Questions about caravans

Gandalfthegrape

Are the destinations of the caravans set when you initiate them or does it work like a train/rail system where you chose the direction you go as you come to each fork? If you select the destination at the beginning will there be a visual display of each location you pass to give you information on it before you leave? Will you be able to change your route to a more safe/less safe one? Will more dangerous ones have npc attacks, or pvp map live location markers? Will caravans have built in npc defenses that are upgradable? Can you pay more to have a faster, more health, stealthier, more combat effective, etc caravan?

Dygz

I think locations are set for Mayoral Caravans and Quest Driven Caravans.
Player has more freedom with Personal Caravans, I think.

Warth

Latest information is that:
Are the destinations of the caravans set when you initiate them or does it work like a train/rail system where you chose the direction you go as you come to each fork?

You can freely move it in whatever direction you want, like riding a mount.

You dont select the destination, since you move it freely.

Yes NPCs and Defenses that can be upgraded.

Yes there is different caravan set-ups. What can be improved is another question.

Gandalfthegrape

Warth wrote: »

Latest information is that:
Are the destinations of the caravans set when you initiate them or does it work like a train/rail system where you chose the direction you go as you come to each fork?

You can freely move it in whatever direction you want, like riding a mount.

You dont select the destination, since you move it freely.

Yes NPCs and Defenses that can be upgraded.

Yes there is different caravan set-ups. What can be improved is another question.

Thats cool are the caravans extended based on number of player in them or by amount of resources being transported? This kind of sounds like when you sell product from a gta 5 business. I like it.

Warth

One caravan can carry as much as 100 inventories worth of materials ~.
Not sure if you can chain them together per se, but nothing stops you from starting a second caravan when a friend starts his, then following him to the destination.

Gandalfthegrape

Warth wrote: »

One caravan can carry as much as 100 inventories worth of materials ~.
Not sure if you can chain them together per se, but nothing stops you from starting a second caravan when a friend starts his, then following him to the destination.

When a caravan is destroy all the materials are lost or will the attackers get them? Would you be able to send an empty or near empty caravan ahead of the loaded one as a bait of ambushers?

SongRune

When a caravan is destroyed by attackers, some of the materials are lost, and some of the materials are dropped to attackers.

You might want to review the Caravans page on the wiki.

There's no reason your friend couldn't send a very lightly loaded caravan in front of yours, but if you defend it, you're risking attackers going for yours instead (while all your friends are defending the decoy, or after defeating those friends), and if you don't defend it, you risk them knocking it over, seeing it's empty and then coming for yours like they originally were going to anyway.

Strevi

Players will not be able to see the exact contents of a caravan before they decide to attack or defend, however there will be some visual hints to the cargo of the caravan, such as gold, silver, or iron visible on top of the caravan.[44]

The decoy probably must contain some valuables too.

Gandalfthegrape

SongRune wrote: »

When a caravan is destroyed by attackers, some of the materials are lost, and some of the materials are dropped to attackers.

You might want to review the Caravans page on the wiki.

There's no reason your friend couldn't send a very lightly loaded caravan in front of yours, but if you defend it, you're risking attackers going for yours instead (while all your friends are defending the decoy, or after defeating those friends), and if you don't defend it, you risk them knocking it over, seeing it's empty and then coming for yours like they originally were going to anyway.

That could definitely be a downside. If you split your force you are weak in both places. I think it might be more effective tho that once the first one gets attacked the second is far enough away that it can divert its course while remaining out of render distance at the same time you lightly defend the decoy and heavily defend and scout for the main one. Do you happen to know if creating a cart costs a lot of resources? I hope the cart itself doesn't cost a lot. Because the system seems far too punishing already for the defenders if there is no comeback mechanic after a defeat. There is also no consequences for attackers if they fail, so on their side there is significantly less risk vs reward. Really there isn't much incentive to do a caravan if you can just kill people who are doing a caravan. Would be interesting if the attackers fail to annihilate the the caravan they would receive the bad boi debuff. Which would be good rp for the real world consequences of bandits failing to steal from someone.

SongRune

I don't believe we know the cost of launching a caravan yet.

I can't say where the risk/reward is for attackers. Steven's take is that it will hurt your reputation with other players (not a game mechanic) and failing attacks will make it harder to progress on the "Bandit" quest paths. Even death penalties (other than gear decay) are disabled for caravans^ref, but that decay is normal and would apply to defenders too.

In his own words, from June 2022: (at 1:14:52)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sUTuUAgavE&t=4492s