RimWorld Guide
RimWorld Guide
Chainsaw's New Player Advice - I've made all these mistakes myself.
Once your Colonist's feet hit the dirt it's a race for survival against the elements, wildlife, local gangs and
dangerous aliens!
The colonies chances of survival can be improved if you keep them moving and developing their colony.
But you don't want to get too far ahead in giving your orders.
Continuous ongoing improvement is the best route to stability and allows you to respond to changing
circumstances.
If you leave an open schedule for your colonists and give them a wide variety of jobs to do you can keep
the enormous work required to maintain and grow a colony manageable.
The work assignments based on skill discussed below are designed to give solid coverage on important
tasks while giving preference to the most skilled colonists. There should always be something to do and
someone to do something quickly.
When I say "Additional (skilled)" below I'm referring to any colonist with points in the skill and/or an
interest/passion. You can adjust priorities to meet a crisis but be sure to slowly roll back changes you
made or you're only creating future crisis'.
When you build or carve out space to expand your colony always over-estimate your needs to allow for
optimization or re-assignment as needs change. Big rooms, wide hallways. For each constructor or miner
only queue up 10-20 squares of work for any of them to do at one time. Keep assignments close
together. Two large construction projects far apart from each other slows down the completion of both
projects.
You should try and keep the colonist's schedules as free as possible. Scheduling the same sleep hours for
people in the barracks can help prevent disturbed sleep instances. Even then, try running without it, a
nice barrack will provide more buffs than the occasional disturbed sleep.
Whether it's Sleep, Joy or Work that the colonist needs to do it seems that interrupting any task that is
happening to perform a task that may or may not actually be required seems backward. Give your
colonists options and let them make their own decision on how best to fulfill their needs. If they are still
pissed off, it's their own fault. So don't take any guilt in letting them suffer or do something they aren't
inclined to do on their own when it is "For the good of the colony."
This is just my opinion on how to do things after a lot of experimentation, feel free to share your own
thoughts below and disagree with me to your heart's content, it's just a video game.
We will briefly explore each checklist item, discuss how to get started and improve them as you go
along.
Read through the guide before you get too deep into a game. Once you're playing only spend a few
minutes on each checklist topic. Check the list, pick something to do or improve in that category, spend
a few minutes planning and assigning it, check that schedules and jobs are set right for it and then go on
to the next item on the list.
Security
Food
Kitchen
Freezer
Housing
Crafting
Prisoners
Research
Goods
Infrastructure
Security
When you first start the game you address Security by picking a defensible site. Something where you
can easily contain and secure a large enough area for your immediate needs.
You will need outdoor space for farms, solar panels, wind turbines, and recreation areas. You will want
to try and enclose geothermal vents to tap them for power generation or heat later on.
Start with a fairly large initial security area, you can expand it as you go through the checklist as
necessary but to begin with pick some choke points and setup walls and/or sandbags or determine
available natural cover for these areas if you get attacked from that direction.
You will start by default with a pistol, a knife, and a rifle. Give the rifle to your best shot and the pistol to
second best. Equip the knife to the lowest shooting skilled character for now.
Setup a "rally" zone for combat ready colonists and animals during raids/emergencies near the entrance
to your colony but inside the security zone.
Setup an "alamo" zone for all colonists and animals to fall back to as a final defense.
In later passes -
Expand and improve defenses and the colony enclosure (walls, embrasures, moats, barbed wire).
Build colony approach areas with obstacles and minimal cover, clear fire lines and kill zones for turrets
and colonist defenders.
Check that you have the best weapons and armor equipped with the most skilled colonists.
Insure you know your defensive positions for each colonist (short range, long range, melee) with cover
and planned escape routes.
Deploy more advanced turrets and artillery.
Be sure to leave some internal defenses as you expand to guard against breaches and drop pod attacks.
Stock long shelf-life food, trade goods, extra weapons and some building materials in the "alamo" for
launching caravans and evac.
Assignment:
Arm as many colonists with long range weapons and armor as you can.
Choose defensive positions that work well with assigned weapon range
Best Melee - Blunt Melee Weapon + Best Personal Shield + Best Armor - Hodor 1
2nd Best Melee - Blunt Melee Weapon + Good Personal Shield + Good Armor - Hodor 2
Have colonists with ranged weapons man their defensive positions to provide continuous fire on
approaching raiders. Fall back to more secure positions and continue firing. Try to avoid ordering
colonists to move across other colonists firing lines and getting involved in melee.
Use your Hodor's to subdue rampaging prisoners, hesitant visitors or snapped colonists.
Use Hodor 2 to block any breach during a raid. If Hodor 2 falls have everyone fall back to the "alamo"
and start prepping an evac caravan.
Give Hodor 1 something sharp. Have him ready to hold the doorway if it gets bashed down. If it does
have him step in to block it and release any trained animals.
Only take one or two of each item type (trade good, food, construction material) per available colonist.
Leave well equipped combat colonists out of the caravan to cover Hodor 1 in the door and to push an
escape route for the caravan when it's ready.
If you manage to get any of the evac caravan off the map form a second caravan with the remaining
defenders. Don't assign any supplies, just get off the map ASAP and try to rendezvous with the first
caravan.
Hope you got enough materials for a fresh start on a new tile.
Food - Farm/Ranch/Hunt
Some biomes have very short growth periods and you usually start in one, so get farms started quick.
Start with food like strawberries that don't need to be prepared to avoid a negative mood buffer.
Start with about 10 squares of food production farm area per colonist. If you are in an extreme biome
you may need to build indoor farming/animal facilities which will require a lot more infrastructure.
Hunt only as necessary at first. Wait until you have a freezer and can store meat before making broad
hunting assignments. Try and get a freezer up and running before your first harvest of planted crops.
You can click 'plant cut' and select areas around your base to gather berries and other food that will
supplement you during the early game and add variety in the later game.
Determine if the food/work being done by your animals warrants the food they are consuming. Do the
same for colonists, a little, and prisoners, a lot. They are all alternative protein sources when things get
tight, keep frozen.
In later passes -
Expand growing area for craft crop production (cloth, drugs, alcohol)
Start taming animals to harvest milk, eggs, and wool or hide and meat.
Setup a barn with animal sleeping spots, beds and food storage.
Slaughter Animals.
Assignments:
Raw food stored outside will spoil very quickly. Storing it indoors or preparing raw food into meals can
extend the shelf life.
Prepared meals provide buffs to mood and other attributes. The more ingredients or steps required to
make a meal increase the effects and positive buffs it provides.
Eating some food raw can have negative mood affects on your colonists.
Prepared food usually takes less storage space than raw food so converting your supply into meals can
help with storage space issues as well.
In later passes -
Build a dedicated >10x10 kitchen that airlocks the freezer.
Add additional work benches (butcher, stove, grain mill, oven, prep tables...)
Make sure bills are set to use the proper ingredients (don't waste processed foods like cheese in simple
meals).
Assignments:
Leave butchering and prep work (grinding, cheese making and such) to low level cooks.
Set high skill requirement for making meals to avoid food poisoning and loss of processed ingredients on
failure.
Setup bills to keep ~10 meals per colonist available and maintain variety, drive improved quality.
Get a > 10x10 enclosed storage room going quickly to get harvested crops and hunted animals inside.
It's okay to setup your first kitchen stations in the freezer but plan on expanding the room or building a
separate kitchen later.
Keep heat management in mind. You will need to add a cooler/vent to keep the freezer at -1C or lower
later when you get the infrastructure. You can use a kitchen room as an airlock between the freezer and
a farm.
In later passes -
Start another >10x10 room and get beds setup for all your colonists +1 for medical and +1 spare. We will
build a separate hospital later. This may be a good heat outlet for your freezer's cooler if you need to
keep a room warm.
In later passes:
Check temperatures.
Assignments:
Keep people in the barracks on the same sleep schedule.
Avoid assigning night owls to cleaning/repair/construct so they don't disturb the barracks/bedrooms.
Upgrade old beds/rooms as your construction improves and you get new materials.
You can start your crafting area in your Goods Storage area to start but move into it's own >10x10 room
when available.
Start with a crafting spot or bench and setup bills to always have a few basic clothes and weapons
available. New colony members may show up without appropriate gear. Items can be damaged and will
take wear and tear.
Sell off any worn or poor quality gear, try and keep high quality, good condition gear available.
Let colonists pick and choose for themselves except when it comes to weapons and armor or trying to
appease a critical mood, frostbite, heat stroke...
Some gear will have buffs and negative effects on your colonists based on traits and condition or quality.
Start a stone crafting bench and start a bill to make stone blocks into bars forever. This will keep your
colony free of stone blocks littering the hallways as well as providing sufficient bricks on hand to build
out a nice facility.
You need to balance production of building materials with your build orders. Try and stockpile enough
material to keep up with build orders without draining the store rooms. At the same time don't let
stockpiles of materials choke your storage space. Expand storage and throttle bills as you go.
In later passes -
Check work bills to make sure you are using proper materials.
Assignments:
Restrict advanced jobs to high skill crafters to avoid wasting valuable materials.
Capture any Raiders you can. (Hint: Fast Hodor + Fleeing Injured Raiders = Prisoners)
Strip prisoners with armor when you apprehend them. Armor can make them harder to subdue...later.
The nicer your prison is the more likely you are to recruit someone.
In later passes -
Setup a "lockdown" zone where you will send the Hodor's in case of prisoner unrest.
Make sure you have clothes and gear available when prisoners are recruited.
Assignments:
Research
You can setup your first research bench in your goods storage area but will want a >10x10 eventually.
In later passes -
Assignments:
Start a >10x10 room for Goods storage. This is for all raw and finished items that don't need to be
refrigerated.
You will want to start your crafting and research in here but will move it all out later.
Find a >10x10 area outside for a Dump where you can drop rotten items/trash.
In later passes -
Create specialized storage areas for crafting production and trade.
Check mining and lumber orders to insure raw materials are being harvested.
Setup a radio and trade beacons in storage areas for orbital trade.
Assignments:
Infrastructure - Power, Heating and Cooling, Construction Insure your initial rooms are enclosed and
roofed properly. Use torches and campfires for light and heat until you get power.
When you have secured a good fuel supply (either from local trees or a tree farm) build a fueled
generator and get a cooler built for your freezer.
In later passes -
Assignments:
Make sure you always have a spare bed assigned for medical.
Start growing healroot or mod equivalent medicines. Medicine is good to have on hand as a trade good
too so always have some growing.
Pick an out of the way area for a 10 plot graveyard and keep a couple of spare graves dug. Corpses lying
around are unhealthy and a psychological hazard as well.
Build a couple of quick recreation items outside to avoid cabin fever and keep some amenities located
where colonists must go outside to use them regularly.
In later passes -
Put in amenities around graves, colonists will visit grave sites and places to sit, plants, and sculptures
nearby will improve their mood.
Build a morgue where you store/strip the enemy's dead and burn the corpses in a furnace. Put it near
your trade goods stockpile.
Build a very nice room with lots of recreational items, some meals storage and places to sit and eat.
Make sure colonists have to go outside to get there.
Put tables and chairs near work areas so busy colonists can sit down and eat lunch when they finish a
task.
Build chairs or stools at work benches to improve comfort, sculptures and plants to improve mood.
Assignments:
Once you make it through the checklist you can go back and start at the top. It's time to look at your
walls again and maybe see how the crops are coming in.
Of course, survival is just the slowest form of suicide. Once you have the basics running it may be time to
start thinking about exploring the more advanced technologies you will be uncovering. Perhaps starting
your own trade caravans or raiding parties. Maybe building a ship, an outpost, or an empire...
TL,DR - HOdor.
-edits
I've made some changes to incorporate other ideas and feedback and will probably continue to do so.
Here are some extra apostrophes, commas and other random punctuation I failed to place
correctly: ;;;:::''''',,,..,>---><<?//!!!,,,...
Sorry.