Caravans eating at 10x speed?

[Zaik]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm having to feed caravan members something like 10 meals a day. Surely this isn't intended, half their carry weight is just food to cover a 2 day walk and back.

Tried sending them with less to see if it was just a display error, sure enough they starved to death.

[ShadowTani]

How many is it in your caravan? One person would ideally in reality require 3 meals a day, Rimworld pawns actually consume less than this I believe. However, meals provide a small percent wasted weight compared to pemmican (since a meal will in weight be about as heavy as enough pemmican to cover 100% hunger, but since pawns will try to eat at 25% hunger a meal is never fully taken advantage of).

[Orange1861]

Typically, my pawns eat two meals a day, one after waking and one at the end of the work day. Even if I use smokeleaf to keep my pawns happy.

[NinjaDiscoJew]

I have noticed that caravans consume more food then pawns in the colony, maybe it has to do with the fact that traveling takes more energy to do then day to day tasks at the colony. Once again, How many people where in the caravans, and did you have any animals?

[DariusWolfe]

If you have animals, what type of animals, and what season?

Grazing animals don't need food during warmer seasons, because they can graze. Predators will need to be fed from your food supplies, as will all other animals during the winter months when grazing isn't an option.

[Zaik]

re-looked at the math, yeah 3-5 full meals per day is probably more accurate, not 10. So they waste at least 2.5 meals worth of food a day if you send them with anything other than pemmican? That's kind of frustrating, takes longer to prep a caravan than it takes to run one.

Still seemed like 780 pemmican for 5 people to make a 2.2 day trip out and back(around 4.5 total distance) was awfully high compared to what they eat at home though. No animals were sent so that's not the issue fortunately.

[DariusWolfe]

780 pemmican / 5 colonists / 4.5 days comes down to 34.667 pemmican per colonist per day.

Given the nutrition rate of pemmican (according to the wiki, .05) compared to say a simple meal (.85) it takes 17 pemmican to equal one Simple Meal; So, 34 pemmican per day is actually quite reasonable. Especially considering that .5 nutrition is required to make both a Simple Meal and an order of pemmican, pemmican is slightly more efficient, because it creates 18 units of pemmican for the same amount of resources as a single Simple Meal. Pemmican vs fine meals breaks even though, as 18 pemmican provides the same nutrition as a Fine meal for literally the same resources, doesn't have the mood boost (but does offer better usability for when refrigeration isn't an option, like on longer caravans).

On that note, this discussion has convinced me to start cooking pemmican for when I start doing caravans more often; At high enough quantities, that small efficiency boost might pay dividends. Right now, I often buy it as a way to make up for traders not having enough silver to cover what I want to sell.

Are you certain you're seeing 3.5 meals / colonist / day, and it's not just a case of expectations not matching reality? Because your pemmican numbers seem reasonable.

[O Negative]

DariusWolfe's math is accurate.

You can think of it like going on vacation from a job, I guess.
When you take cost into account, you have to realize you're not making money (pemmican/food) while you're spending it on vacation (caravan).
You'll find the cost to be a lot higher than you originally anticipated.

You're just used to making food at home while you consume it is all. That's why it seems like a lot

[Hans Lemurson]

The only trouble with Pemmican is the longer cooking time, and the lower stacking density.

[AngleWyrm]

This morning I got a new A17 event to go and raid a pirate base, so I took three guys ( btw DON'T take three guys XD ) and gave them a bunch of pickled vegetables and salted meat, figuring they have a good shelf-life. But when they got out on the road, the food counter showed days to rot of less than three days, and all their food just up and disappeared at the end of the count-down. So at the expense of loss of detail in food, we are more compelled to colonize two tiles from a base we wish to caravan to at some future point (see lolipop at left). What is the operational radius of a caravan? Is any of this moddable or was it already recognized as detrimental?