Consumables

Consumables is the colony management chart used to control which food and medical items each Duplicant is allowed to consume. When opened, it shows a roster of all Duplicants on the left and a grid of discovered or manufactured consumables on the right. It is one of the main tools for preventing waste, controlling morale, and making sure specialized supplies are reserved for the Duplicants who actually need them.

The leftmost column lists each Duplicant’s head, name, skill points, and morale on separate rows. These rows can be sorted by name or morale, and the top row is used to configure consumables for new Duplicants. The main grid displays an icon for every food and medicine item the colony has unlocked. Hovering an item shows a tooltip with its name, available calories or units, morale bonus if eaten, and a short description. Food items are grouped by morale bonus, while medical items are grouped by effect. If there are too many items to fit on screen, the list can be scrolled with the scrollbar or mouse wheel.

Each item column has a checkbox for every Duplicant row. A checked box means that Duplicant is allowed to consume that item. Clicking a checkbox toggles permission, clicking an item icon toggles the whole column, and the rightmost button in a Duplicant row toggles that Duplicant’s entire row. The button in the top right toggles every checkbox at once. Checkbox color also communicates item type and food quality: medicine and Grisly food appear white, while higher-morale foods become increasingly purple.

Consumables is especially useful for rationing and hygiene control. Common practices include:

• Keep Curative Tablet enabled for all Duplicants, since any Duplicant can suffer Food Poisoning.
• Restrict Vitamin Chews or Immuno Boosters to Duplicants working in germy environments so they are not wasted on everyone.
• Restrict Basic Rad Pills to Duplicants that are expected to absorb more than 100 Rads per cycle.
• Deselect raw or unprocessed ingredients that will later be cooked, such as raw Meat, so Duplicants eat the higher-quality finished food instead. This avoids morale penalties and stress buildup.
• Basic Rad Pills are consumed even by Duplicants who are not already irradiated, so they are best managed manually.

For Bionic Duplicants, Power Banks and Oxygen Canisters are available as consumables, but Polluted Oxygen Canisters are not, even though they are still technically consumable.