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[Demonic Gophers]

I'd like to see tags in the raws to determine how much food they need over the course of a year to survive, and how much they can eat at a time, with defaults determined by size.  Together, these tags would determine how often creatures need to eat.  They'd allow interesting things like shrews that have to eat an enormous amount every day to avoid starvation, and snakes that can swallow enough food for a month in a single meal.  Optimally these would also be influenced by size, age, physical activity, genetic influences on metabolism, and such, with the raws determining the typical needs of the species.

Maximum meal size would determine how much a character can eat at one time in adventure mode.  It should probably be drastically increased for fortress mode, so that dwarves would still have similar food requirements, but wouldn't have to spend all their time eating.

A tag for preferred meal size would also be nice, so that a creature might be able to eat enough to last them all day at once, but prefer several meals a day when possible.


Thoughts?

[Norseman]

Maximum meal size can probably be pretty large, provided the food is delicious. Food which dwarves find particularly delicious might be something they could eat well beyond when they would normally feel full of another food, at least, assuming dwarven eating habits are fairly similar to human eating habits. The really well made meals should be something that would allow dwarves to have several meals at a time, in effect, stuffing themselves until they feel almost sick.

Also, it's worth noting that not all meals should be equal in terms of how much they fill a dwarf per unit of food. If a dwarf has some ribs simmered in a sauce of strawberry mead, dwarven syrup and dwarven sugar, then deep-fried in tallow, it's probably going to keep him full a lot longer than just a raw plump helmet.

Finally, dwarves with backpacks are already able to carry two rations of food. When dwarves go to eat, they can simply stock up on food, and have snacks afterwards while they're walking. Adventurers could, of course, do the same thing. This is a good way for dwarves to maintain high working efficiency while maintaining regular food requirements.

Based on this, I don't think it's necessary to change the maximum meal size for different game modes. Just let player-run fortresses rely on delicious food to keep things running smoothly. If a player wants their dwarves to go on long hikes and work efficiently, then the player has to issue his dwarves backpacks and delicious food to give them that ability.