What is the point of traps? I set one in The Caves, before trying to fight the Pangolin, as I had 5 trees there in staggered growth cycles, but by hovering and watching the colour available, it all disappeared when Whaler entered it. Do I need to be in the cave while this happens? I can't enter a cave a brother is already inside, and if I could get to the cave, I would take the colour and would not need the trap. What is the point of spending 70 colour to activate something does not work?

Edit: okay, so it seems that traps expire? You activate them and then a few cycles later they don't work any more? Given the very poor return you get from trees after a cycle or two, how can it be worthwhile to keep these going?

Over 14 hours in, I was kind of willing to go with the all the other obtuse features of this game, but if this doesn't work, then I can't see how it is possible to complete. This is the 4th time I've restarted and I've kind of had it.

I am really struggling to like this game. While I respect its creativity and expansion of gaming horizons, simple survival is so difficult that it is hard to form any kind of impression of it, other than hard. It is like eating a curry that is too hot - all texture and burning, no taste. I have had to seek so much help just to work out the basic mechanics of the game that many of the surprises in the game have been ruined by search results. Will probably have to replay it with the easy patch to try to salvage something from the price I paid for it.

I can't tell about The Void, but in Tension traps never expired (or I never have unused trap to see it's expire). If you "charge" trap with color, you can safely leave the garden. Next Brother who will try to enter Garden (and take all the colors), will be hit by a trap, and will retrieve (you have to be on the map to see it).

Traps must be fully charged to be usable. If you put 70 droplets in a trap, and the trap requires 75, it won't do any good until you add 5 more.
Once a trap is activated (which you can easily tell because it starts humming and glowing), it will repel the next brother who tries to enter the garden chamber, and then will need to be recharged before it will work again. Because of this, it is only really useful to set traps when there is more color in a garden than you're able to collect.

By the way, if you don't trap a garden, and a brother comes by and sucks up all the color, that doesn't mean it is gone forever, you can get that color back by defeating the brother...

Thanks for the tips. I stopped using traps after the first one. In most cases it is easy enough to be in the right place to protect your investment.