Anyone go caravaning for supplies? For metal in particular?

[imwithdummy]

I'll form a caravan, go to a mountainous area and setup camp, mine the bajeesus out of the area and haul what I can carry back with my pawns and three muffalo.
The problem is that the steel is so dang heavy, I often leave the vast majority of mining undone, take just a small fraction of the steel I could have gotten.

What I'd like to do is reform the caravan with my three muffalo and one person to lead them. Head back home (leaving my other couple pawns behind at camp, mining), unload the steel there and then head right back out to the campsite to bring back a second load.

Can I do this without having "abandoned" members of my caravan? Can I leave the campsite with only 1 of my 3 colonists, or will I lose the other two?

If so, does anyone have a way that they do this that works?

[AquaX]

Get more muffalos. My caravan tends to carry 15-30 muffalos w/ 3-9 pawns depending on my objectives. Depending on how your planet was made w/ factions placed, it usually more benefitial to just caravan to towns, trade for steel, then return.

[kevinshow]

You can get the Setup Camp mod, and enable for the camps to be permanent. That way, you can settle a spot and mine it all up by sending caravans back and forth. You can even use deep-drilling on that tile and spend a longer time there if you want to.

In fact, I use the camp mod to make 2nd or 3rd bases. Since they are permanent camps, then you can basically build a base or farm there to keep your colonists supplied there while they work the area.

When using this mod, you can leave some members behind, or take them all. The camp remains for you to return to.

I recently started a new colony on ice sheet, and I found that this is pretty much one of the ways I can get steel. So every few days when the quests for enemy outposts or prisoners show up, I try to do some of them to be able to go and get steel from deconstructing things at the outposts.

Other than that, in other biomes where steel or resources are plenty, I probably would ignore those quests most of the time.

[imwithdummy]

Yeah I chose a poor location. The nearest town is some 3 days away, I've never even been. I've got lots of mountains near my location though, but although a mining excursion takes no more than a day or so, once I've set up camp there, I can't go back to that location. So I just keep going to others...and I'm going to be out of areas to mine in pretty soon here!

Yeah, I definitely need more muffalo...my animal trainer went and got himself killed, so I've been hoping these guys will pick up the procreation pace here =P
Thanks Aqua.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

You can get the Setup Camp mod, and enable for the camps to be permanent. That way, you can settle a spot and mine it all up by sending caravans back and forth. You can even use deep-drilling on that tile and spend a longer time there if you want to.

In fact, I use the camp mod to make 2nd or 3rd bases. Since they are permanent camps, then you can basically build a base or farm there to keep your colonists supplied there while they work the area.

When using this mod, you can leave some members behind, or take them all. The camp remains for you to return to.

I recently started a new colony on ice sheet, and I found that this is pretty much one of the ways I can get steel. So every few days when the quests for enemy outposts or prisoners show up, I try to do some of them to be able to go and get steel from deconstructing things at the outposts.

Other than that, in other biomes where steel or resources are plenty, I probably would ignore those quests most of the time.

Hey I've got that mod, but when I tried to return to a campsite for the second time, I got some sort of an error message stating that it was too soon.
Eh..I think I tried to "set up camp" again in the same spot...because I couldn't figure out how to stop the caravan there...how to get my pawns back under my control, you know what I mean?

Because the caravan is just this yellow dot...and when they arrived at the previous camp location, it was still this yellow dot. I couldn't figure out how to be able to zoom in, see where they were at and take control of the pawns. Just looking at that dang yellow dot and finally pressed, "Set up camp". Which...I'd already done a couple months prior or whatever...

How are you supposed to do it, do you know?

[Rio]

My last playthrough I had a lot of camels for carrying steel. Needed them too since it was extreme desert and used the fur for clothes. Then I moved to arid shrubland after my area was out of steel. So that I was between two non-hostile settlements that were .2 or so days from base when the caravan was low on weight, .6 when it was full.

I usually send most of my people with my caravan, since in beta I've lost caravans due to rng random events. The events are ultra rare though, I think in 1.0 it only happened once where some tribals demanded my camels and my group killed them.

Feeding them was never a problem since I turned raiders into human meat and then into thousands of kibble. Then on arid shrubland, grass is everywhere and its always summer.

In fact the problem was often, the people ate all thier food and started eatting the camel's kibble (Which is whoooole lotttta mood debuffs like idk -25 or -30).

I did get a moofaloo and an elephant but ended up killing both, cuz I wanted mono camel.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

You can get the Setup Camp mod, and enable for the camps to be permanent. That way, you can settle a spot and mine it all up by sending caravans back and forth.

Doh, got it...right on, thanks a crapton!

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by The Devil's in the details:

My last playthrough I had a lot of camels for carrying steel. Needed them too since it was extreme desert and used the fur for clothes. Then I moved to arid shrubland after my area was out of steel. So that I was between two non-hostile settlements that were .2 or so days from base when the caravan was low on weight, .6 when it was full.

I usually send most of my people with my caravan, since in beta I've lost caravans due to rng random events. The events are ultra rare though, I think in 1.0 it only happened once where some tribals demanded my camels and my group killed them.

Feeding them was never a problem since I turned raiders into human meat and then into thousands of kibble. Then on arid shrubland, grass is everywhere and its always summer.

In fact the problem was often, the people ate all thier food and started eatting the camel's kibble (Which is whoooole lotttta mood debuffs like idk -25 or -30).

I did get a moofaloo and an elephant but ended up killing both, cuz I wanted mono camel.

Good ideas! The turning human meat into kibble thing though....a couple raids ago, I don't have any idea how it happened, but one of my colonists decided to butcher a raider corpse...and everyone got a -6 debuff from that for days. I couldn't imagine how you could go about doing that regularly...unless maybe your colonists are happy enough that you can afford the hit. I'd think it'd add up pretty fast though.

[dnrob7]

I used to.. Back before 1.0, every trip I made had to have an experienced miner or two for all the components I was going to mine out but after 1.0.. Maps never have any. There's nothing to mine.

[Rio]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Originally posted by The Devil's in the details:

My last playthrough I had a lot of camels for carrying steel. Needed them too since it was extreme desert and used the fur for clothes. Then I moved to arid shrubland after my area was out of steel. So that I was between two non-hostile settlements that were .2 or so days from base when the caravan was low on weight, .6 when it was full.

I usually send most of my people with my caravan, since in beta I've lost caravans due to rng random events. The events are ultra rare though, I think in 1.0 it only happened once where some tribals demanded my camels and my group killed them.

Feeding them was never a problem since I turned raiders into human meat and then into thousands of kibble. Then on arid shrubland, grass is everywhere and its always summer.

In fact the problem was often, the people ate all thier food and started eatting the camel's kibble (Which is whoooole lotttta mood debuffs like idk -25 or -30).

I did get a moofaloo and an elephant but ended up killing both, cuz I wanted mono camel.

Good ideas! The turning human meat into kibble thing though....a couple raids ago, I don't have any idea how it happened, but one of my colonists decided to butcher a raider corpse...and everyone got a -6 debuff from that for days. I couldn't imagine how you could go about doing that regularly...unless maybe your colonists are happy enough that you can afford the hit. I'd think it'd add up pretty fast though.

You get -6 on whole colony and the person who butchered gets debuffs that stack up to 10x, unless the cook is a psycopath or cannibal. Mine wasn't, but I didn't care if he had a mental break each time. Later when I moved to arid shrubland I had a psychopath or something do all the butchering since the old cook died.

Tantrum is the only mental break I care about, since it can destroy items. If a pawn starts a tantrom they get beat to a pulp instantly via drafted + fist. Not having a pawn destroy an entire stack of mortor shells, anti disease meds, a telescope, archtech leg, ect again.

-6 really isn't much until later when your colonists are spoiled brats and want the world, since your colony's wealth has gotten really high.

[CellNav]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

If so, does anyone have a way that they do this that works?

Yes, and it can be done without mods (pure vanilla).

Start by using a Long-range Mineral Scanner manned by your best Intellectual pawn.
Once found, form your caravan, but keep scanning for minerals.

If you cannot haul everything back, bring some Guard-Planters (GP's). The GP is a pawn that has a very high skill in combat and plants. The plant skill is needed to forage, the higher the better.

After mining all the minerals, form the caravan and deliberatly bring everything to over load the caravan. They cannot move, however, split the caravan and leave the GP's behind with any minerals you cannot haul back. Set the GP caravan to 'Rest", they will forage at 200% rate, even better if you have a Tribal Scenario start (170% additional bonus to forage). The GP caravan can almost live forever as long as the forage rate can provide for the pawns.

Meanwhile, you were still scanning and by the time you gather everything up and bring everything home then you'll most likely get another 'hit' on the scanner ... Rinse and repeat.

EDIT: ... Oh, don't forget to bring bedrolls, beer, and joints (BBJ is what I call it).