Caravan Detected ( How are these variables determined? )

[Dester]

When I first started playing I noticed the caravan detected was 10 to 14 days.... now the caravan detected is usually around 2.5 days. Does the story teller or game difficulty play a role?
Even when my caravan is a single person on a donkey during a quest site... the caravan still gets noticed within the first 24 hours... any way to avoid being detected longer??

Thanks for anyone who can help those two questions.

[Astasia]

It's based on the caravan visibility stat listed when you form the caravan. Pack animals increase visibility a lot IIRC. Biome is also a large multiplier, attacks on temperate forests are three times as likely as attacks on sea ice for example.

Storyteller and difficulty are not factors.

[Dester]

It's too bad there's not a MOD where you can pay bandits or mercenaries to delay the mechanoids from attacking the caravan.

[Astasia]

The attacks are generally extremely small. As long as you take a few combat capable colonists it's not really an issue. It's not like a full raid and you need to hurry and get out of there, it's often just a single dude with a club even mid-game.

The game used to kick you out of mission maps after 3 days, full stop, it would just close and that would be it. Now you are allowed to stay as long as you want but the game sends these tiny raids so it's not like an entirely risk free vacation.

That said, what are you doing on these maps that takes more than 3 days? You don't need to haul anything because the reform caravan button will always allow you to load any item anywhere on the mission map instantly. There's only so much you can fit on a donkey, and only so much you can gain from a mission map, the most time consuming usually being stripping up carpet in an ancient complex but even that can be done in a day or two with one builder.

[Dester]

Originally posted by Astasia:

That said, what are you doing on these maps that takes more than 3 days?

Castle Ruin where an area of unknown stuff is blocked by granite walls... and the fella has a mining skill of zero. Took half a day to remove one granite wall and still haven't reached the unknown area of secret stuff.
Also there's 2 cows and 3 horses which I have tamed... so loading all of them with stuff is taking longer than expected. Plenty of herbal plants and berries I can use back home as well.

[Astasia]

Ah, so that is a modded event/location, and it's possible they have their own mechanic for reinforcements. So what I said above might not fully apply.