it doesnt matter because the exp given was based on the lvl of the character and leveling on caravan with e.g lvl 40 and lvl 100 took roughly the same time
being afk is not a good point since your caravan died if u did so, also now caravan leaders are much weaker
it was balanced when caravan encounters were strong and actually hard to do
"facepalm"
-through those early levels (1-100) you get really fast anyways and after lvl 100+ caravans was best by far
-i didnt said completely afk, you can just alttab when you hear encounter sound, kill npc, alttab back and continue what you was doing before until you get another encounter, it requires very little effort for very high scaling reward
-i was doing caravans on my tank last season without single drug or stimpak so they were not hard at all, now its a bit harder since there are no implants and hexing but should be still pretty easy, depends on build and route ofc