A17 Caravans and Joy

[kenmtraveller]

Sent my first A17 caravan off to form a second colony.  Around a 7 day journey.  Some feedback:

When it arrived, my colonists (who were quite happy before they left) went into a joy death spiral pretty much immediately (2 of 4 colonists went berserk, a third went on a sad wander, by the second night).  Am I supposed to build joy objects prior to shelter?  This didn't happen in my A16 game where I established new colonies via drop pod -- I had a reasonable buffer before lack of chessboard, pool table, tv , etc became a problem at the new colony.

Also, it would be nice to be able to pick where on the map my pack animals are unloaded.  I wanted to set up my base near the huge patch of fertile soil, and ideally would have unloaded my muffalo there.

I know 7 days in Rimworld is approx 1 month IRL, but I've actually been on a 1 month caravan journey (hobby is himalayan trekking -- have used both horses and yak as pack animals) and it was actually a lot more 'joyful' than my mundane life. Back in the days of the Silk Road  much much  longer caravan journeys were typical (see the book Desert Road To Turkestan for a great account of a camel caravan trip in China in the 19th century).    Maybe there should be inherent joy gain during a caravan trip, and maybe reset expectations at a secondary colony?  Next time I will pack the pool table I guess.

Ken

[Panzer]

Yeah colonists while caravaning cant gain joy, they only lose it slowly. Drop pods are almost instant, your colonists keep whatever joy level they had before the launch.

It would be nice if joy could be fixed at like 35% to 50% or something like that, til the devs come up with a better idea.
In the meantime, pack some drugs for your colonists, smokeleaf is a instant joy and mood boost at the cost of some conciousness and movement speed and has a low addiciton chance, yayo might be better since it provides a rest bonus and increased movement speed, but is also more addictive.

[kenmtraveller]

Ha, that is actually a great reason to use smokeleaf ... I generally never mess with drugs due to withdrawal risk but it seems I may need to adjust
Oh, and FWIW my results were on randy extreme... not sure how much of an effect that had, I was about to complain about the mortar attack against my 2nd colony on day 4 but then I realized that I was playing on the one setting where I really had no cause to complain

Ken

[ShadowTani]

Yeah, I agree current situation is a bit of a pain, hence why I gave a suggestion for how joy could be handled during travel in the suggestion forum a while back.

The drug stuff isn't too bad an alternative if you don't mind addicts. I wouldn't touch smokeleaf myself as it slows down movement too much which is counter intuitive for a caravan; yayo, however... It's not a very significant gain in joy though.

[Panzer]

Not significant? Both provide 80% joy, it doesnt get any better, on top of a +15/+35 mood bonus. The only drawback with yayo is the 10% addictiveness.
The slowdown with smokeweed is true though, a healthy pawn with 100% movement will move 60% after smoking. The best would probably be beer, you get 17% joy and a +8 mood bonus, with the -5 from joy deprived you get +3 mood, only 1% addictive, feel 10% less pain and get a slight manipulation malus of 2%. Beer though weighs 0,3kg per bottle as opposed to the 0,05kg of smokeweed or yayo...

In summary, pack some drugs or be prepared to waste some time on joy til the devs come up with something better

[orty]

I just sent a caravan of 3 colonists, 4 muffaloes, and 3 alpacas on the journey to find the Friendly AI.  I had heard about and experienced first-hand the joy issue so I packed a bunch of joints, a flatscreen TV and some pre-charged batteries to set up along the way to recover.  The trip has taken about 12 days so far and I still have to settle and build pod launchers to get over the last gulf between my peninsula and the flag, but... I never once had to stop and settle for joy, even with a couple ambushes where one or two colonists needed tending.  It looks like even though the joy bars will completely empty during a caravan, joy doesn't affect the mood bar while traveling.  Great improvement probably incorporated in the latest update.

This makes caravaning long distances actually feasible as long as you have some pemmican.  Best nutrition/weight, and with a rot timer of 1 year, it's basically good for any realistic travel time.

[Panzer]

Yeah you get no mood modifier for joy while travelling, thats always been like that, but as soon as you settle somewhere or arrive at your colony, the -20 for no joy is there, and thats the problem.

[giannikampa]

I'm finding these problems mentioned above first reasons to double think whether forming a caravan or not.
Plus I find it very bad when I'm forming a caravan using 15-20 animals and having to load just half of them: it takes days! meanwhile pawns sleep outside, in the cold, lack joy, rest and food even before the trip begins. Unavoidable stress spiral all the times.

[edit]
In my opinion traveling should give a small meditative joy, less than any other joy.
You'd be no more pleased in longest journey only because of tolerance.

[Bozobub]

New horizons can be rather refreshing, at least for some people.  This makes decent sense to me.

I can definitely get behind some sort of small joy bonus OR malus during a caravan, especially if it's tied to pawn traits somehow, current tile conditions, and/or some sort of random chance per day.  After all, the experience of running a caravan changes a LOT, between traveling over a firm, pleasant road on a sunny, breezy day and mucking it through waist-deep mud during torrential rains, or through snowdrifts in a blizzard!  And even then, people simply can have good or bad days, no matter how the trip is going .

Along these lines, it would also make sense to me to maintain the bonded pet mood bonus, as long as the pet is present in the caravan.