Rustic Meal Retexture

After playing Medieval Overhaul for a few playthroughs and then returning to VE mods, one of the things that hit me the most was the vanilla meal trays.

Not only do they look subpar compared to the rest of the VE content, but they also don’t thematically fit any colony that isn’t an industrial era cafeteria.

Description

This is a simple patch that replaces vanilla meal textures with ones more fitting for pre-industrial playthroughs.

Changed Meals

• Simple Meal
• Fine Meal
• Canivore Fine Meal
• Vegetarian Fine Meal
• Lavish Meal
• Canivore Lavish Meal
• Vegetarian Lavish Meal
• Nutrient Paste Meal
• Packaged Survival Meal (and Ideology variations)

Updates

29/03/25 - Nutrient Paste Meal

Nutrient Paste has been retextured.

02/04/25 - Packaged Survival Meal

All three Packaged Survival Meals have been retextured.

10/04/25 - Vanilla Cooking Expanded

All original VCE Meals have been retextured.

13/04/25 - Vanilla Cooking Expanded: Stew

VCE Stews have been retextured.

14/04/25 - Big and Small - Genes & More

Note: On 1.4 and 1.5 only.

All B&S Large Meals have been retextured.

17/04/25 - Sauced Meals & Bakes, Ashes and Vanilla Simple Meals

All Sauced Meals have been retextured.

23/04/25 - Veg/Meat Ideology Variants to Nutrient Paste Meal, Fine Meal, and Lavish Meal

Added Ideology variants to Nutrient Paste, Simple Meal, Fine Meal and Lavish Meal.

26/04/25 - Baby Food & Pemmican

Pemmican and Biotech Baby Food have been retextured.

07/05/25 - VCE - Carnivore/Vegetarian Meals Patch

VCE Carnivore and Vege Meals Patch variants have been retextured.

16/09/25 - Survival Meal Pallet

Odyssey Survival Meal Pallet has been retextured.

Design Considerations

The new textures follow vanilla’s design philosophy:

• While they’re no longer rectangular, they maintain a round shape for easy recognition at a distance
• Their color reflects meal quality and ingredients (mixed, vegetarian, or meat-based).
• Includes x2 and x10 stack variants.

Technical Details

• Safe to add mid-game and should be safe to remove.
• Textures match vanilla resolution (128x128).
• Obviously, if you advance to Spacer tech while using this mod, your Spacer Pawns will still eat from bowls - but that has its own charm, right?

Future Plan

1. Odyssey DLC support
2. Kibble
3. VE Cooking: Haute (Investigating)
4. Meals from Alpha Bees
5. Cannibal and Insect Meals
6. Rotten Meat (if it gets to 1.6)
7. Sanguine Dining
8. Better Survival Meals
9. Vanilla Nutrient Paste Expanded: Reimagined Progression

Credits

• Made using photopea
• Inspiration comes from Medieval Overhaul
• Above screenshot was made using Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribals, Vanilla Factions Expanded - Medieval 2, and Clean Textures

Assets

If you want to reuse the assets and make your own, here's a link to all my original files:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/czwsnxia9dblrtdr19opr/ADM3_oDVcDkCx9Ghp1lQdzY?rlkey=vwmfd1ek8wyg52f564wk5lqz6&st=4ds9ha4k&dl=0