Guess I’m not done with my mod list yet. Too many pawns just standing around.
That was easy. I figured Intimacy was the problem and it appears that I was right. Idle pawns are now wandering rather than standing in one spot. I’ll know it worked when all pawns go to bed like they’re supposed to.
ETA: they did!
The map I was on wouldn’t reload, though, so I had to start elsewhere. Still in a gorge but no headwaters this time.
I have been a big Dwarf Fortress fan for years, but never picked up RimWorld because one Z level felt like it would necessarily be a bit… Shallow. (Rimshot).
But I recently watched a few gameplay videos and holy crap, how have I not played it before?
I’m thinking of picking it up but am debating the DLC. Are these the sort of DLCs that add core features that the game doesn’t feel complete without, or more like optional subsystems?
You can definitely start with the base game and add one DLC at a time.
Base game is stupendous. So are the DLC, but no reason to rush into them.
Good to know, I think I will start with just the base game then.
Any mods I need right away? I was eyeing various wildlife mods but maybe I should start fully vanilla?
My rec is to start vanilla. Like with DF, you’re going to die repeatedly as you learn the game and honestly won’t see the benefit of most mods. Enjoy the vanilla experience and start looking at mods when you have your feet under you and understand how they’ll impact your gameplay.
There are some great QOL mods that I’d consider essential but I haven’t played since the most recent update and don’t know what’s been rolled into the base game.
When you’re ready to start modding you’ll find a bazillion lists in this thread. I recommend you start with Oskar Potocki’s brilliant “vanilla” series, which are meant to mimic the aesthetic and vibe of the base game while also adding tons of stuff.
There are a few mods which allow traveling to lower levels. Examples:
Deep And Deeper (Since I just started playing in earnest, I have yet to encounter this.)
Dungeon Core (Uses assets from the first three DLC so those are required + Custom Quest Framework – I have yet to accumulate enough silver to buy info leading to a dungeon.)
RimWorld really doesn’t need Z levels. It isn’t a game about building complicated bases and building mechanics. It’s more like The Sims-level of base building, where you just have a bunch of stations for your folks to interact with.
The thing that really distinguishes RimWorld from Dwarf Fortress is the scale. A late-game DF game has 100 dwarves running around. A late-game RimWorld colony is a dozen. As a result, each of your folks has their own story. You know them.
I’d rank the DLCs like this in terms of enhancing the “core” gameplay:
Biotech
Royalty
Ideology
[Big Gap]
Odyssey
Anomaly
All the DLCs are great though. I think Anomaly has some balance issues, but RimWorld is the poster child for not optimizing the fun out of a game.
Everyone needs to use the Interaction Bubbles mod. It doesn’t change gameplay at all, but it greatly improves the experience.
Indeed. Those mods I mentioned are really for exploration and obtaining resources, not building.
Totally!
Alright, I played through a couple test games, and now I’m really starting.
I have the base game and the genetics DLC enabled.
I did grab a few mods: interaction bubbles, perspective trees, camera+, common sense, vanilla expanded animals, biomes+, biomes+ prehistoric, giddyup2, and geological landforms.
We have crash landed in a crater, deep in the jungle. A river flows through the crater, and the middle is a deep lake.
The jungle is crawling with dinosaurs, as well as more normal wildlife.
Hmmm, I might restart with Ideology turned on as well. I see that cannibal tribes and pirates require that DLC.
A savage world full of dinosaurs and cannibals sounds enormously fun to crash land on.
The more Vanilla Expanded mods I look at, the more of them I want to install.
@Babale: don’t get too attached to any one colony until you’ve finished your mod list. IME, adding more items can result in a random rock type completely disappearing from your map. I just had to restart my vault dwellers again due to this.
I’ve seen even weirder things back in 1.3: loaded a save and a whole bunch of smoothed stone walls had been replaced by soft drinks!
Makes sense. I went a bit wild with mods last night, and also decided to turn on the DLC but with their most disruptive aspects turned off. I generated a hot and humid world full of savage tribes, clans, and kingdoms. I filled it with extinct animal mods. I think I’m finally ready.
Until another shiny new mod catches my eye and I start over, of course.
Biomes! Islands and Biomes! Caverns are two mods that I’m waiting on an update for.
Oh, I meant to download Expanded Vanilla Psycasts!
Hm. I guess I enabled too many mods and now my game refuses to completely load due to a memory leak.
As your mod list grows, consider adding RimThemes in order to see exactly what the game is doing while you wait for it to load. Here’s a list of reskins which use RimThemes but I see several which are quite outdated and there’s no way to know which works with the current version until making a selection.
The Alpha Memes mod adds a Jewish Origin to ideologies, which seems like a great excuse to create a colony themed around a Space Kibbutz 
Dunno which mod was the culprit but my game is loading again. Can’t do anything else with it until my workday is over.
The game is supposed to detect errors on loading and automatically disable all mods but that doesn’t happen when the game is force-closed. Helpful tip for anyone who experiences a similar problem:
- Locate your Steam Workshop folder (Steam → steamapps → workshop → content).
- Locate the RimWorld folder (294100).
- Give it a different name.
- Load the game as normal.
- Exit to OS.
- Restore 294100 to its original name.
- Wait for Steam to verify that all subscribed mods are present, if needed.
- Reload.
ETA: make sure you have a saved mod list or a saved game; either one will load the last working enabled mod list.
Currently my game is pretty much Vanilla Extended, but at some point I want to do a 40k mod pack and then I’ll definitely want to mod the load screen.
Played a bit on my lunch. I generated a new map, but it’s the same idea: a crater in the jungle (no river this time and only a small lake, though). Lots of prehistoric critters and savage tribes, both vanilla and modded.
I’ve got three colonists, two of whom started off as lovers. Great. The lady is some kind of noble (which is not very helpful since there’s no Empire faction on the map). And it means she refuses to do most jobs. But on the other hand she started with double flames in Intelligence and Social so she’ll be a research powerhouse. In the meantime, she’s doing her best to return the local species to their extinct status by hunting for food.
I also started walking in the gaps into the crater. It seems like walls and doors especially are nowhere near as impervious as they are in Dwarf Fortress, which is good; but considering the dinosaurs roaming around, I figured it would be good to do it sooner rather than later.
As I was walling in the largest gap, a Baryonyx approached far too close for comfort. I drafted my two shooting skilled colonists and had them start shooting the beast. It took forever to bring it down - my bolt action rifle and revolver barely damaged it at first - but eventually, I wounded its legs enough that it was severely slowed down, and I was able to run away and keep shooting. This worries me greatly, because a Baryonyx is not even that big. Larger dinosaurs are gonna be terrifying.
Just as the Baryonyx collapsed into unconsciousness, a raider from a neighboring tribe appeared. Thankfully, there was only one of them, so I just had the two people I already drafted leave the Baryonyx bleeding out where it lay and head over to the tribal raider to shoot him as well. He got into melee range with the noble lady, but thankfully she maged to escape and we put down the raider.
Just as we dealt with the raider, a cobra ate the colony’s starter cat.
I’ve been using RimPy, and I think there’s another external mod loader. I’m obviously new to Rimworld, but 3rd party mod managers tend to be better for most games.