Is a caravan colony a viable way of playing the game?

[KalkiKrosah]

I haven't used caravans very often in my games, it's just simpler staying put. But would it be viable to traverse the map selling wares and huddling down before picking up and leaving again? Any one want to start up a new game and test out how viable it is? I imagine growers, fighters and traders would be key stats for making this work.

[grapplehoeker]

Colony caravan is viable, but that's nothing to do with trading.
I played nomad for 20 game years and it was more a case of packing up camp, travelling 30 clicks or so and settling in a new spot until I was ready to move on again. Trading though, nah... I lived off the land. Every new settlement provided all of the resources I required.

[tukkek]

That's the long and short of it:

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

it's just simpler staying put

You can definitely do a nomadic playthrough but the game is not built for that so it's gonna be awkward packing up and resettling everywhere you go.

As far as trading goes, I don't see how that would be viable because you need a lot of research and infrastructure in order to produce crafts to trade. If you're always moving around, how will you have all the necessary workbenches and tech for crafting and researching?

[elipod]

I did big migrations, but didn't like settling between starting and ending points. Setting up proper living area is a hassle. Without it, pawns are going trough constant mental breaks, because colony is rich and they have high expectations. If you don't have enough food for travel, it's easier to bring valuables with you and buy food in friendly settlements.

But I were to travel for profit, I'd be hunt oriented. Hunting is huge wealth generator, if you manage to sell meat, before it spoils. When I was doing item stash quest yesterday, map generated with some pirate defenders, big elephant pack, and another elephant pack joined in when I was fighting. Nearby town was buying meat and was only one day away.
I disassembled pirate beds and lamps to make butcher's table and my three raiders were butchering trough night, risking mental breaks. I got around 4000 meat and 1400 hides.
I got 3 neurotrainers from stash and sold them for ~1200 silver, and about ~6000 silver more from selling elephant meat and hides. Hadn't sold tusks, they were too heavy to carry, I only had few alpacas in that caravan.

[Watereaters]

Well you can get a ton of good stuff, but you need to research stuff that can get tons of money like drugs, chocolate and hospital stuff for organs. You also want lots of 2 or 3 tile prison cells for slavery purposes. You also want a lot of defences since pirates and such will also want you to “share” with them.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Watereaters:

Well you can get a ton of good stuff, but you need to research stuff that can get tons of money like drugs, chocolate and hospital stuff for organs. You also want lots of 2 or 3 tile prison cells for slavery purposes. You also want a lot of defences since pirates and such will also want you to “share” with them.

My colonies don't do drugs.
They don't eat chocolate.
They don't do organ transplants.
I build a single 5x7 prison cell that generally remains empty throughout every colony playthrough and is usually only used as a time out cooler for those times when a pawn gets a homicidal urge ;)
My defences for most of my colonies consist of: 24 plasteel turrets, 4 autocannons, 2-4 uranium slug turrets and around 80 steel deadfall traps. Is that a lot? It works for me ;)

[Watereaters]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Originally posted by Watereaters:

Well you can get a ton of good stuff, but you need to research stuff that can get tons of money like drugs, chocolate and hospital stuff for organs. You also want lots of 2 or 3 tile prison cells for slavery purposes. You also want a lot of defences since pirates and such will also want you to “share” with them.

My colonies don't do drugs.
They don't eat chocolate.
They don't do organ transplants.
I build a single 5x7 prison cell that generally remains empty throughout every colony playthrough and is usually only used as a time out cooler for those times when a pawn gets a homicidal urge ;)
My defences for most of my colonies consist of: 24 plasteel turrets, 4 autocannons, 2-4 uranium slug turrets and around 80 steel deadfall traps. Is that a lot? It works for me ;)

Have you done killboxes, don’t do tunnels since that will kill the guys you want to harvest organs from or enslave.

Anyway hospital beds will increase the likelyhood of successful harvests