When I got to a quest site I made a hitching spot because I understand pen animals like horses (what I brought) may wander off without one. After I undrafted my colonists they hitched them. I dealt with the EMI interference, rejoice! Let's go home.
But they aren't. Turns out the problem was the hitch spot. They wouldn't unhitch the horses to leave. They loaded them but until I manually deconstructed the hitch the horses were wandering and the colonists wandering the edge of the map waiting for the horses. It took a while to figure out what was wrong. Is this a bug/known quirk?
Also, caravans in general are sort of annoying to deal with. It seems tricky to figure out why they aren't leaving. On the way to the site I had a similar problem. Turns out I said to bring 8 meals but someone grabbed one and I only had 7. I think I brought up a screen showing what was loaded and missing but I don't remember how I did. Any clues?
Edit: Okay, so I don't actually know why they didn't unhook the horses, that may still be a bug, but I see now that the intended way to leave a site is to use reform caravan once all threats are neutralized (which includes destroying or shutting down turrets). Then they just magically do everything instead of manually hauling. Also, having done a few more without caravan spots I haven't seen the pack animals wonder off. My best guess is that the game treats them differently or something. But I'm not 100% sure because when I got back home, some tried wandering off before being unloaded. Who knows.
I don't have good answers for you, but I've had all of those problems. Especially once my caravan is out, it's always a struggle to get them to come home.
Yeah, I love love love this game, but it's got a lot of little bugs/quirks/strange UI I'm still getting used to.