Ok, I did a quick run to grab screenshots
On the world map you choose where to build your settlement. As you progress you can go farther and farther from the Smoldering City in the centre.
At the bottom you will see a bar, which is the time until the next big storm. The storms reset the world map - only the Smoldering City survives. As you can see, here I am about halfway through the storm cycle and have founded three settlement.
The Smoldering City is the game's hub and is where you get your lasting upgrades. You spend your resources there and all the upgrades are permanent.
When you select a spot on the world map, you can see what options you have for your caravan, what roughly awaits you. Basically it creates a random map with those parameters.
So in this game, this is a few minutes in, as I am busy constructing my starting settlement.
On the right is the impatience (if it fills up, I lose) :
On the left the reputation (I fill this up to win) :
During the game you also complete orders for the Queen. These give you one point of reputation each and at the same time reduce impatience.
In this game, as I got easy orders (or am awesome enough to know what to expect and what orders to pick 😛 ) the impatience you see in that last screenshot is as high as it got.
Mind you, that run was on Pioneer, the second easiest out of 5 difficulties.