Caravan won't form

[MrEntity]

Every ones is just 'wandering', 'moving', 'standing', or 'preparing to leave'. And switching back and forth from state to state constantly. I have cancelled the caravan, waited a day for them to unload, and sleep, and whatnot, and formed a new caravan with different, but similar, components. Same thing.

Any idea what the deal is here?

[NickU]

Could one of the selected Pawns or Animals be unable to move? Missing all legs, broken spine, or unconscious for example.

Could one of the items that you want to place in the Caravan be inaccessible? Placed behind a forbidden door or in a walled off room?

Has an item that you want to place in the Caravan been moved since you ordered the form up and now is being carried by another pawn or dropped on the floor outside of a relevant stockpile.

Go through the gear tabs of all animals and pawns in the caravan to see if any item is missing and if so, is the missing item registered on the stockpile summaries on the left screen edge. If it is there, can you order a pawn to access/move it?

[kevinshow]

I had a similar problem. The colonists were doing fine earlier inthe game, making their caravans, going out, and returning just fine.

Then at some point, they just stopped being able to finish the caravan. I also changed to different days, different destination, different people and animals in the caravan, and all had the same result of the caravan not fully finishing.

I started a new game and this group was able to do caravans, so it wasn't something about the game or mods.

In the end, I deleted that game save and have continued on with other games, which so far have not exhibited this problem again.

[GalmWing]

If this is vanilla, then check for forbidden, items, or meals, zoning (like, animals not able to reach the caravan spot) are the colonists able to haul?
Do you use mods, Alpha Animals sometimes breaks caravans and/or raids, as do other mods that attempt to add more caravans or more raids.

[MrEntity]

I actually managed to 'fix it' by going back to the save I made just before the caravan started forming instead of the auto-save that happened like a minute later. There was no difference in things that were picked, so I don't know what the deal was. Something in the code just decided in that minute that caravans were to be broken from then on.

[MrEntity]

Actually, I am experiencing this same thing over and over and over. It is now happening over half the times I try to set up a caravan. I can't figure out why.

[MrEntity]

Honestly, this last time all the animals and colonists went to the caran spot and did NOTHING. None of the animals had anything (of the thousands of things I designated) loaded onto them. I really don't get it. My colonists are unrestricted, and my animals are only not allowed in the kitchen and hospital. They're all healthy. I am the confused.

[i-ko]

To anyone coming here, searching a solution to this problem :
I manage to fix it by forcing some of my colonist to load random items on the caravan (right clic on item> load on the cravan). After few items force loaded, the colonist stat to load the remaining items by themselves.
Maybe a clue : last time it works, i "force load" some kibbles that were on a chest

[Hamartio]

Originally posted by i-ko:

To anyone coming here, searching a solution to this problem :
I manage to fix it by forcing some of my colonist to load random items on the caravan (right clic on item> load on the cravan). After few items force loaded, the colonist stat to load the remaining items by themselves.
Maybe a clue : last time it works, i "force load" some kibbles that were on a chest

I've tried that before with other things, but it doesn't always work. After not finding much help in the forums and having another caravan waste an entire day then start flipping out, I played around with it some. It seems to be an issue with crap programming, I mean with the needs of the animals and pawns (specifically food, assuming they aren't collapsing from exhaustion) and having too high of an animal to pawn ratio. I got mine to pull their thumbs out of their asses by making sure to add no more than maybe a few more animals than needed for hauling, otherwise the AI pulls a https://media3.giphy.com/media/dJEMs13SrsiuA/giphy.gif?cid=790b76115cc6798b4a2f4b6941e6d92c&rid=giphy.gif

Once gathered as the caravan spot, I then removed any animal that decided to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, said ♥♥♥♥ you, and zoomed off to eat some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dandelions like there won't be any on the trip (might be mitigated by having kibble or other valid food stockpiles directly around the caravan packing spot, which may explain they forced loading kibble seemed to work). That got my pawns to start loading, and once loaded, I added/re-added any more wanted animals only after the caravan started running off towards the edge of the map. Any animal added then automatically ran over to where everyone else was headed, and once there, off they went. Haven't tested this repeatedly, so good luck to ya if it doesn't work for you.

[Pac]

my caravan would not start after loading all the items, I selected all my pawns then recruited them then unrecruited and it worked.

[J'ee]

This happens with advanced/longterm Rimworld colonies, and my theory is that it's related to why visiting caravans might not leave on their own, too. The sure fire workaround for your colonists is to use pod launchers. For the visitors, try leading mechanoids to them...

[Dekar_Serverbot]

that's why i always leave developer mode on... these caravans trend to never form or start resting forever while consuming their food.

[M.K.]

Caravan packing is similar to hauling. So when an item is selected, but unavailable due to having vanished or being reserved by another person, the task stalls until the conflict is resolved.

With hauling this is no problem, the hauler very soon gets bored and selects the *next* hauling task. Caravans unfortunately cannot do this, as your shopping list is absolute. So the jammed pawn tries again, and again, and again.
Meanwhile, he has a bunch of pack animals and other caravaners following him around to assist. So *everyone* gets stalled.

Yes, the simple fix is to draft the jammed person for a second or 5, so that he drops the current haul/pack task. This allows the competing person to complete that task, resolving the logjam.

Example... If you have selected a prosthetic arm to load into the caravan, and you have created a medical bill that wants to use that arm, the medical bill will reserve the arm. But the caravan needs to load it. But the arm is still lying in storage, so the caravan cannot give up on it. This will stall the caravan formation until that operation is done or cancelled.

[Kittenpox]

I assume by now that this has been resolved (because necro), but I most often have this happen when a Heavy Sleeper is in the caravan group.
Until they wake up, nobody's moving.

[puppyzwolle]

Here is are two ideas that worked for us:
Put the game on pause. Disband your caravan that will not pack/keeps wandering. Unload all animals. Pick one person to go on a trip. Without any entourage or extra inventory. Just pick a destination for that one pawn and that's it.(ignore warnings obviously)
Now manually add animals, pawns and inventory. Now un-pauze. They all should start working like a charm.
Or
Make multiple smaller caravans (1 pawn +1 animal+ inventory) and merge them right outside your colony. That way you flush out the bottleneck. Sometimes even without missing anything or anyone.

[geoid]

@puppyzwolle ok but how? How does one send a person on a trip? The only way I could find to do that was to form a caravan but it won't let me select any pawns for the caravan.