Caravan Designs and Scalability Issues

[KibaddaKaboodle]

First a minor bug report :p
Bug: Caravans can't be opened in Remote View
ref patch 2.1.33
" - Added compatibility between caravans and the remote configuration mod."

Design problems...
Ability to scale is difficult because:
Caravans can't be deployed by bots.
Every Outpost adds to the complexity of the Caravan scheduling either by adding a unique Caravan for the added Outpost or by tacking on a new Outpost to the Door to Door Caravan.
When the Caravan TURD is selected all caravans need to be picked up, handcrafted into the upgraded Caravan and rescheduled.
UPGRADING IS A NIGHTMARE UGH... ALL OUTPOSTS NEED TO BE UPDATED, SCHEDULES, CARAVANS... Compared to trains?
Upgrading to Aerial Caravans also involve tearing up all your Outposts, Caravans, and rescheduling...

Creating Schedules for Caravans is laborious, error prone, and requires spatial awareness of your base.

Caravan Designs and their problems:
Door to Door Caravan:

A Caravan goes from supply to deposit (or vice versa) for every Outpost there is. Doesn't wait for inventory to be emptied at deposit. Expand Throughput by adding Caravans with the same schedule.
ex. Caravan takes iron plates from iron plate deposit Outpost and delivers to every iron plate

Problem- When a new deposit is added ALL Caravans that deposit that item need to be updated. Fuel inefficient.

Back and Forth:

A Caravan travels from one Outpost to another, being only responsible for those delivers.

Problem- Each Outpost requires a unique Caravan with a unique schedule to be added.

Ratio Randy:

Mixes inventory to acquire a ratioed count of items to match whatever recipe it's outputting to.

Problem- There's no resource savings, extra complicated schedule and niche, but he's so damn cool.

Both Door to Door and Back and Forth require a hub like structure, acting as a middle ground linking Provider Outposts and Consumer Outposts AND a feeding ground to supply food for all Producing and Consuming Caravans. This is the only scalable solution I've found.

Byproduct priority is possible but far more complicated than trains? research.

Compromise:
Caravans only handle raw solid resources, not a good compromise considering many resources require some kind of liquid logistics best handled by a train...

Suggestions?

Dumber Trains:
Outposts have names.
Outposts have Caravan Limits.
Circuits can control Caravan Limits.
Caravans goes to closest Outpost with name, with capacity.

Just Transport Drones/Logistic Carts mod:
Provider, Requester, and Buffer Outposts logistically connected by??? Roads??? Just global???

Caravan PLUS:
Allow Caravan to receive from/deposit to ANY BUILDING (perhaps even chests/warehouses?)
Caravans can only store food at Outposts
Perhaps have schedule interrupts for lunch breaks :3
This adds new functionality that makes them non competing with trains! Instead competes with something like Requester Chests, Logi Bots, and inserters but much less global and non blueprint-able.
Gives purpose to Ratio Randy!
I think this is the most Caravan-y upgrade and allows for cool inserter-less setups for machines. Helpful for many ingredient recipes like from alien life or high volume output from a machine.
This kinda already exists? Use Outposts as Requester Chests that directly insert to buildings...

[notnotmelon]

Thanks for the in-depth feedback.

Perhaps the solution here is to implement the 2.0 train interrupts feature into the Caravans.

[nicolasechcat]

That would be really helpfull

[ariksu]

I would like to leave +1 on caravan fuel inefficiency for multiple endpoint caravan (although this looks like a complex feature to me with a lot of coding)
Another +1 would be outpost renaming. Currently we're only able to reverse lookup outposts by location and by caravan visiting, which tends to complicate things with no additional benefit. Q