Caravans are suicide missions

[sunshineinpa]

Two colonies now and in both I get fve or six peeps and decide a caravan of two makes sense.  First of all, 50 pemmican is less than a day of food.  I thought it was FOR caravans.  Second, both times, I send two off, they get ambushed by three meanies and die. 

What a waste.

[O Negative]

Pemmican doesn't offer any real perks for caravans. Food doesn't expire when it's in a caravan's inventory.

But, on the point, I agree to an extent. I'd like a bigger trade bonus for caravans traveling to other outposts/colonies for trade. Attacking other settlements had been a no-go for me after my first few. I haven't had much trouble with ambushes and other caravan events though.

[SpaceDorf]

Nice to know about the food, I also assumed that it would only hold for two or three days when I take other meals.

Which makes me wonder, why some caravans don't buy food .. this should be a priority for all of them :-D

[Limdood]

17 pemmican is equivalent to 1 meal.  Pemmican can be for caravans, but you'd better keep the exchange rate in mind...

The benefits of caravans are pretty massive if they're short range.  Trading with outposts is like trading with an exotic, combat, bulk, and slave trader all at once.  And they tend to have huge amounts of silver available.  Its basically "trade-ship-of-your-choice on demand."  If you're playing vanilla, fast access to luciferium, penoxycyline, non-herbal medicine, bionics, and early worthwhile guns is amazing.

As far as raiding goes, yeah, its early, but doing "stealth raids" is quite worthwhile....sneak in and steal, then run off.  Do NOT kill everyone, as that removes the settlement from the map.  raiding and running leaves the settlement there to hit again.  Outlander towns and tribes generally just have food, but pirates will have at least one stack of drugs (maybe luciferium!) and usually some medicine.  Not FANTASTIC, but could be worthwhile.

[sunshineinpa]

No, I get raided mid-route.  And I don't have enough military to hold them off.

[Hans Lemurson]

Two colonies now and in both I get fve or six peeps and decide a caravan of two makes sense.  First of all, 50 pemmican is less than a day of food.  I thought it was FOR caravans.  Second, both times, I send two off, they get ambushed by three meanies and die. 

What a waste.

No, I get raided mid-route.  And I don't have enough military to hold them off.

[zeidrich]

Pemmican is good for caravans, it's the best calorie to weight ratio. 

And while Pemmican doesn't spoil on caravans right now, the bigger thing is the long spoil time of it means that you can stockpile a lot of it prior to setting out, even when you're tribal and don't have good refrigeration.

But something to note, pemmican isn't weighted the same way as other meals.  A "meal" is 0.85-0.9 nutrition and takes 10 ingredients to make.  Pemmican is 0.05 nutrition and you make 18 with 10 ingredients.  So nutritionally, pemmican is as good as a fine meal, without the mood boost.

But each Fine Meal takes 0.44 weight, while 18 pemmican takes 0.36 weight. And Pemmican takes 80 days to rot, so you can build up a lot of them.

Also, you don't go overboard with Pemmican. With a fine meal, you might need 0.75 nutrition, and you'll eat a fine meal. That "wastes" 0.15 nutrition.  With Pemmican you'll eat 15 pemmican instead of 18.  So it lasts a bit longer.

But don't be surprised that your 50 pemmican didn't last long, that's like 13 berries and 13 bits of rabbit meat.

[b0rsuk]

It's odd, but hay weights less than kibble, so it's better for caravans.

Really though, grazing animals should get a feeding discount when there's no snow.

[cultist]

Really though, grazing animals should get a feeding discount when there's no snow.

Grazing takes a while. Pack animals can't graze while they're moving. The caravan would have to stop to allow time for grazing which would in turn increase travel time. Realistically speaking, anyway.

[SpaceDorf]

But travelling stops at night. Enought time to graze in the morning and evening. I don't think the animals get fed while travelling.

[Limdood]

I don't really understand...i have never had "dangerous" caravan attacks....it tends to be 1-3 sickly pirates with awful clubs and an LMG or 1-3 manhunters...this is when i'm taking thousands of pemmican and huge stocks of leather and silver, so my caravan wealth is pretty sizable.

Additionally, caravan attacks are RARE.  On the Sea Ice community challenge, i trekked across an ice planet with 100% coverage over the course of 2 in game years and only got attacked 6 times.

[SpaceDorf]

A short question ?

If I take animals to sell, do they require food too ?

[Limdood]

A short question ?

If I take animals to sell, do they require food too ?

yes

[SpaceDorf]

A short question ?

If I take animals to sell, do they require food too ?

yes

Damn .. makes sense .. but still .. damn.

[Panzer]

Caravaning is safe after mid to late game, when you got the research for droppods done. A few droppods and you can swiftly react to any ambush as long as the caravan stays in range (the range is fairly large though).