Hunting, Gathering, and Mining with Caravans

[Qyubey]

Something of a simple suggestion, but could the option be implemented for a caravan to stop and, say, 'Explore' the current tile without creating a new colony?

Similar to how encounter maps are generated when you are attacked, you could generate temporary maps containing minerals, animals, and other resources. This would allow you to set up small groups to go off and perhaps mine mineral-rich zones or go on long hunting trips during the winter. It could also make raid-less nomadic play much more viable without having to plonk down a settlement every so often. To make it distinct from a colony, perhaps building options could be vastly restricted - no walls or workbenches, but perhaps a bedroll or some kind of tent or yurt for sleeping inside. It'd also be useful to have the option to butcher an animal without a table, perhaps without leaving skin since you're not cutting it at the table.

Basically I was just surprised that when travelling, the only option to get more food was to found an entire new colony, then basically just make a bunch more food and re-abandon that colony to keep moving.

[bills6693]

100% agree, this would be great. I wanted to do this to go get more metal as I was out on my starting, plains map. I went to the mountain and wanted an encounter map or something but the only thing I could do was found a whole new colony on this big map to get some metal.

Agreed that you should be able to get an encounter map, be limited in building options and just hunt and mine and scavenge. I don't want a new settlement which I may have to abandon, and has its own raids/drop pods/etc (although I think your little temporary map should be the chance to be attacked by wargs/raiders etc)

[Fafn1r]

Good ideas. I'd love to see an option to generate small "scavenging" maps. My poor laptop can barely handle one large map, not to mention another just for gathering resources.

[Mitz]

we need this.
even if it is automatic, and you can only control it during events like ambushes and such, i'd be very happy to pop over to the rainforest, grab some monkey butt, some wild crops (VG) and some sorta metal, and get out of there back to camp.
brilliant idea!

[rina_m]

oh my god yes it would be like oregon trail