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[Drathnoxis]

These things are like the Tardis! From what I've calculated, a single unloaded pack animal can hold 1550 units and a single unloaded wagon can hold a whopping 15250 units! Considering a bed is 12 units, one wagon can hold 1270 beds, or 3050 barrels at 5 units. These things must be piled like skyscrapers.

Because you usually get several wagons in a caravan it completely removes the 'allowed weight' from any sort of trading consideration. It's so high that it might as well not be there at all. Why even bother making low weight, high value trade goods when anything you can possibly make will fit and buy out the caravan? The bigger issue is getting all your goods to the depot before the caravan leaves.

Why are they so big? Is it a bug?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Caravans are an unfinished feature and therefore not all that realistic right now. Once there's a world economy in place and caravans actually travelling from site to site, Toady can work out how much one caravan should be able to realistically hold without causing the mass starvation of frontier communities.

That'll take a while. And when you're planning a multi-decade project that you want to complete before you die (or at least reach version 1.0), implementation of new temporary placeholders that make a bit more sense right now, but will eventually be scrapped can seem like a waste of valuable development time.

[Innocent Dave]

I refer you to the following incontrovertible evidence that caravans really can haul that much stuff:


(taken from the DF Wiki page on Caravans, original credit unknown)

[PatrikLundell]

While animal hauling capacity might be huge according to your calculations, I assume you've never actually tried to get rid of your sub standard quality rock furniture using elven caravans, or human/dwarven ones where the wagons couldn't be let in (because the trade entrance was littered by freshly killed invaders). I regularly fail to get the elves to haul my garbage away, even when I resort to the trick of buying their heavy stuff (clay and big animals) to free up carrying capacity.

[FoiledFencer]

While animal hauling capacity might be huge according to your calculations, I assume you've never actually tried to get rid of your sub standard quality rock furniture using elven caravans, or human/dwarven ones where the wagons couldn't be let in (because the trade entrance was littered by freshly killed invaders). I regularly fail to get the elves to haul my garbage away, even when I resort to the trick of buying their heavy stuff (clay and big animals) to free up carrying capacity.

I concur. Elves can carry surprisingly few shitty statues.

[Bearskie]

Ah, I see you've met the IKEA flatpacks.

[MobRules]

I remember seeing a post about an incident that included a statement to the effect of "and then the donkey carrying my elephants ran offscreen faster than I could catch it", and no-one batted an eye. Only Dwarf Fortress .

[vjek]

Also, you can have caravans without wagons, and then weight really matters.  I've done this intentionally in a few forts, and you have to be a bit more selective in what you trade.

[Niddhoger]

Also, try trading unusually dense items.  Not just stone statues, but LEAD statues.  Even lead crafts can quickly way down the elven donkey.  But yeah... when hte humans/dorfs are bringing 6+ wagons in addition to their donkeys, weight really becomes inconsequential.

[Quietust]

Known bug - the current trade capacities are the same as they were back in 0.28.181.40d, back before item weights were redone (and ended up significantly lower than they used to be).

[khearn]

I've managed to overload a caravan with wagons. Had a lot of Galena on that map,so I made a lot of silver stuff, leaving me with 100s of bars of lead. So many that the dwarven caravan couldn't carry them all when i decided to get rid of them. I guess I shoulda made them all into goblets.

[Niddhoger]

I've managed to overload a caravan with wagons. Had a lot of Galena on that map,so I made a lot of silver stuff, leaving me with 100s of bars of lead. So many that the dwarven caravan couldn't carry them all when i decided to get rid of them. I guess I shoulda made them all into goblets.

Goblets AND toys, but you only give these to the elves...

[Urist_McArathos]

Let's hope unloading speed gets resolved soon.  My last fort the dwarven caravan spent the entire time unloading, then departed for their journey before they ever finished.  I didn't even get to trade.

[Skorpion]

I've managed to overload a caravan with wagons. Had a lot of Galena on that map,so I made a lot of silver stuff, leaving me with 100s of bars of lead. So many that the dwarven caravan couldn't carry them all when i decided to get rid of them. I guess I shoulda made them all into goblets.

Getting rid. Of metals.

What kind of dwarf are you? Lead is IDEAL for use! Bins, barrels, furniture, you name it! Sure, it's heavy, but WHEELBARROWS, man! Wheelbarrows! Minecarts!
Maybe it's just my habits of embarking on metal-rich but tree-poor embarks that's caused these habits, but I will never ever throw away metal on caravans. Bone/shell crafts all the way, with maybe some rock ones to make up the numbers.

[deknegt]

I've managed to overload a caravan with wagons. Had a lot of Galena on that map,so I made a lot of silver stuff, leaving me with 100s of bars of lead. So many that the dwarven caravan couldn't carry them all when i decided to get rid of them. I guess I shoulda made them all into goblets.

Getting rid. Of metals.

What kind of dwarf are you? Lead is IDEAL for use! Bins, barrels, furniture, you name it! Sure, it's heavy, but WHEELBARROWS, man! Wheelbarrows! Minecarts!
Maybe it's just my habits of embarking on metal-rich but tree-poor embarks that's caused these habits, but I will never ever throw away metal on caravans. Bone/shell crafts all the way, with maybe some rock ones to make up the numbers.

I agree lead is better than adamantium in a way. Lead poisoning doesn't exist, and lugging around ungodly heavy barrels and bins means your dwarves are getting a great workout on top of that.

If you have all your haulers doing that for a few years, you're gonna be running a Mr. Olympia fort in no time. Toss silver warhammers into their hands and see them go Barry Bonds on the gobbos.