wich are your most thumb down about caravan?

[giannikampa]

Assuming the feature is going to be revamped in next alpha, would we try to aggregate the worst of it as it is now?
Mine on caravan forming, are:
-Pawns won't use their bedroom during caravan formation and go mad abut it
-We can't easily select healty animals to be a part
-We can't estimate how long it will take for the caravan to be ready (sometime it takes days but you'll never know in advance)
- We can't rethink what we are gonna take with us or where we will leave the map from once the order is given (forgot med herbs anyone? too late!)

add yours, please and thankyou

[Bolgfred]

-We can't estimate how long it will take for the caravan to be ready (sometime it takes days but you'll never know in advance)

Totally Agree on that. There should be a preparation camp, where you can prepare a bag or something with a colonists name that can be filled as needed. When caravan starts, every pawn just catches its bag and is ready to go.

- We can't rethink what we are gonna take with us or where we will leave the map from once the order is given (forgot med herbs anyone? too late!)

Not sure, if it's what you meant, but I am very upset about the fact that you cannot go back to the map, once you left.


My personal problem with caravans is, that I have no reason to use them.
The traders that come for you, are a thing that is limited to the AI, as there is almost no reason for the player to visit somebody for trading, because almost everything needed is on the players own map. Beyond that, travel costs, alias food, is so high, that it makes more sense to call another caravan to you instead of starting your own.

For caravaning itself I'd wish to see more preparation options to increase carry weight, sleep quality, camp security. Example:
-tailoring bags for pack animals (by now you get them by free)
-moveable furniture like tents, or reassemblyable walls
-gear for colonists like wandering stick, snow shoes, shoes in common, compass

Last but not least I'd wish carry weight influence caravan speed. When I go for a raid, having nothing with me but food and guns, I wish to travel fast.
This could be defined by the percentage of used capacity (>50% carry weight = +25% speed; >25% = +50% speed). Or I could be defined by caravan creation, where you can choose a caravan type like transport, raid or hunting trip

[Trylobyte]

For me the biggest downside to caravans is quite simple.  Caravans are always inefficient.  While there are exceptions (hunting bionics in vanilla) as a general rule you will never need to use caravans for anything.  In the early game they require too much of a resource investment and can't carry enough to be worthwhile compared to gathering resources from the map, plus you risk losing precious colonists and resources to ambushes.  Past that though, it's easier, safer, and more profitable to request caravans come to you since it means the other guy is assuming all the risk.  Silver isn't likely to be an issue if you have any kind of industrial capacity and you'll likely make your silver back and then some by offloading things.  You're not spending time or resources feeding your own caravaners and their animals (because you need animals to transport a reasonable amount of anything), you're not exposing your colonists to ambushes, you're not compromising your security by having important colonists unavailable for raids.  And there's really no reason to pursue trade with a settlement as their selection isn't much bigger and they don't have much more silver than a regular caravan.

[Nameless]

Attacking Settlements is unrewarding as they usually only have a few food stuffs and poor weapons available for you to steal once you clear of the enemies. But sometimes it doesn't have anything for you to steal other than a few solar panels
and batteries which is not worth all the travel time.

Friendly towns don't refresh their stocks once you go there once and therefore you have no reason to go back once you took what you wanted from them.

Rare resources are totally not worth the time to gather. There is no real use of Jade and Gold other than to make statues out of.

[Vlad0mi3r]

I don't have any issues at the moment with how caravans work. I find the challenges involved in using them add an interesting element to the game. Caravans do require planning and initially I have had a lot of trial and error to get things right. I hope that any changes in the future are purely cosmetic.

[Jibbles]

Well, caravanning is kind of essential in flat maps.  It's a bit time consuming to gather plasteel and other resources until you get drilling researched.  Can't rely on visitors to gather resources in Randy.

I would like improved estimated time arrival. 
I don't like how it says your food spoils in 2 days if your pawn has a meal in their pocket.
I would like a way to EDIT instead of canceling what you take while pawns form caravans and transport pods.
Getting ambushed by manhunter packs sucks, and it's one reason why I don't travel long without transport pods.
I also believe a pawn can get a disease while caravanning. Maybe they die in most cases since can't receive proper treatment but I don't remember.

[Blastoderm]

There is no easy way to prevent Packaged Survival Meal from being consumed or reserved for caravans, so providing meals for caravans is troublesome. And of course they are inefficient. Better request caravan, than go through all the trouble of assembling and traveling.

[Bolgfred]

One alternative idea could be that you can rent a caravan. Everytime a trader shows up on your map, you can make demands für the next visit. The effectivity and precision of these demands depends on negotiators social skills:

Skill: Description " Example"
3: Pawn can ask for Basic types "More Clothing, Wood, Leather"
5: Pawn can say what he doesn't want next time "No more leather
6: Pawn can say what he wants exactly "More Panther Leather, No Cowskin"
8: Pawn can ask for specific items "More Silver Clubs, No Cowskin pants"
10: Pawn can demand quality "no items below masterwork"
15: Pawn can sell arts "This Statue is extraordinary. I sell it for 500% price to you, my friend"

For every point in social one additional demand can be added, up to, you get it, 20 different demands per visit.

Additionally to this, a Pawn can be sent alone, carrying silver only to another Camp and buy things, which will be delivered by the trade partner, as soon as they can deliver.
By this you can also trade with raiders, but they might have a 50/50% chance or something, that when your negotiator arrives on their map, he will be attacked or talked.


BONUS: Every camp got their own ressources. Not in clear numbers, but in eh... flames, depending on their surrounding.
E.g. if there are mountains 3-5 fields around them, they will have more stones and steel.
In a tropical forest, more medicine. Colder regions more fur / leather.
By this they can fulfill demands worse or better. When you order guns from a tribal they might give you a badly shaped uzi or a rifle, but probably nothing.

[Panzer]

I think an easy to do change would be to list the movement speed of each pawn in the caravan formation tab, that way we wouldnt need to double check all the time if we picked the healthy animals or colonists.

Playing on randy intense, I usually send out 1-2 people caravans, with a pack animal maybe, the ambushes and manhunters I got were never unbeatable, most of the time 2 raiders or manhunters that I could deal with easily, and that was during a 4 years game.
I think most of you got screwed in A16 when the ambushes were meaner and havent really tried since, but caravans are pretty good in my opinion.
Packing could be better though, I still dont understand why only one colonist can be assigned as a packer to one drop pod, if I try to load it with a high amount of pemmican for example, it takes ages til it is finished.
Same for the pack animals, takes ages since they need to carry stuff to the animal. What I learned from that is use more colonists instead since they can pack themselves and low weight items with a high stack count are perfect for trading (-> drugs) or low weight high value stuff like thrumbo horns or scyther blades. Id rather run 2 small caravans than one big one.

Ordering traders doesnt really pay off unless you re looking for something specific like bionics or neutroamine in high amounts, traders have low money since A17, cost 700 silver when ordered and only buy specific stuff, faction bases though buy everything, you get a trade bonus because its a faction base, and they have way more money and stock than your average trader and you can save the 700 bucks and spend it on something else.

[Trylobyte]

Ordering traders doesnt really pay off unless you re looking for something specific like bionics or neutroamine in high amounts, traders have low money since A17, cost 700 silver when ordered and only buy specific stuff, faction bases though buy everything, you get a trade bonus because its a faction base, and they have way more money and stock than your average trader and you can save the 700 bucks and spend it on something else.

Thing is, this is generally the only reason you trade.  You need something, and probably in volume.  It's easier and safer to have the trader bring it to you than it is to go out and get it yourself, and when you factor in packing and travel time, cost of food, cost to maintain pack animals, and lost productivity from traveling pawns, it's also generally cheaper.

[giannikampa]

Not sure, if it's what you meant, but I am very upset about the fact that you cannot go back to the map, once you left.

i was referring to the phase when you order a new caravan to be formed in your colony, then accept, then realize you made a mistake

[sadpickle]

For me the biggest downside to caravans is quite simple.  Caravans are always inefficient.

1+ This. They are just crappy, no two ways about it. I'm sure once you factor in time spent packing, traveling, food consumed, potential for calamity etc. that it's MORE expensive to send one than to just request. They usually carry enough silver to cover to costs of requesting PLUS some extra. This keeps me in supply of caravans indefinitely.

I hope Tynan will consider easing the burden of forming caravans greatly (esp. when using draft animals, yikes), instead of making them more expensive to request.

[Bozobub]

I haven't found one, single compelling reason to mess with caravans at all.

[Lowkey1987]

Hello!

I think, I will repeat some things. But I write my experience and expectations down.

ATM there are two types of caravans: On foot and with drop pods.

The easy one is the drop pod caravan. I can pack my stuff some time before i go on a trip. Everything is easy, but also: Its only late game for me.

The hard one is a caravan on foot.

First: Why would i send such a caravan?
-I have a great stock of items which i want to sell.
-I want to complete a quest
-I want to build a new colony
-I really NEED something
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Second: What affects my opinion on sending a caravan.

- Seasons:
I often play with different seasons. Atm i only can grow crops 1/4 of a year. This is the time i NEED my pawns to plant and harvest crops for the rest of the year. Also, summer is the time when a caravan is the fastest.
- Animals:
Do i have animals which can transport things?
- Pawns:
Do i have enough people, which could defend themselves in the meantime AND defend the caravan.
-------
Third: Benefit
- I can sell everything fast in great quantity's
- I can gather good stuff (counts too for raiding or mining)
--------------------------------------
I have these three points and at their end there is a caravan or not.
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Where are the Problems?

First:
I never want to build a permanent second colony. So, this falls flat.
I also never really NEED something. My pawns are capable to care for themselves. If not, I mostly would die.
This leaves Quests and Silver for me. But these are good targets. It's my playstyle, other people probably prefer other things.
------

Second:
Seasons... here is my first main problem. Let's say you have 50% summer, 50% winter.
I would never send a caravan in winter. It is to slow (Pawns are long on their way and don't protect my silver). Perhaps they would take the whole winter for a 5-day summer trip. So, 50% of the time, I don't think about it.
I only send them, when the snow has melted and my plants are planted. The first days of summer have to go by. They have to be back for the harvest. I must look at the travel time. Let's say: 10% at the beginning of Summer and 10% at the end of Summer are important for my colony.
In the end, i would be left with 30% of the year to travel. My maximal distance is 15% of a year (60 Day *0,15 = 9 days as max travel distance).

Opinion:
This is fine, at least. If you want to trade much. You could choose a starting point, where many towns are connected with streets. My problem is, i don't know how good such a street is. How far will my pawns go in the end? Highway? Sounds fine, but will it matter? When you plan the location of the colony, for me it is hard to assume:"Ahhh.. this is a really good travel road." Even as player with ...many hours in game.
So i cannot plan, how far i can go in which time.

Animals:
You have them, or not. But let's consider you have your animals only for trading transport. As you can see, you can only use them 30% of the time in my example. Yeah, they give wool and milk for 70% of the time. In winter they don't graze, so winter is a worse idea to travel with animals. But you must feed them the whole year, which can be ... hard.
I am not a businessman, but they should pull 100% of their costs in 30% of the time.
Last but not least: They could eat your Quest Items ( i never do a trading Quest like (give us 3000 Smokeleafes, Corn, etc)) which is ...harsh.

Pawns:
When can you spare some pawns? You need people to defend your colony and your caravan. It's a hard decision but this is okay!
------
Third:
Can I sell everything?
ATM ...no. Make a good drug production, and you won't sell everything.
I use mods, so I have items which costs 16000 Silver. This is nice. But it's not vanilla. In vanilla cities have, like 4000 Silver. Perhaps something I would buy. So, I need MANY colonies around my own if I want to make money. I need roads to them. Perhaps i choose mountains or no mountains? Mountains total destroy trading.
Also, the cities reset the inventory only after time. Mostly i have to wait a year.

Opinion: A city should have great amounts of silver. When i have the pawns, the season, the animals and the roads, the products, but the city didn't have much money... its not nice. I could go to the next city... and so on. But even with 3 cities you get around 12000 Silver. That's not as much as you might think. If you use drop pods, you can say: You need around 320 steel and arround 100 fuel for a trip. Which cost you already over 700 silver.

Can i gather good stuff (Quests/Raids)?
Okay... i just get used to it. And i never use a caravan for this, only drop pods.
One-Guy, food and drugs for 5 days, wood for a hood, a fire and a bed. And a Psychic animal pulser. First day: Enemy dies. Second Day: Animals go to sleep. Third day: Loot and use drop pods to get home.
And for mining i also only use drop pods.

Conclusion:
I like trading but call a trader is ATM better than sending a caravan. You maybe can only add 400 Silver per trade, but you have your pawns to produce things.
A city 6 tiles with streets away takes 2 days one way (I think) and this is to okay, but not common. Of course, i could seek out a starting point which more cities, but .. I use "ManyFactions" and think in vanilla there are less cities. ATM i have 3 Cities around me (in Mountains) and I am at war with 2 of them (loot them often).
Also at the beginning of the game i cannot afford the animals for transportation. Do i grow food for the animals, or for my pawns/drugs to sell? Had better call a trader and sell as much as possible.
Also: In the first years, what do you want to buy? Steel perhaps, but steel have weight. Wood also (if you are in a cold biome). You cannot send a small caravan for this, because it's too heavy.
Basically, caravans have to be cheaper and fast or the targets should have more goods.
And don´t get me started on packing a caravan. Or missing the "one" item, so you have to restart the packing.

_{PS: Perhaps the longest English text I ever wrote}

[Oblitus]

You forgot to mention:
- Town stock respawns with a huge delay. Something like once per year, so you have no real reason to make more than one trip per year. Also, a town usually has something like 2000±500 silver, not 4000.
- Only two animals (muffalo and dromedary) are viable pack animals. Granted, they are also the most useful farm animals, but still.
- The elevation is a huge thing. You can move around in plains, but if you live in the mountains, you have enormous movement penalty. Mountains are 13 times slower than plains. While on the real map you would spend no more than 2-3x more time moving from one edge of the map to another.
- Winter movement penalty. On real maps, deep snow halves pawn speed hence doubles travel time. Tundra winter movement penalty is x17. SEVENTEEN times slower. Math, what is it?
- Winter movement penalty is a function based on time of year. Even if the tile has no snow (if animals can graze it means that tile temperature is above 0°), you still can have significant movement penalty, even if it is a year-round latitude.
- Food is a major limitation for the caravan. Since you need a large muffalo herd to move your stuff, you can only use tiles where they can graze. So no winter trips, no extreme biomes.
- Caravan movement speed and pawn movement speed have some strange sort of relationship. Your bionic pawns can move very fast, but if you form a caravan with only them, it would be still slow.
- You need to protect both your caravan and your base. Since you can't use any defenses for caravan, you have to send your best fighters.

Conclusion: If you want to travel a lot, arid shrubland is the only suitable biome for you. And make sure to find a place with a lot of towns around.