Frustrated with Caravans, man

[Jackerino]

I just started a game, and was never getting any events that summoned people, so I sent out 2 people with a Caravan and left 1 behind. That one person left behind got the plague and died almost immediately once my Caravan got to the destination. They were my researcher.

Still never got any events for getting more pawns without having to send a caravan, so I sent my whole Caravan this time to rescue someone (which was a bad idea in hindsight). After this, my livestock suddenly got the plague once they reached their destination, and died. Then I rescued the guy I sent my caravan to, and somehow the raiders retaliated and reached my base quicker than my own people could, and the one singular raider burned my entire village down while my caravan was still half a day away.

The guy I rescued isn't even good at Researching either, so now I have 4 people with 0/1 intellect, and a completely burned down village. I can't savescum so I am gonna try to recover, but I have a deep hatred for forming caravans now

[MadArtillery]

Main lesson here is never leave anyone alone without a skilled doctor. You should also keep some horses or something around for riding in caravans.

[Jackerino]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Main lesson here is never leave anyone alone without a skilled doctor. You should also keep some horses or something around for riding in caravans.

Well, I would have, if I wasn't only a few hours into a new save. This issue wouldn't have happened if I was further along, but I wasn't able to actually develop first on this save because of caravan bullshittery

[MadArtillery]

Don't go on caravans if you aren't ready is I suppose lesson 2.

[Jackerino]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Don't go on caravans if you aren't ready is I suppose lesson 2.

I think impatience was primarily my mistake. I only had 3 villagers and was unable to get more because every time a raid happened they would die instantly, preventing me from imprisoning them, and then all the other colonist gain events required me to form a caravan.

[The Blind One]

This is literally what rimworld is all about.

Either love it or hate it, learn to accept loss and you'll start to appreciate it.

Or be a wimp like me and play on adventure mode :D

[Jackerino]

Originally posted by The Blind One:

This is literally what rimworld is all about.

Either love it or hate it, learn to accept loss and you'll start to appreciate it.

Or be a wimp like me and play on adventure mode :D

I should note I'm not criticizing the game, just was frustrated with how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the circumstances were lol; this game can be seriously unfair sometimes but I love how diverse the stories in this game can be

[70 IQ Bimbo]

I've been playing for like 5 years or more and I don't think I've ever rescued random people on the map more than 10 times

[The Blind One]

Originally posted by Dorksy:

I've been playing for like 5 years or more and I don't think I've ever rescued random people on the map more than 10 times

That's because 9/10 times it's not worth the trouble

[Eppiox]

Reload and get the pawn you want downed - Some people arn't happy to reload however, guess all you can do is suffer.

[Jackerino]

Originally posted by Eppiox:

Reload and get the pawn you want downed - Some people arn't happy to reload however, guess all you can do is suffer.

I couldn't reload since I'm on Permadeath ;;

[bUrnIt]

as much as the Randy Random RNG or simple event RNG or Murphy's Law... are fun and keeps the game dynamic:
(even in adventure mode) It's killing you hours of gameplay, thinking and planning. It's not very enjoyable when you just know what will happen because Murphy's law is predictable.
And ok we could just go yolo and build new settlement, or restart a new game. But this is hours of early game we are going to have to "redo", bum-ing, discouraging.

Sometimes, it's just logic: dirty floors, temps, etc. and moodles will allow ♥♥♥♥ to happen (it's not bad luck).

Can't even go on caravan for quest or trade:

latest "Murfy's Law" manifestation I played:
FIRE on my base when all my pawns are in caravan.
Mechanites Viruses on my wimp researcher when I just started researching first research (and so LATE also, I needed researching so bad).

back after back:
Raid or 3
manhunt scaria hares, manhunt scaria hares.
then manhunt boomrates
Then Raid 4

While my base gets dirty....

I should have gone on caravan I guess. maybe the all the manhunt animals would have survives long enough to welcome the raids xD haha but yea it's very very incapacitating and feels like nightmare on "normal/hard" with just 3-4 pawns.

[Similar]

I use Phoebe and Community Builder, but when my solo colonists go caravaning, the home tile seems to go sort of dormant. There can be some weather stuff, but no traders, raids, manhunters, crash landings or anything like that. I leave some mechs to take care of things, so it's not like the base is just completely dead either.

If I have two colonists and they both go caravaning, a bit more can happen at home, but it's still not much. I think I've had one single raid in that situation.

If I leave one colonist at home and the other goes on caravan, things at home are like they're both at home, though. Raids and manhunters and everything.

I haven't tested this much, but it seems like settling another tile, so I have two bases, causes things to happen in both, even when my colonist isn't in either of them.

[Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡]

picked Strive to Survive on my latest file, tweaked whatever stat it is for people getting downed instead of dying down to 85. it sounds like you got impatient on gaining people, the one guy raids is your chance to start gaining new people. the first 2, one-at-a-time raiders are now working with us. Then i took on the Empire deserter quest, got a decent pawn with good gear, then we captured the lady they sent after her with a Shock Lance i sold a good chunk of stuff for.

As for caravans consider waiting till you get packaged survival meals/pemmican, and pack animals, especially rideable ones like horses really change the game from how much faster it can be.

Then for diseases that's one of the things that scares me, my go-to research is always getting to hospital beds as soon as i can, and medicine production. just keep that person on bed rest or they gonna die.

[Jackerino]

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

picked Strive to Survive on my latest file, tweaked whatever stat it is for people getting downed instead of dying down to 85. it sounds like you got impatient on gaining people, the one guy raids is your chance to start gaining new people. the first 2, one-at-a-time raiders are now working with us. Then i took on the Empire deserter quest, got a decent pawn with good gear, then we captured the lady they sent after her with a Shock Lance i sold a good chunk of stuff for.

Again; the reason why I got impatient was because after playing for a few hours, I never got any opportunities to gain new pawns except sending out caravans. I wouldn't even get raided often, and when I did, they were either unwaveringly loyal or died instantly once defeated. Usually the raids or drop pod rescues are what I do to gain new people, but for some reason I was only getting the "rescue pawns with a caravan" quests instead.

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

As for caravans consider waiting till you get packaged survival meals/pemmican, and pack animals, especially rideable ones like horses really change the game from how much faster it can be.

I know this; I just was on a new save and was screwed over by Rimworld RNG.

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

Then for diseases that's one of the things that scares me, my go-to research is always getting to hospital beds as soon as i can, and medicine production. just keep that person on bed rest or they gonna die.

The reason my pawn died from disease was because out of my 3 pawns, I left one at home since the Caravan was only going to be a 2 day back-and-forth at most. Suddenly they got the plague when everyone was a day away from home, and since there was nobody home to treat their disease, they died when my caravan was on the way back. Same happened with the livestock. The plague is a whole different beast and it's crazy that on the first 2 times I did Caravans for this sort of thing, expecting it to go fine due to the caravans only lasting a day or two at most, the first one resulted in my researcher dying, and the second one resulted in my entire village burning to the ground

[Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡]

Originally posted by Jackerino:

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

picked Strive to Survive on my latest file, tweaked whatever stat it is for people getting downed instead of dying down to 85. it sounds like you got impatient on gaining people, the one guy raids is your chance to start gaining new people. the first 2, one-at-a-time raiders are now working with us. Then i took on the Empire deserter quest, got a decent pawn with good gear, then we captured the lady they sent after her with a Shock Lance i sold a good chunk of stuff for.

Again; the reason why I got impatient was because after playing for a few hours, I never got any opportunities to gain new pawns except sending out caravans. I wouldn't even get raided often, and when I did, they were either unwaveringly loyal or died instantly once defeated. Usually the raids or drop pod rescues are what I do to gain new people, but for some reason I was only getting the "rescue pawns with a caravan" quests instead.

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

As for caravans consider waiting till you get packaged survival meals/pemmican, and pack animals, especially rideable ones like horses really change the game from how much faster it can be.

I know this; I just was on a new save and was screwed over by Rimworld RNG.

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

Then for diseases that's one of the things that scares me, my go-to research is always getting to hospital beds as soon as i can, and medicine production. just keep that person on bed rest or they gonna die.

The reason my pawn died from disease was because out of my 3 pawns, I left one at home since the Caravan was only going to be a 2 day back-and-forth at most. Suddenly they got the plague when everyone was a day away from home, and since there was nobody home to treat their disease, they died when my caravan was on the way back. Same happened with the livestock. The plague is a whole different beast and it's crazy that on the first 2 times I did Caravans for this sort of thing, expecting it to go fine due to the caravans only lasting a day or two at most, the first one resulted in my researcher dying, and the second one resulted in my entire village burning to the ground

i won't worry too much about animals getting plague, I'm not gonna spend actual meds to keep something alive unless i can get another of that animal. Thrumbos will get good care tho. i do find however that animals are great to keep around, as for whatever reason raiders will target them like they're actual colonists. I'll gladly lose an elephant so a colonist isn't getting hurt.

oh ive picked up some methodologies for going for people, however i do reload saves like a mf, i will reload saves for the right pawns. But one i learned/inspired from this forum, is shoot/injure the pawn you like to where they bleed, then you can just kite them around the map until they lose too much blood and fall down, it totally bypasses having them survive getting downed, but this leaves a lot of room for negative things.

I even dealt with that situation you did where they started a fire on my crops. i found that having 2 pawns side by side fighting fire is totally necessary, it truly felt like fires are harder to fight in StS lol. if they aren't side by side it feels like the fire can just overwhelm their efforts.