Rimworld Discussion

[Pifanjr]

I'm mostly making this thread to share my modlist with @ZedClampet, plus I'll have somewhere I can ramble on about my Rimworld game more extensively without feeling like I'm clogging up the Random Thoughts thread with play by play descriptions of my colony.

Onto my current modlist:

Quality of Life​

DragSelect - allows you to add items from multiple rows in a trade menu by holding your mouse button while dragging it over the buttons

Common Sense - a whole list of improvements to Pawn behaviour, all toggleable from the mod options menu. My favourite is probably the one where your cook cleans the kitchen before cooking and doctors clean hospital rooms after tending to patients.

Colony Manager - allows you to automate chopping trees, hunting animals and managing livestock.

Better Pawn Control - allows you to switch between policies for, for example, allowed areas and preferred clothing. Very useful to tell all your colonists to get inside during a raid.

[GMT] Trading Spot - adds a "building" in the misc category so you can tell trading caravans where to park.

Pick Up And Haul - lets pawns use their inventory to haul stuff, instead of carrying one item at a time. Amazing if you often gather stuff like berries or healroot from all over the map.

Dubs Mint Menus - improves the UI of menus and adds a search filter.

Share The Load - allows multiple pawns to bring materials to a blueprint and lets plant cutters cut trees that are in the way.

Replace Stuff - allows you to set blueprints over existing buildings/furniture. The old stuff gets automatically deconstructed as the new stuff is built.

Interaction Bubbles - shows little speech bubbles when pawns interact with each other. Normally you have to go into a submenu on the social tab of a pawn to see what they're talking about.

Extra content​

Geological Landforms - adds some new interesting terrain generation options. I actually haven't tried this out yet as I saw it after starting my current game.

A whole bunch of Vanilla Expanded mods (see all available Vanilla Expanded mods here)

Spoiler: Vanilla Expanded

Animals​

Vanilla Animals Expanded
Vanilla Animals Expanded — Endangered

Equipment​

Vanilla Armour Expanded
Vanilla Apparel Expanded
Vanilla Apparel Expanded — Accessories
Vanilla Weapons Expanded
Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Frontier
Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Grenades

Other Factions​

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Medieval
Vanilla Factions Expanded - Settlers

Pawn options​

Vanilla Skills Expanded
Vanilla Traits Expanded
Vanilla Backstories Expanded
Vanilla Social Interactions Expanded

Furniture​

Vanilla Furniture Expanded
Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Spacer
Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Production
Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Art
Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Medical
Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Security

Misc​

Vanilla Brewing Expanded
Vanilla Cooking Expanded
Vanilla Events Expanded
Vanilla Books Expanded
Vanilla Outposts Expanded
Vanilla Base Generation Expanded Vanilla Chemfuel Expanded
Vanilla Textures Expanded

(I might come back to add links to the Vanilla Expanded mods tomorrow, but it's late and I did all this on my phone)

 

[Brian Boru]

Is your old thread worth a mention here?

The Law: A Rimworld Story

I decided to write the story happening in my current game of Rimworld, as much for myself to help me get more immersed into the game as well as for those who might find this entertaining. The set-up I've installed most of the Vanilla Expanded mods, a collection by a team of modders that...

forums.pcgamer.com

If you want any posts copied in here from the Random threads, we can do that

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm mostly making this thread to share my modlist with @ZedClampet, plus I'll have somewhere I can ramble on about my Rimworld game more extensively without feeling like I'm clogging up the Random Thoughts thread with play by play descriptions of my colony.

Thanks! I subbed to all of them. First, I want to play at least a short, partial game with only Dubs Mint Menus and the HD graphics mod I mentioned, and then I'll start a new game with all of them activated. I just like to get a feel for mostly authentic vanilla before changing things. Plus, I can tell some of these mods are going to be so helpful that I really will be disinterested in playing vanilla once I've used them.

 

[Pifanjr]

Is your old thread worth a mention here?

The Law: A Rimworld Story

I decided to write the story happening in my current game of Rimworld, as much for myself to help me get more immersed into the game as well as for those who might find this entertaining. The set-up I've installed most of the Vanilla Expanded mods, a collection by a team of modders that...

forums.pcgamer.com

If you want any posts copied in here from the Random threads, we can do that

It's worth a mention, but I don't need to mix the threads. I'm not planning on doing anything quite that expansive again, I got burned out on the amount of work it required pretty fast.

Thanks! I subbed to all of them. First, I want to play at least a short, partial game with only Dubs Mint Menus and the HD graphics mod I mentioned, and then I'll start a new game with all of them activated. I just like to get a feel for mostly authentic vanilla before changing things. Plus, I can tell some of these mods are going to be so helpful that I really will be disinterested in playing vanilla once I've used them.

In case you just copied my Vanilla Expanded list, I can advise having a look through the entire list yourself too. Just check the comments to see if the recent update broke any (I had to disable the Genetics expanded mod for example). I don't have any of the DLC, so if you do it might be worth checking out the mods for those, especially the Ideology and Royalty patches.

I would also advise playing a game without the Equipment, Furniture and Misc categories (except maybe Vanilla Textures Expanded), as they add a lot of content that just clutters up the UI if you don't use it.

Lastly, for the Traits Expanded mod, I would recommend turning off the Rebel and Submissive traits, which make a character work slower respectively when forced or not forced to do a task, which in my opinion is just a pain to deal with.
I'd also advise to disable Wanderlust, which causes the pawn to get depressed if they aren't part of a caravan regularly, as I personally rarely make caravans and don't want to be forced to make one just to prevent one pawn from becoming depressed.

 

[Pifanjr]

I added Interaction Bubbles to the mod list. It was broken when I created the thread so I didn't mention it, but it has been fixed since.

 

[Pifanjr]

The current storyteller I'm using locks me from researching anything past electricity. However, it doesn't remove advanced tech from the rest of the world. So I have gotten a grenade launcher and a flame thrower from random drop pods and quests still give out advanced tech as well. In fact, I got a hot tip of a recon helmet stashed somewhere. However, it was of course guarded by a group of fiercesome creatures: 5 munchkin cats.

Turns out a grenade launcher doesn't work very well against fast enemies, but munchkin cats do not fare well against a gorilla and two grizzly bear pets.

 

[ZedClampet]

Decided I was wasting time in my vanilla game and went ahead and added mods. Since I intended to play this one until everyone died a horrible death, I took setting up my party more seriously.

What's up with the pyromaniacs? I'm not letting pyromaniacs in my colony. It's like seeing a farmer with a personality trait of "serial killer". Not going to happen.

I added Interaction Bubbles to the mod list. It was broken when I created the thread so I didn't mention it, but it has been fixed since.

Added, thanks.

I'm not using any of the "Expanded" mods except for the graphical one for my first real playthrough.

 

[ZedClampet]

It went okay. No one's died yet. It's kind of like other colony sims except you're babysitting morons.

Since the tutorial didn't work, I selected "peaceful" and probably spent 70 percent of the time either paused or failing to get my people to do exactly what I wanted them to do, but I'm getting the hang of it.

 

[Brian Boru]

probably spent 70 percent of the time either paused or failing to get my people to do exactly what I wanted them to do

Sounds like the groups I used to work with in the good ol' corporatorium

 

[Pifanjr]

What's up with the pyromaniacs? I'm not letting pyromaniacs in my colony. It's like seeing a farmer with a personality trait of "serial killer". Not going to happen.

Rimworld is called a "story generator" by its developer, because it isn't supposed to be just a colony simulator where you set up everything perfectly. Pyromaniacs make for terrible colonists, but they allow you to make up a story around them.

It went okay. No one's died yet. It's kind of like other colony sims except you're babysitting morons.

Since the tutorial didn't work, I selected "peaceful" and probably spent 70 percent of the time either paused or failing to get my people to do exactly what I wanted them to do, but I'm getting the hang of it.

What do you mean with morons? I typically don't feel like I have to micromanage my people and keep the game running on 3x speed for the majority of the time I'm playing.

Edit: are you aware that you can fine tune work priorities?

There's a "manual priorities" check mark in the top left corner. I always have Firefight, Patient and Bed Rest at 1 for everyone and at least one doctor at 1 and a cook at 1.

It's also useful to check the details overview when making a new bill/job.

I always turn down the ingredient radius so I don't have to worry about pawns going to grab ingredients from some corner of the map.

And for cooking, I permanently have a bill set for simple meals with "Do until you have X", with X set to 10 or 20. Combined with having a pawn with cooking priority at 1 it means I don't have to worry about meals running out as long as I have ingredients.

 

[ZedClampet]

Rimworld is called a "story generator" by its developer, because it isn't supposed to be just a colony simulator where you set up everything perfectly. Pyromaniacs make for terrible colonists, but they allow you to make up a story around them.


What do you mean with morons? I typically don't feel like I have to micromanage my people and keep the game running on 3x speed for the majority of the time I'm playing.

Edit: are you aware that you can fine tune work priorities?

Yeah, I'm aware of the proc-gen stories nature of the game. I'm not actually interested in that part of it, which is why I've never played the game before, but I figured the management side would be interesting.

Initially, I wasn't aware of the priorities system, but figured it out after awhile. I spent a long time trying to get someone to carry the medical supplies into the house where they wouldn't decay so quickly and became a little frustrated with it.

Overall, though, I'm enjoying it even though I'm not interested in the story generation and haven't paid any attention to it. I can't read the stuff that pops up in the character bubbles, anyway. There might be a configuration file in that mod that will let me change the font size. Haven't checked yet.

 

[ZedClampet]

Felt bad all day, but I did play a few minutes of Rimworld. I think my crew is doing well, but I have all the dangerous stuff turned off. I'll probably start a new game since I'm getting the hang of it now.

 

[Pifanjr]

If you use the Colony Manager mod to set up automated hunting, make sure you disable aggressive animals, or you might end up with a herd of 8 angry bison.

Somehow the hunter who pissed off a herd of bison lived though. I wasn't going to risk the rest of my colonists against a herd of angry bison, so I waited until the rest of them had walked into the traps around my base. After a couple went down and most of the rest got wounded I was just starting to plan a rescue when the hunter regained consciousness and started hobbling towards the colony. Dhe immediately got bodied by two of the surviving bison, but still managed to survive long enough for the rest of the colony to dispatch the remaining bison and save her. She lost a leg in the process, but I had just completed a quest that gave me two advanced pieces of tech that could restore missing body parts, so she just got ended up with just a couple of scars.

Note however that just because you're not attacking aggressive wildlife doesn't mean the wildlife won't attack you. A timber wolf decided that my best hunter looked tasty. I figured my hunter could probably kill him with his assault rifle, but I forgot he recently lost one eye to a rhinoceros. Also, timber wolves are fast. The reinforcements were almost there when the timber wolf ripped out my hunters throat, instantly killing him.

 

[ZedClampet]

Hmm, apparently I've been lucky so far, though honestly I haven't played very much yet. Maybe I'll stick to my current game. I'm trying to force myself to play here and there to get myself over the learning curve hump.

 

[Pifanjr]

My wife started a new game where her starting three pawns were a guy, his ex-wife and his lover. The man and his lover got married with the ex-wife as their only witness. A bit later that guy managed to wander into a megaspider hive and got himself killed, so it's just the ex-wife and the new wife left together, with no way to get to his body to give him a proper burial.

 

[ZedClampet]

I think the brilliance of this game is completely wasted on me right now. Maybe I should just put it aside and come back some day when I've become interested in narrative again. It's why I can't get into BG3 or Starfield, too. Right now I need to just empty my mind with tasks in a sandbox type environment.

 

[Brian Boru]

I forgot he recently lost one eye to a rhinoceros

Damn, your stirring tales make this game come alive—thanks!

tech that could restore missing body parts

Now to train your doctors in the art of strapalegtomy

it's just the ex-wife and the new wife left together

 

[Pifanjr]

I got a new idea of something I wanted to try out. Based off of my tribal game, I know it is possible to find very strong weapons and armour from quest rewards. I also know that it's pretty easy to survive without any fancy technologies. So I wanted to try to play as a lone ranger type, someone who crashed on the planet with just a sidearm, some first aid kits and a couple of emergency rations.

I've never actually managed to fulfill Rimworld's only win condition of leaving the planet, so my plan was to fulfill that "Ship to the Stars" quest that always shows up, in which you have to reach a specific point on the map and defeat a bunch of enemies once you arrive.

My original plan was to raid some bandit bases for equipment at the start, but found out that's practically impossible to do without either more people or better equipment. Instead I wait for quests, which are scaled to your wealth, so they're easier to complete and just give you one or two pieces of loot. The only problem with that is that I'm constantly moving my settlement towards the starship, meaning I'm leaving a lot of stuff behind each time, which limits the amount of wealth I can gather and thus the quality of the quest rewards I can get.

Luckily I've managed to gather a four allies since starting, who can help carry items and setting up a base when we arrive somewhere, which makes it easier to increase my wealth. The last quest I did gave me a golden plate armour and just before I quit playing today I got a quest that gives a legendary pistol, so it seems I'm wealthy enough now to get useful rewards.

 

[Pifanjr]

My wife just had an interesting experience. She send out one of her pawns to rescue another that was injured, then got a notification a little later that they died. However, she couldn't find the body, which was strange, until she realised the pawn she send was a cannibal...

 

[Adeptus]

I like mod "Call of Cthulhu - Cosmic Horrors". It adds some interesting enemies based on Cthulhu Mythos - they have interesting gimmicks, like "you can appease it with human sacrifice" or "becomes visible only when starts attacking".