I think it is a nice unique anomaly but in my experience, a really big problem that no one in the comments mentioned yet is that a single piece of pie has a value of $100+, and it skyrocketed my wealth (when they kept multiplying in a cave). The pieces were also sellable to traders wandering.

I would simply suggest the pie not having any value at all or be able to expire.

I haven't encountered issues with the pie. The main thing is being able to research it fast enough to be sure that the pieces won't cause big problems to those eating them

After finding that the pieces were mostly safe, I assigned my prisonners to a pie-only diet and it cleared them all

I also confirm the wealth issue. Each piece is worth a lot, which can cause a wealth bump for those that let the pies pile up

The wealth of each piece probably now would go down 200 => 12. I think I might have just forgot to change it before release, cause only Big Pie itself was suppose to be pricy. Which wouldn't cause as much wealth issue, even if for some reason none of pieces gets consumed.

Related to debuff from consuming piece, it suppose to be consumed 1 piece per day, which give slight version of debuff that wear off before next day and next piece consumption. While if some pawn eating more than 1 per day will accumulate debuff for longer time. So ye, prisoners as one of the options can be utilize, if don't care about their speed or there is piece crysis, or as intended just can be used by normal colonists, but only one piece per day.

Also, any insights from player perspective on reasons why pieces not consumed or decided to be left piling up till critical mass?

Mine was my experience with another anomaly mod, that added an entity object that made me lose the pawn that interacted with it. I became much more careful about who touches what

As long as the pieces weren't confirmed to be safe, the possibility of them causing any harm (it could've been anything: infestation like the metalhorrors, cube-like addiction to the pieces, ect) made me reluctant to have anyone ingest them at first

Understandable, for such psychological reason ig nothing can be done. I tried to imply more that it needed to be eaten in study notes, but ig it backfired for more cautious players.

I'm sitting at 2k pies and steadily rising, I didn't want to eat it before I knew it was safe after the Big Apple nearly killed one of my colonist, and it got out of hand, fast.

I also have a very well fed colony so none of my pawns defaulted to eating the pies unless they were hungry near the containment area of my colony so mostly human error on my end.

JayFoxley, I see, that also understandable. Also about Apple, it actually pretty hard to die from it, cause while it spooking you with condition that showing that you will die, the condition itself actually don't increase on it own to lethal state, unless you use some tricks to eat apple once again (which require increasing consciousness via some other substances). Giving you as much time as you need to find/make serum.

While ig for pie it just going south faster, than people realize what threat it bring or than study itself going. From testing it was reaching 512 pieces at the moment of last study note unlocked (10 days), if left uneaten at all. But maybe I should lower the amount of days it take too or I just didn't consider that there is ways that decrease study efficiency. Ngl I wish study notes was easier customizable, than it is in DLC.

I thought the pie was an interesting anomaly, but I feel sorry for the colonist who had to eat it given the slowdown after!

I ended up leaving the pie slices out for wild animals to eat while I got things under control.
Maybe another way to get rid of the pie could be to get a Devourer to eat it?

Space Moth, btw, about the debuff, now related serum also decrease time of pie effect.

I will keep it in mind for next time, totally missed that!

It one of new changes in latest update, so doubt you missed it, unless you were playing with pie today.

For some reason, in my current play, although i would have only <10 pies, the big pie kept on creating new ones for a long time, almost never ending, far more than the number of pies already have. The timer for crating a new slice also stayed at 0 all the time. The slices were piled up in the same tile, due to the stack mod. Weirdly, The amount of pieces it shows on the big pie description is different and lower than the real one (4 vs 8 for instance), and equal to only 1 stack.

Blacksoul, I not sure what can be the reason in AE mod itself, unless some other mod is
interfering. Stack mod also prob one of issues, cause pieces was never meant to be stacked, so maybe game getting issues, when trying to count them separetly.

The slices should be classified as acceptable food types for all, as my carnivore pawns get food poisoning eating them.

I was worried about making my colonists eat anomalous pie when they hadn't fully studied it yet since it could have killed them or something (especially as it slows them down, it made me wary of it). I tried combating it instead by putting the pie in a containment chamber, but the pie slices overflowed through the walls, and by the time that became apparent it wasn't going to hold the pie in it was too late. I now have over 2000 slices of pie and have still not finished studying it. I can't do anything to stop it, I just hope the final studying stage will let me delete pies really quickly or I'm doomed LOL