Interacting with the World

[BasileusMaximos]

It needs to be made easier.

Most games I never send out caravans due to how much of a pain in the ass it is. You've gotta open the map, which takes some time, calculate how much food you've got to bring with you, outfit your caravan, wait for your pawns to form the caravan, and even then their could be problems with your caravan not moving due to some bug, a mod conflict, or some player oversight. Add to that the fact your pawns could be ambushed far from home without and medical support and caravaning just doesn't seem worth it, which is a shame considering how we have literally a whole world to explore. 

I hope that the next update addresses this and makes the whole venturing forth process a better one.

[sick puppy]

personally i open the map many times each sitting, so that's only once an issue. i take that time to drink a bit anyway.

nope, the program does it for you. just have enough stockpiled, but you should do that anyway.

outfitting your caravan might take a while if you rarely do them. but if you make at least 2 a year, it goes much quicker. besides, once you did a couple dozen, you will be MUCH quicker.

just draft and undraft your pawns for the caravan, they will stop whatever they are doing and go form it. it makes t much faster sometimes, especially at nught, with sick pawns or working or even eating ones or when they have time off.

bugs? i have t met any yet. if you do, there is a topic for that.

mod conflicts are on you. either figure it out yourself or go talk to the mod authors.

player oversight? as in? but generally, sounds like your own fault, no offence

medical support is something you should think a out when making your caravan...

it is though, especially if you play on small maps. you can mine so mucb needed steel and other things and the trade deals are t half bad either. you can also buy so many things at faction bases that you couldnt otherwise or had to wait for so long. it is also cheaper.

the whole world thing is true though. i myself only use like 10% of the map, which is approximately what i'd say i need to do all the trade deals, killing pirate bases and getting resource piles that my long range scanner found.

all i need personally is something for mid game caravaning like cars, but even horses to ride or even sleds for ice sheet and sea ice, as otherwise i will only ever start bases near other bases and not venture any further than i need to.

[Jernfalk]

There are many mods that make caravanning easier too. Like Giddy-Up! Caravan Mod, which allows you to mount animals for a speed bonus. I even make a horses mod that allows people to gallop to other settlements/events really quickly to check out their stocks before making a proper pack-muffalo caravan.

[Yoshida Keiji]

I even make a horses mod that allows people to gallop to other settlements/events really quickly to check out their stocks before making a proper pack-muffalo caravan.

This!

Once we develop Microelectronics Basics, we get the Comms Console...Did you guys ever wander why cant we just see other settlement inventories before heading out? I mean, we talk to each other through the phone...so why don't you tell me what you have? Events like Caravan request base the trade on items that are currently available in your stocks. So when we "pay" to request a specific caravan, we should be able to tell them what to bring us.

There's currently inconsistence between arriving caravans and their outpost stocks. Of course, each friendly faction has a 100 bases and you cant really tell which one you are talking to. Nor we can learn in which of all outposts is their faction leader residing at. Mostly because friendly caravans generate at the map border and not "from" their bases. (Thats why NPC caravans are all ill prepared for journeys).

Same for raids, if the player sets up to invade a pirate base, we lose active population in our colony, as they will be traveling on a caravan... So... everytime I get raided, I would really appreciate the population in their outposts also lose numbers, then the player can take revenge and counter-attack a low numbers colony but with lots of structures and valuables they cant defend anymore after losing their people.

Finally to ease caravan forming, just create a new stockpile exclusive for caravans so that all your wanted items rest at one place before creating the caravan itself.

And all caravans arriving to our colony should have "Joy" depleted like it happens to us.
And food packing should be eased by including in World map tiles an additional value besides traveling speed, but for food, so that caravans harvest berries along the way if the season allows, reducing our need of extra cargo, same for herbal medicine by the way.

[Dashthechinchilla]

I have figured out the little things that keeps a caravan from forming, like sleeping animals and pawns. And a refuel order or priority haul will make non caravan members load supplies.  I keep my caravan small so even if I lose both pawns they can be replaced.

I like caravans, but I do agree there is room for improvement.

[Canute]

Mosttimes i don't like to caravan too.
I only visit other outpost if they within range of 1-2 day travel time, so i don't need special food. And thats why i settle on a road mosttimes.

Mod's like
Reuseable pod or dropship made this some easyer.

But my favoured to travel are the arcane mage from Rim of Magic. Together with Pick up and haul.
You draft and order the pawn's to pickup stuff into their inventory and gather them at some spot outdoors.
Then the arcane mage create a portal and everyone jump in.
Same range like a transport pod.

[corestandeven]

Whilst caravans, travelling round the world and external missions were a great addition to the game I agree they still needs work. Often they end up being a highly frustrating experience. Some examples:

- Loading a caravan - Takes ages and if you make a mistake there is no way to amend, unless you reload a save you might have just before. The player should be able to tweak the load-out as it is being gathered up, as well as cancel the caravan if you change your mind.

- Mood - When enemies attack they have no joy, comfort or beauty meter to fufil. This makes sense as they are there to attack your base, not play hoop stones. Yet for the player these are still requirements to meet, and after you have fought your hard battle I often get crippling mental breaks. For example I just attacked a base (not an outpost), have 4 pawns i need to heal after the battle, but I now have 2 pawns (one of which is the medic) in a mental daze due to 'ugly environment' and the other berserking as he 'saw a corpse' (i.e. the ones we just created and the reason for being there). Mood and mental breaks whilst travelling and during attacks really need reworking. Maybe one idea is to remove the mood requirements when travelling, with this meters only returning a few hours after a successful raid/attack (i.e. when the adrenaline goes)?

- Length of time in maps - The times you have to stay after a successful mission all need looking at. Having 24 hours to gather your stuff after attacking a pirate base, the most fortified places in the game, makes zero sense. How can the player heal pawns, avoid mental breaks, and search the map for goodies in 24 hours? Yet attacking a smaller and weaker outpost has more time allocated. Makes no sense. The easy remedy is for the devs just to increase the times - 3/4 days is probably enough.     

- Rapidly shifting journey times - Very inconsistent and punishing at the moment. I had a case recently where there was a AI Core 2 days travel away. It was the end of summer so I sent pawns with 6 days food to more than make the journey there and back. I got the Core, and luckily took no injuries. It was now the start of Fall and I expected a slight increase in time to travel, hence why I packed some more food. However the journey back suddenly was 10 days, and I was not overloaded either. How to improve it? Have four estimates: maxium travel estimate for spring, summer, fall and winter.

- caravan inventory - the mechanics just suck right not. Having to search each pawn to tell what to drop when they arive is tedious. Can we not have an area type which we can designate for pawns to drop all caravan inventories? Creating one area is easier than searching each pawn, telling them to drop it, and the unforbidding each item.

On the other suggests I love Yoshida's idea of using the comms unit to see the other factions inventory BEFORE setting out for days only to find they have nothing you need.

[sick puppy]

what pisses me off among the few points that i otherwise can work around is how when you open the item tab on the world map of your caravan, if you carry a high quantity of anything (e.g. 2k steel) with you, you will be presented with a list of 25 times 75 steel. why. just why. when you sell that crap it is all added together. why isnt it here. like what the fuck. i assume this items tab just takes all the items from the pockets of my pawns and the backs of my pets and makes a list out of it without adding or even sorting them, as the list comes even unsorted.
besides, why are items always so unsorted and randomly distributed among all carriers? they follow no logic whatsoever. some carriers carry literal tons more than they even could, others dont even touch anything. some carry only the foraged berries, but like almost all of it, others carry anything they can lay their hands on. a gun, old clothing, an artifact, one out of the 30 herbal meds i took with me, some rocks, steel, meals, all the leftover hay and a dead rat.

honestly, i dont even care about logic or realism at this point. just dump everything on one pawn, add stuff together and sort it. everything else must be too complicated anyway and not be that useful. we (the players) will have a much, MUCH easier time this way.