I typically use Faction Control to disable any factions I don’t want to see, including insects & the mechanoid hive.
Sure, disabling those limits quests and stuff, but I prefer to deal with invasions which do not suddenly appear out of nowhere.
At least I now know that this only applies to objects within the same enclosed room as a stonecutting table and while that particular bulk stonecutting mod is enabled. Other bulk stonecutting mods, which only go as high as 5×, work properly.
I get picky and I don’t always understand why. Some games work for me in a genre but then the next three don’t.
Glad you are enjoying Rimworld!
Thanks for the reply!
I’ll post, or re-post as the case may be, links to my favorite “lite” mods later today. Relatively small, useful changes.
In General
No Version Warning – removes version warnings from old mods which are actually compatible with your current version. Requires Harmony.
Prepare Landing – allows the player to search the world for a desired starting location. Requires Harmony & HugsLib.
EdB Prepare Carefully – allows the player to specify which pawns, equipment, animals, etc., they want in their starting colony. Requires Harmony.
Character Editor – does virtually the same thing as Prepare Carefully but also allows the editing of characters and animals after landing, so it’s a bit of a cheat menu. Requires Harmony.
Pick Up And Haul – makes pawns more efficient haulers. Does not require any other mod.
Dubs Mint Minimap – places a very useful minimap on the screen. Requires Harmony.
World Generation
ReGrowth: Expanded World Generation (Continued) – enables sliders to specify percentages of biome presence when generating worlds. Requires Harmony.
Biome Expansion: Redwood Forest – adds large swaths of redwood forest. Does not require any other mod.
Gulden Mod – adds gulden forests, inspired by Elden Ring. Requires Biomes! Core.
Real Ruins – searches its database for player-generated maps related to the chosen seed and attempts to place them in the world as ruins; can also place ruins on the starting map. Will upload your colony to its database if allowed in mod options. Requires HugsLib.
ReGrowth: Core ( requires Vanilla Expanded Framework ) – does not do anything on its own but adds support for the following:
- ReGrowth: Arid – adds hot, dry areas which are not quite deserts.
- ReGrowth: Aspen – adds aspen forests.
- ReGrowth: Boreal – adds boreal forests.
- ReGrowth: Swamps – adds swamps.
- ReGrowth: Temperate – adds temperate forests.
- ReGrowth: Tundra – adds tundra.
- Winter Taiga Biome – adds high altitude forests which become snow-covered during winter. Also requires Expandable Plants (Continued).
Geological Landforms – adds a variety of different landscapes. On which depends
- Biome Transitions – allows maps which border different biome(s) to share elements from its neighboring biome(s).
Map Generation
Biomes! Fossils – as mentioned above, adds amber, fossils, and museum-related objects. Requires Harmony.
CCP’s Stone Tweaks – adds eight new stone types.
Glowmoss – adds self-illuminated and quite flammable flora. Not yet available for 1.5 and does not require any other mod.
Glowstone – adds self-illuminated rocks which can be refined into light-emitting floor objects. Requires No Version Warning for 1.4; don’t know about 1.5
More Trees (Continued) – adds eight new trees. Does not require any other mod.
MorrowRim - Glass and Ebony – adds volcanic glass & volcanic ebony, inspired by Morrowind; pawns really love stuff made from these. Up to 1.4 only; use Mashed’s Ashlands for 1.5.+ Does not require any other mod.
Strike the Earth! - Stone – adds six new stone types, inspired by Dwarf Fortress. Does not require any other mod.
VGP Xtra Trees and Flowers – adds four new trees and six new flowers. Does not require any other mod.
Useful Items
Dubs Bad Hygiene – adds stuff like bathtubs, showers, toilets, etc. Comes with a lite option for those who, like me, prefer not to deal with pipes everywhere. Requires Harmony.
Power Poles – enables long-distance power transmission without placing conduits everywhere. Requires Harmony.
Walkable Solar Panels – 1×1 solar panels which can also be used as paths. Does not require any other mod.
Here’s another interesting biome pack, which I presumably stopped using because I have enough biomes and – well – it doesn’t really make sense unless a planet is limited to one biome.
Star Wars - Biomes Addon – adds 15 optional biomes inspired by Star Wars. Including Bespin clouds and Kashyyyk. A map covered in giant redwoods is difficult enough but wroshyr trees really hide everything under foliage.
Oh, I believe Extended Woodworking or Expanded Woodworking / Expanded Woodworking (Continued) is required to actually see the correct wood for those trees rather than generic wood. I prefer the simpler Extended version.
Game froze last night so I had to force quit. Attempted to return to the last autosave during my lunch hour and found that two of my colony’s animals had disappeared. Tried reloading that save and previous saves; got those missing animals back but one type of natural walls had disappeared instead.
Guess I have to play with some missing animals now.
Reloaded a newer autosave after a mismanaged raid and those missing animals are back!
This is so damned weird.
I subscribed to a bunch of “medieval” mods for a low-tech run. Using the geological landforms mod, I started on a map with an island, which should make building a defendable castle easy.
My favorite combat in Rimworld is always the early game before weapon ranges and power get insane, so I’m hopeful a medieval run will give me more of that.
I hope one of those is a Vanilla Factions Expanded, with its tech-limited storyteller.
Yep, even though it’s deprecated it works for me because my install is 1.4 to allow smooth multiplayer functionality for other saves
The author of that bulk stonecutting mod fixed a discrepancy between that mod and one of the mods which adds more stone types. Which also fixed my issues with indoor stonecutting tables; still have no idea why only my indoor tables would break – taking everything else in the same room with them.
Whatever was causing my disappearing animals (and some pawns) seems to have been fixed as well. I had been leaving colonies open on the ESC menu overnight so as not to take chances on anyone disappearing on reload; I guess I don’t need to do that anymore.
I still don’t trust any pre-existing containers and deconstruct them on sight.
@Raza: I just remembered, fossils will turn up in trader inventories from time to time. I’ve also found some with a ground-penetrating scanner but, at the moment, I’m not sure which mod they’re from. Need to do quite a bit of tunneling to get over there.
Thanks, Skywatcher. I ended up removing that mod, but going deep on Hospitality; it’s quite the steady moneymaker even if not charging for beds.
Here’s another way to challenge yourself: a race of slimegirls who are genetically incapable of researching, ergo they cannot advance on their own (1.4 & 1.5).
I’ve not started a Mincho colony, yet, but I’ve had some move into other colonies.
Meet the Gerzee, a race of formerly enslaved beings who appear to be distant relatives of James P. Sullivan.
Compatible with all versions since 1.0, Gerzee are essentially big, musclebound rawist vegetarians. Their digestive system is incapable of processing meat or anything that has been cooked.
The same author also has something to help with their dietary requirements (1.2+) but development has apparently stalled.
I noticed some Warhammer 40K mods (1.4 & 1.5) recently hit the Workshop
so I tried out playing as the Angels of Death (lite version)
and virtually everyone is hostile!
The standard version has a whole bunch of armor variations.
Hammer of the Imperium (1.4 & 1.5)
and Talons of the Emperor (1.5 only)
are also available. I don’t think these authors have orcs as yet but there are other mods for those.
I’ve been trying out other colony starts* after adding other mods** but the game kept crashing on map generation; also crashed after loading an existing colony. So I removed those Warhammer mods and was able to start a different colony without crashing.
*One of which are those Mincho slimes, prior to all the crashing. They not only cannot research but their construction ability leaves much to be desired so I gave them a couple of bots to help out.
**Mostly storage-related.
Also more gemstones, some of which are not in other mods.
My game evidently does not like those new storage options, either; keep getting colonies with no pawns or more crashes.