Here is my proposition for the caravan wagons. As it was said before, they are too slow and cumbersome (damned waterbags) to be useful, compared to cars. So my proposal is to connect them with additional feature (sort of a very basic way of running
your own private caravan micro-company).
So first, here are my propositions for the caravans:
A) Remove requirement to refuel caravans. Capacity and management of waterbags is super annoying. Caravans are slow as f***, you get a lot more encounters with them than with a car. I think the slowness is enough, no need to make them worse than that, especially with something as clunky as the waterbags.
B) Make caravans not lockpickable in the towns the first 10 minutes after entering a public town (or at least a guarded town) with them. Actually, I would suggest to do the same with cars, but in case of caravans it will be crucial for the feature below.
Your Own Caravan Company (YOCC) QuestIn reality it's a simple, repeatable quest for which you need your own caravan wagon. Players simply don't transport huge amount of stuff all the time (and even then, cars are better option), but there can be a quest with reward to do that, specifically with caravans.
1. You come with your own caravan wagon to town A.
2. You talk to YOCC quest NPC (a trader, shop owner, etc). The NPC tells you, he has goods to transport to town B (and tells you which NPC is the destination). If you agree, item "caravan goods" is spawned automatically in the caravan trunk and the NPC tells you the goods are loaded on the wagon. You can do this anytime (no need to wait for any driver, you are the driver).
3. Travel looks like normal travel, except during the travel with "caravan goods" in your caravan you ALWAYS get enforced into encounters (or at least the minimum chance is capped much higher than 5%, so you can't avoid them all with 200% Outdoorsman alt - the point is to fight in the encounters not avoid them). Of course you lead the wagon and you can choose your path of travel. In the encounter, if all players die, "caravan goods" disappear. I guess they might disappear after some time automatically too (let's say it's some food that rots).
4. The item "caravan goods" can't be taken from the trunk by players (it's "too heavy"). It can only be "unloaded" by script, when talking to the destination NPC. (you can also tell the destination NPC or the NPC who gave the job, that you lost your caravan, then you get no reward).
5. After successful transport with all the encounters on your way, you return to NPC A, then you get your reward (caps). It would be best if you could take same quest in town B, to reduce boredom of going back with empty caravan
6. There can be only one "caravan goods" item in a wagon at a time.
7. There should be a way to prevent players to do the quest by clicking the caravan quickly as soon as they enter any encounter. Again, the point would be to kill the aggressive mobs on your way.