Has anyone actually traveled all the way to the landed spaceship?

[gtgiygus]

I am thinking about traveling all the way to the space ship, but its a daunting task. Any tips from people who like to caravan a lot?

When should you start traveling. Early, mid, late game? Should you research a ton, or will most not be needed?

Easier with more people, or less?

I have Biotech and Anomaly DLC, and honestly not that much experience.

[Steelfleece]

Yep. I did it with a small group and it wasn't that bad. The raids were pretty weak, considering the map you'll be fighting on will likely have much lower wealth than the map you were used to fighting on.

I'd research enough to ensure everyone's well-equipped. Start the trip late-game. Make as many allies as you can. Pack light - silver's much lighter than food and building material, so pack silver and gold plus some food. Plan the trip so you can stop at friendly settlements to restock on food and supplies, and then buy some building materials near the end of the trip so you can fortify the ship. Don't go overboard when you get there, just need possible fortifications and basic facilities.

[MadArtillery]

Never actually. I usually play on 50% worlds and caravaning is turbo boring.

[HunterSilver]

Yeah, it's not too bad. Having colonists with higher Plants skill helps as it increases how much food you passively forage on most world tiles. Tribal starts also get a bonus to foraging on the overworld. Having pack animals that you can ride helps a lot too. Since you have Biotech you can have a mechinator build mechs to act as your pack animals. Anomaly doesn't really add anything that would help with travel off the top of my head.

You'll want to research as much as you can before making the trek, higher tech helps a lot.

Just getting to the ship isn't the end of the game, you still have to fight off enemy raids, so you want as many guns as you can bring to the fight.

Try to avoid traveling in the winter, through mountains, or over frozen tiles.

[whatamidoing]

I've never bothered with traveling to the ship or any other victory thing, but if I were to do it I'd probably just pod it, potentially bringing fuel and components then gathering steel from whatever tile I end up on if I end up needing to multiple jumps.

[MadArtillery]

Could probably actually just stockpile honour and shuttle service the whole way there, probably simpler then the pod chain.

[gtgiygus]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

Yep. I did it with a small group..Plan the trip so you can stop at friendly settlements to restock on food and supplies...

OMG it never occurred to me you can go from town to town and trade for food and stuff. I was thinking I would need tons of survival meals etc. Very interesting, that does open up possibilities.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by gtgiygus:

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

Yep. I did it with a small group..Plan the trip so you can stop at friendly settlements to restock on food and supplies...

OMG it never occurred to me you can go from town to town and trade for food and stuff. I was thinking I would need tons of survival meals etc. Very interesting, that does open up possibilities.

Yeah. Planning this out actually led me to figure that out myself. It was a 100% coverage world (My Little Planet mod so I had the world down to 75% of normal size though), desert, long stretches of extreme desert. I was bringing fighting animals as well as pack animals to make up for a single digit colonist count. Just didn't have enough capacity for food and hay, it'd slow the caravan down so much that all that food still wouldn't be enough. But while preparing for the trip by trading off unneeded materials, I realized, hey, all these guys have some kind of food, whether it be pemmican, survival meals, even just a couple days of normal meals. And the trade caravan was traveling so much faster with silver on the return trip than fully loaded outgoing, so... Just loaded up on silver and did it that way. The light load'll mean you travel between friendly towns pretty quick, too. It does mean you'll have to plan out your trip a little bit more carefully than 'just take the shortest route' since you want to take the most populated route instead.

[Hykal]

I did just before 1.0 or thereabouts, and this was before caravan was reworked (it's still not great today lol).

The thing that tripped me up is I thought I was gonna have a super hard defense mission but since the map tile the ship is on is actually low wealth (since you ain't got anything), it was actually easier combat wise.

[BoxingBud]

I also just build shelter around the ship while it charged up, often building around it too if I have the manpower. Once it's ready (and raids are quiet) remove the roof of the building around the ship and off we go to a cool song! THe beds and basic food and whatnot is in the building too, just to keep things safe while it charges and we fight off raiders.

[VitaKaninen]

I didn't see anyone mention it, but you can put animal sleeping spots down in all the empty spaces around the ship to prevent drop pod enemies from landing on or near it. This also applies to any other place you want to prevent a enemies from dropping in.

[Zef]

Fastest but most expensive way to do it is to make use of pod launchers and/or chains, you'll need a lot of launchers though.

You launch everything together, horses, food and people to cut down the distance and leftover travel speed.

[WildStargazer]

One time I decided to check this quest. All my pawns had at least knight/dame titles and transport shuttle permits, so I just called transport shuttles one after another fire or six times to cover distance from my base to tile with ship. You arrive on empty map with the ship and still need to activate reactor and protect it for 15 days, so there is really little to no point in this ship, easier to build and defend it at your home base.

[ministrog]

Originally posted by Zef:

Fastest but most expensive way to do it is to make use of pod launchers and/or chains, you'll need a lot of launchers though.

You launch everything together, horses, food and people to cut down the distance and leftover travel speed.

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

I've never bothered with traveling to the ship or any other victory thing, but if I were to do it I'd probably just pod it, potentially bringing fuel and components then gathering steel from whatever tile I end up on if I end up needing to multiple jumps.

my first try was exactly this method. it took 15 in game years. don't do it guys lol. fastest way is actually with pack animals with what others have said, currencies. bring some food sure, but also warm or cool clothing. your caravans can die from exposure. my actual successful attempt included 15 or so rockets but used about 6-7 of them. it was overkill, but still it made defense hella easy at the time. keep in mind the game has added a lot of 'rocket proof' things now but you also got options like low shield pack. also not sure if you can still hop into the ship's casket but you can save food but snap freezin you pawns. it's a good trick if your food supply you brought over had ran out.

also don't be tempted to loot or move bodies. it's a waste of sleep time and it'll drive most pawn insane. it's quite the spectacle

edit: also consider drugs, they light as heck and priced decently for trade

[Sage]

eh, I did it with the 40k mods....it was sheer chaos....10/10 recommend

[Collect - FDR's Wheelchair]

I setup mini bases within safe and easy range.
First base within pod launcher range.
Mini bases make moving people between main base and launch site a lot easier.
And it lets you really minimise what you have on the launch site map, making it even easier.
The biggest issue is usually the fastest travel path has you crossing dangerously cold or hot regions.