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I would also like this as an option. Sometimes you do want those crops pulled up and replaced right away... and sometimes you really don't. Would be nice to have the choice.

Since the changes to caravan calling price, this has become a real problem. There is a certain "trade bottleneck" period in the early-to-mid game when you finally have some goods to trade, but not enough money to call a caravan/bribe a faction to like you, and not enough pawns/gear to risk making your own caravan. And orbital traders are so random that you really can't rely on them. And there is no solution besides either sending your pawns on what will very possibly be a suicide mission with all your precious goods, or sitting around twiddling your thumbs and waiting for someone to visit you, and praying that they're the right kind of trader to buy what you've got. Neither is very fun or satisfying.

The only solution I know of is to deliberately settle 2 tiles from a friendly settlement on flat land so that you can send trade caravans to them in an hour. But... that isn't very satisfying either, to me anyway.

Not sure this would work effectively: while fine for pain mood debuffs, IIRC Painstopper /also/ increases drowsiness, so the relevant infected pawn is likely to spend most of their time in bed

Hmm, I don't think so? I never use the things because I consider them dangerous--it will often save a pawn's life for them to go incapacitated instead of keep fighting until they lose every limb--but the wiki says they don't work like that. http://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Painstopper

I still think it's not a great idea though, since there's still the problem that, even if you were to install a Painstopper on a Fibrous Mechanites-infected pawn, eventually that pawn would be bound to come down with the flu or get a scratch that you would have to treat, and AFAIK there is no way to only treat ONE infection/injury selectively... so you'd be left with a pawn you could never attempt to treat for any other illness or injury, lest you heal the mechanites, and that doesn't seem sustainable at all.

A couple times I've had a pawn with Fibrous Mechanites who missed a treatment for a day or so. If you skip a treatment, the pain you get from the ailment increases substantially. So it doesn't seem very sustainable to try to keep a pawn infected with it indefinitely. The pain penalty was something ridiculous like 60% IIRC. Maybe with a Painstopper? Otherwise definitely a problem.

You can't force a colonist who isn't sick or injured to stay in bed by any means that I am aware of.

You can force them to stay in their bedroom by sending them in there and forbidding the door, but they won't go to bed unless their work schedule is set to Sleep and they have less than 75% rest.

I have also noticed this oddity and I agree it should be changed.

I think they should just be insta-formed and be done with all the BS.

Agreed.
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Plus there is some precedence for this in the game already as when you sell stuff to visiting caravans neither their Pawns nor you own run around your base loading the items you sold, as they simply appear in the visiting caravan and disappear from your stockpile. So if that's acceptable for visiting caravans (and works great, as it's a nice and simple mechanic), then why the unnecessary complication for your own caravans?

I agree with all of this. Caravans would be far more usable if they simply insta-formed just like shipments to interstellar traders do. No one complains about a "lack of immersion" from not having to run around loading pods for the traders to beam up (well, not that I have seen, anyway). It's intuitively understood as a convenience mechanic that makes the game more playable and I believe it would work just as well for caravan formation.

It's now 1,100 silver to call a caravan?  Is that normal or is everyone smart enough to really not want to go wandering around in Tundra in the middle of winter?

Sadly, this is now normal. However, you can lower the cost to a still-cringe-worthy 700 if you bribe them to friendship first.

Given the hell I have experienced with my own caravans, I guess it makes sense that they don't want to leave the safety of their base for anything less. 

Also, you may know this, but just in case... visiting caravans will now immediately leave if the outside temperature becomes "dangerous," which it probably is in winter on the tundra... so be prepared to do your trading really quickly, or better yet, wait until spring.

This is, in fact, classic Randy behavior and exactly what one should expect when selecting him: long stretches of nothing potentially punctuated by extreme hell crisis.

If you want "more difficult constant raiding," you want Cassandra on a high difficulty.

Like the "Pause until x" threshold that was incorporated for crafting and cooking bills? I like the idea a lot.

+1 billion, currently I refuse to play in the more predator-heavy biomes because this nonsense irritates me so much.

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. 

Are you in a cold area? I've only tried caravanning in year-round growing areas and the pack animals just graze along the way and leave my food alone.

Sounds like you've got the combat music playing for no reason. As do many of us. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=33276.0

As a variation on this... I just started a brand new game after the patch and the very instant my 3 colonists crashlanded the combat music started. Of course there was no combat going on... but there WAS an Ancient Danger on the map which I opened out of curiosity and indeed found was full of angry mechanoids. Don't know if that's what caused it... but after reloading the map a few times (to the pre-mechanoid-reveal state) and finding it never stopped the combat music, I just junked the colony and started over. Thankfully the new one does not have the same problem, though it means I do not have the previous save anymore.

ETA: It's happened again, new colony, instant combat music at crashlanding, opened the ancient danger with dev mode and there were mechanoids inside which seem to be the only possible cause.