Using transport pod for base relocation

[Panacea]

I'm looking for suggestions on methods for relocating my base to another area on the map via transport pods.

I have 15 colonists, and a ton of stuff, crafting stations, food, and resources. Obviously, transport pods take forever to load, if I try to take all my stuff my colonists will likely die of starvation trying to load it all.

So here are my questions:
What is best to take/ leave behind?
Should I send my ppl in groups or all at once?
What is the best way to go about loading the pods?
Any other advice?

[TC]

If you open the dev mode you can use load instantly. It's a cheat, but any mod that would accomplish the same could be a 'cheat' as well.

As the question: I'm still of a noob, but I would take every urgent stuff like food and meds. And a caravan that takes some days for the less important stuff

[stevasaur]

One thing you could try is to set up a separate Pod Launcher bank that is NOT connected to your primary set of Transport Pods, then select your main set of Transport Pods, and load ONLY items into it. That way, only colonists set to haul will take items to the pod launchers, and they'll eat/sleep/love normally.

Then, once the main pod bank is loaded, you select your secondary pod launcher, put, like, one guy in it, then launch him to the target location (ideally, a good grower/fighter). Then once he/she is in position, launch all your items to your target location after selecting "give to caravan." If you need more than one launch to get all of your stuff, you might send over some uninstalled turrets, traps and wood/chemfuel Generators, so that your "spotter" can defend the massive pile of stuff if you get a Caravan Ambush (although visibility should be reduced if you're not moving).

Ideally, you'll launch items/building materials first, followed by valuables/furniture, followed by animals/food stores, and lastly send your colonists (except for the one dude/dudette who's camped out at the drop point, obviously).

[Panacea]

Originally posted by stevasaur:

One thing you could try is to set up a separate Pod Launcher bank that is NOT connected to your primary set of Transport Pods, then select your main set of Transport Pods, and load ONLY items into it. That way, only colonists set to haul will take items to the pod launchers, and they'll eat/sleep/love normally.

Why does it need to be seperate?

[OtterBOI77]

What is best to take/ leave behind?
Take components and rarer raw resources, food, essential clothing, weapons, medicine, crafting materials.

Leave raw resources that you can obtain easily in the new zone, uranium(minimize), things you can craft again.

Should I send my ppl in groups or all at once?
All at once. Get everyone setting up shop asap.

What is the best way to go about loading the pods?
Build your pods near your storage zones. Try to minimize travel time from pod to items needed to be loaded.

Any other advice?
Enslave a herd of muffalo as pack animals in stead of using transport pods ;P

[Panacea]

Originally posted by OtterBOI77:

Any other advice?
Enslave a herd of muffalo as pack animals in stead of using transport pods ;P

Are you kidding or do you honestly believe using a caravan to move is better than pods? If so, why?

[OtterBOI77]

The muffalo option is good so long as you can keep them fed and aren't crossing huge mountains or bodies of water. if its warm enough they will feed themselves while traveling by eating plantlife.

Whether muffalos are better or not depends on your specific situation, location, materials you have.

[stevasaur]

Originally posted by Panacea:

Why does it need to be seperate?

Force of habit mostly: having it separated means that you can't accidentally include the spare Transport Pod into your main group (which means your poor pawn would be working all day and night to load the pods, instead of leaving it to your haulers). You don't strictly need it separate: I should've clarified.

[Preechr]

Caravans are unlimited in size and distance. Drop pods just don't go that far to warrant the expense. How much stuff are you talking about moving in terms of weight?

[Beezlebrox]

I did a combo of drop pods and caravan. I took half the base in drop pods to the maximum distance that i could, and then caravaned them the rest of the way to the target (which was the ship BTW). Several people died on the way in the caravan, from the flu. Of the 6 in the pods, 3 made it to the landed ship. Then, later, I caravaned the remaining colonists - 8? It was easier to tame a heard of muffalo and load them up, leave in spring, buy extra food from stops along the way. No one died. Caravan distance calculates number of days of food available for the person or tamed animal (warg!) that will run out first. Because I had tamed wargs, I had to carry uncooked meat as well as pemmican. I took everything light and of high trade value first, then added in remaining heavy cargo until it was at max.

[burlswirl]

You could always send half your people to set up an outpost and gradually send your supplies there until there isn't much left to send other than the remaining pawns.

[Panacea]

Originally posted by Preechr:

Caravans are unlimited in size and distance. Drop pods just don't go that far to warrant the expense. How much stuff are you talking about moving in terms of weight?

Oh I have way more stuff than would be sensible to transport, that is why I'm asking what I should prioritize.

And I'm not planning to move far, just to greener pastures, as I have mined out my current location. I'm not planning to go for the endgame anytime soon. Just honing my base building skills.

I'm thinking the pod/caravan combo is my best bet, and to break the base down in small increments, but for those who have tried it, I wonder how you decide who to send when? It seems to me that the first group should have the basic skills necessary to start a base ie: cooking, hunting, construction, hauling, etc. But that means that the last group you send have to have those skills too, or else everybody who hasn't left yet will die.

[Morkonan]

I haven't moved an entire base before, so just some easy, practical, suggestions I guess:

Originally posted by Panacea:

...So here are my questions:
What is best to take/ leave behind?

Obviously, as much as you can... But, aside from lots of food, you may want some building materials to set up foodstorage quickly. Workbenches/Production items can be pre-built and taken as well. (You can store any object/item that can be moved/reinstalled.) Rare raw resources need to be considered, like gold/uranium too. Components are an absolute "must" as well as some Advanced components, depending on your needs. Some extra weapons/clothing/armor for pawns or new pawns you might get lucky in recruiting early would be warranted, as well. Some animals are worth considering, like Muffalo, if you're not sure they'll be available at your new home. Enough material to construct and run power to power-generation items is a must-have as well.

You could, in fact, if you constructed enough launchers end up sending an entire, portable, "mini-base" complete with all the primary furnishings. You'd have construct power-generation and cooler units as well as powerlines, but you could transport everything else, including the bricks to build it with...

Should I send my ppl in groups or all at once?

That depends on how you want the gameplay to progress, I think. For myself and if I was going to do it, I like the "Grand Gesture" sort of approach... So, fill the screen with Launchers and send it ALL at once. If, for instance, sending some things like individual launchers for each Muffalo isn't possible, you may want to also prepare a caravan that is complete with food for animals, your caravan drivers/herders (MUST ALL HAVE COWBOY HATS SINCE THEY ARE GONNA BE COWBOYS! :) ) as well as camping and emergency equipment in case they get ambushed. ie: "Build a Cattledrive" caravan that has a very high chance of surviving the entire trip. That might be how the bulk of your population moves to the new location, btw.

What is the best way to go about loading the pods?

Others likely will have better suggestions. To be honest, I have never launched all the pods I have sent to one location all at once... I've always just launched them individually out of habit, I guess. But, you would likely want to "stage" the loading process to keep your pawns organized and efficient. So, perishables and colonists get loaded last and you'll want to send the "emergency" stuff with them, as well, like medkits/food/ maybe even a couple of Turrets as well as the pre-charged batteries they might need.

Any other advice?

Send a couple of turrets and pre-charged batteries as well as some steel for constructing powerlines for them as well as enough bricks to offer temporary protection for the batteries (fifteen bricks for a three tile wall, I think?), enough materials for a few sandbags and a prebuilt firepopper or two. A Mortar with ammo might be a good consideration, too, if you land in an area that has a visible/exposed bug colony or get an immediate Raid that gets calc'd based on all the rich stuff you've got there, but the majority of your colonists are on the "Cattledrive."

[Aldehydra]

Originally posted by Panacea:

Are you kidding or do you honestly believe using a caravan to move is better than pods? If so, why?

A caravan lets you keep everyone together and if animals can graze along the way then you can easily bring all of your livestock. It can be safer and easier, and if you count all the prep time needed to set up the pods and get fuel for them (or replace that fuel later), it might even be faster.

[grapplehoeker]

First scout the area out and settle it.
The first shipments should be whatever you need to provide accommodation and food for the first settlers, and no, don't send everyone at once.
Why? Because events are scaled to the number of colonists and the wealth of the colony. You don't want raids or events on the scale that hits your current colony to also hit your new settlement.
So, as other have noted above, send materials for defensive structures and no more than 3 pawns. A couple of turrets and deadfall traps will be sufficient to defend the new small colony, since raids will be poorly armed and no more than 3-4 raiders at most, meaning you'd only have to kill 2 of them to send them running ;)
Then focus on building transport pods and launchers at the new settlement to enable two way transport!
After that it's just a case of building it up structurally, and once that's done, then you can ship over the whole colony ;)

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Aldehydra:

Originally posted by Panacea:

Are you kidding or do you honestly believe using a caravan to move is better than pods? If so, why?

A caravan lets you keep everyone together and if animals can graze along the way then you can easily bring all of your livestock. It can be safer and easier, and if you count all the prep time needed to set up the pods and get fuel for them (or replace that fuel later), it might even be faster.

Nonsense. It does not take long to load pods and a 33 cell trip across the map is instant!
Any time you want to race your muffalos vs my transport pods to the spaceship on the other side of the world, you give me a shout ;)