Messages

Longswords. Plasteel, colony-made longswords.

Great for the occasional Brawler for the sheer damage which often removes limbs in one hit. I don't prefer melee, but I can't deny the effectiveness of a Brawler ambush in a tight corridor.

I would be nice to at least break them down for parts and resources if they can't be used.

Interesting. That makes me like caravanning as a money maker even less than I already do. Every time I set out with enough goods to make a worthwhile profit, it ends up attracting bandits who are ludicrously overmatched for my caravan guards and usually with flame launchers to set our precious goods on fire. This is on the way to a settlement that is literally a one-day trip away, mind you. I don't know how people manage to make this new trading paradigm work for them. 

I feel your pain, but I must say I've never had any problem with the raids. The most I've ever gotten was two half-naked pirates with clubs charging two of my partly bionic soldiers with their custom-made excellent assault rifles. And I send them out for up to two weeks at a time!

I used to rescue and fix up crash landers but stopped once they started joining my colony without my consent. Now I just leave them to die.

I think you can just capture them, treat them, then release them if you don't want a really crappy colonist.

Your colony will run as if you were still there. Likewise, your caravan will keep moving and resting by itself and likely won't to be watched.

You can switch between the two very quickly, but shouldn't have to do so very often.

Yeah, definitely clothing.

It helps to always keep everyone dressed in clean, full durability clothes.

Indeed! I use them to ambush attackers from behind while colonists distract them from far away with assault rifles, but nothing is as deadly as they are.

Now that wooden floors burn as well as walls, I'd really recommend you place a few firefoam poppers here and there. They're kinda pricy, but well worth the investment.

Personally I find explosives to be far superior in basically every situation, as they will always kill or seriously injure their target upon successful detonation/hit, whereas incendiaries hardly do any damage over a period of time and can damage player structures or destroy all of the phat loot. ('Course, multiple explosive shells will destroy things just the same, but they'll at least count one's enemies among them.)

A useful trick I've learned is to send out another caravan to meet a first if reinforcements or supplies are needed.

I had a caravan get ambushed by raiders, and they had to spend a day tending to a prisoner whom they brought back to the colony with them. The time lost in addition to the slower movement speed and extra mouth to feed caused them to run out of food way before I had initially planned. I simply sent another few colonist out to meet them carrying a large amount of extra food.

The result: A bunch of healthy colonists, a pile of silver, and a free prisoner.

What if your caravan are resettling across different zones and have to change their clothes/apparel along the way? I dont see an option to camp or to change/equip/drop clothing.

I'm asking since one of my caravan settler died of heatstroke on the way to the destination.

You can swap out weapons and clothing in the Gear tab. This can be done to anyone from anyone instantly, and can even access any clothing not currently equipped.

Snip snip!

I was think that this would more or less be a system employed for a raiders. A small room that opens from your kill box to the exterior so they must enter it to get into your base proper.

Another system i'm considering is paneled flooring that they run over and then i would ignite that with a Molotov as they attempt a retreat so their paths is blocked by fire.

The fires they start are extremely small, I don't think just a small room would have much of an effect on incoming raiders.

An idea I've thought of is to have a long, thin corridor with wooden floors and IEDs at the front and end. Ideally, the IEDs would explode as the first pawn went though and again when the same pawn leaves. Anything else would hopefully be caught between two growing flames travelling along the wood towards them. I haven't gotten to test this idea at all, but that'd be one of the only ways to make a practical use of an incendiary IED, in my opinion.

Otherwise, they at most distract and stall a few raiders for a couple seconds. They might even down a wimp.

They're surprisingly effective against raids as well now. Every time a group attacks my colony but waits out for a bit, I rain explosives down upon them and tear them limb from limb before anyone's even fired a shot.

I've set up incendiary IEDs on 5x5 wooden floors here and there around my base, but so far nothing's triggered them.

They seem extremely underwhelming by themselves though, if there's nothing around to burn. I had one trigger on plain sand and dirt patch in my base while some man-eating foxes were roaming about. After stepping on the thing about fifty times it finally set off, and it only set one of the four or five foxes around it on fire.

I get that it's probably not meant to be used against animals, but I would have at least expected the whole blast area to be a blaze of glory, like a really big Molotov with fuel puddles to sustain the fire for a bit. Maybe the wooden floors will let the fire spear a little more. Otherwise, why not just use a regular IED?

EDIT: The wooden floors don't do too much. A few squares catch fire, but unless you build the IED & floors in a tight chokepoint you'd be better off with even just a deadfall trap, if not an explosive IED.

used to be half a year.  Tynan said A17 would be longer i believe

Hmm, alright. Thanks!

And if so, how long does it take to restock?

I'll already traded with the four closest friendly towns and bought up much of their useful equipment, but I've noticed even after a long time one of them still only has a Joywire and no bionic parts, even after multiple seasons have gone by.

If not, well, that's something to look for in the future!