Malnutrition

Malnutrition is a health condition that occurs once any pawn hasn't eaten to the point that they starve. When a pawn is malnourished, they will eat literally whatever they can get their hands on (whether it be a lavish meal, some raw food, or even a human corpse) in order to prevent themselves from further starving to death. As of Alpha 16, Malnutrition also increases the hunger rate and likelihood that affected pawns will start a social fight if slighted or insulted.

Malnutrition increases by 2% per hour, with initial symptoms including a faster hunger rate, slight loss of consciousness, and an increased chance of social fighting. Advanced symptoms include loss of consciousness, and eventually, death. Malnutrition will begin decrease by 2% per hour after the pawn is fed, during which time they continue to suffer from the different stages of the condition.

Stages

Trivial - Severity: 0 - 0.19

• -5% Consciousness
• 1.5x Hunger Rate
• 1.5x Chance of Social Fighting
• -22 Mood

Minor - Severity: 0.2 - 0.39

• -10% Consciousness
• 1.6x Hunger Rate
• 2x Chance of Social Fighting
• -29 Mood

Moderate - Severity: 0.4 - 0.59

• -20% Consciousness
• 1.6x Hunger Rate
• 2.5x Chance of Social Fighting
• -36 Mood

Severe - Severity: 0.6 - 0.79

• -30% Consciousness
• 1.6x Hunger Rate
• 3x Chance of Social Fighting
• -42 Mood

Extreme - Severity: 0.8 - 1

• Loss of Consciousness (Severity: 0.8-0.99)
• -50 Mood (Severity: 0.8-0.99)
• Death (Severity 1)

Because malnutrition decreases Consciousness, it can be very dangerous to wounded prisoners, recent surgery patients, or others who may already have a Consciousness at 10% or lower and are unable to feed themselves. Dropping -5 or 10% more can kill just that quick.

Tips on Prevention

Straightforward: Make sure there's a decent surplus of food in your freezer, and don't take on more prisoners or colonists than your food supplies can handle. Ensure that meals are easily accessible - raw food is significantly less efficient in terms of nutrition than even simple meals.

Don't be afraid to resort to nutrient paste in certain circumstances (e.g. toxic fallout, wildfire that wipes out a significant chunk of wildlife, migration); it's the most efficient way to get nutrition from food out of any meal, yielding 0.9 nutrition from only 6 of any ingredient- the same as a fine meal, and you can't get food poisoning from it.