I would also suggest that "Kitchen" gets its own tab in the reports menu. From there you should get an report saying how many hot meals your cooks can make and you should be able to hire or fire them with a + and - button. But as you press + or - to hire or fire cooks the number of hot meals the kitchen can make will change to reflect the new number. This will give the player a means to see how they can affect the productivity of the kitchen. As it is now we don't really know how many extra hot meals we can make by getting a new cook. I think a tool to inform the player of this in an easy to see way will enhance accessibility to the game. The "Kitchen" tab should also give the player tips so if he has too many cooks he should be informed that he needs to make more stoves for more effectiveness. On the other side if he doesn't have enough cooks for all the stoves he should be informed that he should hire more cooks.