Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
RimWorld
Biotech preview #1: Mechanitor infrastructure and labor mechs
Hey all - Tynan here. This is the first of our Biotech preview blog posts, where we lay out the features of the Biotech expansion, and the thought behind them, in more detail. You can look forward to more posts on the way. (If you missed the Biotech announcement, you probably want to start there. You can wishlist RimWorld - Biotech here.)
Today’s preview post covers mechanitor core concepts, mechanoid infrastructure, and labor mechanoids. The next post is in a few days, and will cover combat mechanoids, enemy super-mechanoids, and other mechanitor-related features, and there will be many more after that.
The mechanitor
A mechlink is a new implant that allows a person to form a direct mental link to mechanoids and control them via electromagnetic signals and psychic influence. Someone who has a mechlink is called a mechanitor.
Mechanoids aren’t controlled independently, but through a human - this design intentionally keeps the mechanoid systems focused on a human being, which is critical to building an emotional story.
Mechanoids can perform in both work and combat. Some mechanoids are workers that will politely harvest crops or haul items as long as their little power cells are charged. Some can work or fight, crushing rock and bone with equal ease. Finally, there are a wide array of pure combat mechanoids with very diverse abilities. Incendiary beam weapons, movable projectile shields, long-range charge lances, blade-covered scythers, flame-spitters and more can be deployed in many combinations to defeat any threat via interlocking tactics.
There are a few ways to become a mechanitor, and all involve looting technology from an ancient dead mechanitor. If you can dig a datacore out of an ancient ruined super-mechanoid, you can use it to call an ancient mechanitor’s ship to land at your colony and harvest the mechlink from his body. Alternatively, you might be able to learn about an ancient mechanitor’s command complex, go there, penetrate inside through the security systems and grab the mechlink from him. You can also start the game with the new mechanitor scenario, where you begin the game as a solitary mechanitor with a mechanoid buddy.
It’s possible to do a single-person mechanitor run, where one mad scientist type lives alone in a grand base surrounded by walking, semi-thinking machines. Making this possible was a design goal from day one, because exotic play paths are so fun to explore. However, we expect mechanitors to most often live more normally among other colonists, commanding mechanoids to work and fight alongside human allies. If you really want to scale up, it is possible to collect multiple mechlinks and turn several colonists into mechanitors, though this takes a long time.
All our game mechanics interact freely. It’s possible for your mechanitor to also be a high noble with the Royalty expansion, a religious prophet with the Ideology expansion, and a deathless blood-drinker with this Biotech expansion, because why not?
Mechanitors start out with the ability to command just a few small mechs. Over time, they can grow a grand swarm. They do this by gaining more bandwidth and control groups:
Bandwidth determines how many mechs a mechanitor can gestate and control at once. A mechanitor who loses bandwidth will temporarily disconnect from some of their mechanoids. If a mech is left disconnected for too long, it may reconnect with the wild mech hive and leave - or attack.
Control groups are groups of mechs who can be controlled as a unit. A mechanitor with more control groups can send mechanoids to do more separate tasks at the same time. A more advanced mechanitor can have combat mechs patrolling a colony, labor mechs toiling in the field, and bodyguard mechs escorting them around, all at the same time.
Mechanoid challenges
A basic game design principle is to push things as far as they can go without breaking the game - that means make tools more powerful, enemies more dangerous, changes more overwhelming than seems safe at first. The idea is to ensure you’re exploring the full range of experience that’s possible in your game systems.
So we wanted mechanoids to be very powerful in order to create more extreme situations and distinct playstyles. The more impact they have, the more they can transform your game. However, in order to not unbalance the game, this meant that they needed to come with serious challenges as well. But what?
Existing costs in the game are things like consuming food, chemfuel, or steel over time. But simply making mechanoids consume resources wouldn’t feel transformative, and wouldn’t substantial alter gameplay since the mechanoids can pay for themselves by producing the resources they consume. The collect/spend loop is too simple and has almost no side-effects on the world, story, or characters.
So we decided to emphasize two new challenges that would come with mechanoids: Infrastructure and pollution. We cover infrastructure below - A future post will cover pollution, its causes, consequences, aspects, uses, and solutions.
Mechanoid infrastructure
Mechanoids require heavy infrastructure that takes up a lot of space and burns a lot of electricity. Big sections of your colony can turn into mechanoid maintenance, production, and control centers. You’ll feel your plucky wooden village transforming into a grand integrated machine of generators, chargers, control nodes, and gestators. Your base will tend to grow large with a lot of mechanoids, and have a lot of things moving and consuming.
Each mechanoid must contain a mechanoid brain known as a subcore (short for subpersona core - the psychic substrate on which a dim, sub-human-level intelligence can be hosted). There are several tiers of subcores, with more advanced mechanoids requiring more advanced subcores.
Basic-level subcores can be produced by a mechanitor with just some resources and time at the subcode encoder.
More advanced subcores require scanning the psychic pattern from human minds. A person can be placed in a subcore softscanner and scanned to produce a subcore. This causes temporary mental effects but is ultimately harmless.
The most advanced mechanoids need extremely high-fidelity psychic patterns to work, and these can only be readily produced using the subcore ripscanner, which scans the brain quickly at ultra-high energy, destroying it in the process.
Once a subcore and resources are ready, mechanoids can be produced in mech gestators. Instead of being built like normal machines, mechanoids are gestated in a mechanite-rich solution that accretes the mechanoid molecule-by-molecule in a quasi-biological process. Gestation takes time, electricity, resources, and occasional guidance by your mechanitor.
Only a mechanitor can guide the gestation process, since it requires a psychic link to the growing mechanoid. As always, everything about the mechanoids links back to the human whom they serve.
The gestator can also resurrect some types of mechanoids. This makes your mechanoids more expendable in combat, which makes using them in combat give more distinct strategies compared to using human fighters.
There are several sizes of gestators. Small gestators are used for smaller mechs, while larger gestators are needed to produce ultra-heavy war machines. Little mechs gestate quickly, while big bosses take a long time to grow.
Mechanoids consume their onboard energy supply over time and must recharge at mech rechargers. Mechanoids will automatically seek out available rechargers so they don’t run out of energy. If they do run out of energy they’ll enter a self-shutdown state and recover energy very slowly - it’s much better to have a mech recharger available to keep your mechs working hard. There are several sizes of mech rechargers appropriate to different tiers of mechanoids. They consume a lot of electricity, and produce pollution as well - the characteristic cost of mechanoids.
Band nodes are signal amplifiers that can increase a mechanitors total bandwidth. They can be quickly tuned to a specific mechanitor. However, returning a band node to a different mechanitor is a complex task and requires a long time. There is no limit to how many band nodes a mechanitor can build, so a mechanitor can have a huge swarm, though it will require heavy infrastructure to control.
Mech boosters are enhancer buildings that boost the speed and work ability of mechanoids nearby. Great for powering up mechanoid-based factories.
Mech signallers are a set of single-use structures that can be used by a mechanitor to call in fearsome super-mechanoid enemies to attack you. You need to call these enemies so you can loot their corpses for special high-tech mechanoid chips. These chips are core to the mechanitor’s progression since they are needed to advance to the next tier of mechanoid technology. This structure of “choose your enemy and be ready” is a little bit new for RimWorld, and creates a new kind of self-directed game pace for the player (as opposed to being blindsided by raids at any time).
We’ll explore these super-mechanoids in more detail in the next blog post.
Labor mechs
Labor mechs can perform a variety of work tasks (but not absolutely everything - some things still need a human touch). Some are plucky little worker bois who are best kept away from danger, while others are hulking crusher machines that tank damage with ease.
Paramedic mechs are designed to aid in emergency situations. They can rescue the wounded, fight fires and even perform surgery. The paramedic has a built-in jump launcher for quickly getting into and out of emergency situations, making it excellent for extracting downed colonists from battle. It also has a built-in firefoam popper which it can use to extinguish fires. It also has basic medical skills - it can tend the wounded and sick, and even perform surgery when a skilled human isn’t available.
Lifters are there to move things where they need to go. They’re small, weak, pretty easy to get and always useful. They will haul a corpse to a grave or rearm a turret. They lack a real weapon.
Constructoids can perform an array of construction tasks, from building roofs to repairing buildings and even hauling resources to blueprints. The constructoid is equipped with a small slug gun for light defense and built-in cutting blades, but is not a good frontline fighter.
Agrihands are small mechanoids designed to sow and harvest crops and can perform a blunt melee attack.
Cleansweepers are light mechanoids that clean filth and do blunt melee attacks.
Fabricors will craft all manner of manufactured objects at your work benches (though they can’t do the same quality of work as a skilled human). Like the constructoid, the fabricor has a small slug gun.
Tunnelers are massive, heavily-armored mechs equipped with gigantic crusher claws. The tunneler can dig tunnels and mine resources tirelessly. In combat, it is slow but its very strong armor makes it an excellent tank for absorbing enemy fire while your other fighters deal damage. The tunneler has a small built-in smokepop pack which is can activate to spread smoke and shield itself from incoming fire. It also has a shield pack that recharges over time. Its weakness is that each time it takes damage, it slows for a few seconds - this means that when tunnelers attack you, even if you can’t kill them quickly, you can intelligently kite them by falling back from your position to escape the blocking smoke, maintain distance and slowly whittle the tunnelers down. (More on mech combat in the next post.)
We’re planning six or seven of these blog posts, so there’s no shortage of more Biotech info on the way. Cheers for now, thanks for reading.
-Ty
Biotech expansion announced! Update 1.4 on unstable branch
RimWorld’s third expansion, RimWorld - Biotech is coming out in a few weeks!
We’re also making the free vanilla 1.4 update available now for play on the unstable Steam branch. More details about that near the bottom of this post.
This post will:
Describe Biotech's features
Present Tynan’s thoughts on why he decided to make Biotech as it is
Control mechanoids, including many new mechanoid types, by making your colonist into a mechanitor
Raise babies and children. Reproduce and create families - by both natural and artificial means
Genetically-modify children and adults, and interact with new gene-modded factions
Children and reproduction
Now you can raise a family and tell your story for generations to come!
With Biotech, colonists (and outsiders) can become pregnant and give birth. Pregnancy can begin naturally, or via technological means, and can be controlled by a variety of methods.
Babies bring joy, but also challenges. Colonists’ hearts will melt when the baby coos and giggles in their arms. But it takes effort to keep a baby happy and healthy and loved - create a safe haven for them in a cozy pastel nursery where there is always warm milk, a comfortable crib, overflowing toy chests and kind caregivers.
They grow up fast (especially if you use a growth vat) - soon your child will be walking, talking, and getting into trouble. They’ll soak up knowledge in the classroom and tag along with adults to watch them work. Kids find many ways to entertain themselves with art, exploring nature, playing with technology, and more. Teach them lessons and they’ll learn how to survive, cook, make friends, create art, build, craft, hunt, and fight. Watch as they grow up and make mistakes, lose loved ones, and survive hardships.
A rich childhood makes a capable adult. Every few years, you choose which traits and passions a child will develop. The better-raised a child is, with smarter education and more attention, the more choices you’ll have, and the better their chances are to become a happy and talented adult. Some colonies will sacrifice everything to give a child the best upbringing, while others will use growth vats to pump out cheap workers and soldiers. The choice is up to you.
The mechanitor
Build and control mechanoids by making your colonist into a mechanitor - a person with a special brain implant that lets them psychically command semi-living machines.
Create mechanoids by growing them inside high-tech gestator tanks. Command the original centipede, lancer, and scyther, plus a wide variety of new combat and labor mechanoids. Grow your swarm from a few small workers and fighters to a fearsome squadron of massive ultratech war machines and industrial behemoths.
Mechanoid laborers can manufacture goods, rescue and tend to your colonists, build and repair structures, sow and harvest crops, haul stuff, and more. They never get sick. They don’t freeze in the snow or get poisoned in toxic fallout. They don’t suffer mental breaks from long hours in dark mineshafts or filthy garbage yards.
Combat mechanoids are very diverse in form and function. Some are cheap swarmers that overwhelm the enemy with numbers. Others project shields over their allies, or roast enemies with beam weapons, or charge up for massive concrete-melting hellsphere attacks. Mechanoids wield melee claws and blades, sniper weapons, even flamethrowers. Depending on which mechanoids you command, your tactical options will vary dramatically.
Mechanoid infrastructure has a special price: Pollution. Left unfrozen, toxic wastepacks deteriorate and leak pollutants into the environment. Pollution makes living things sick. It poisons your colonists and pets. It blocks the sunlight with smog and irritates your colonists’ lungs. It triggers hibernating insects to emerge on the planet’s surface. Some areas of the planet are so polluted that only twisted, toxin-adapted variants of plants and animals can survive there. Pollution is a challenge that you can handle in a variety of ways - freezing, export (neighbors might not like this), adaptation, high-tech atomization.
Advance your mechanitor’s capabilities by acquiring ancient mechanoid technology. This means calling dangerous new super-mechanoids to attack, in order to defeat them and steal technology from their smoking corpses. There are three types of hyper-deadly commander mechs to fight, each with its own weapons and combat style. Be sure you’re ready before you call these machine beasts to attack. Learn enough, and some day, you may command them as your own.
Gene modding
You can genetically-modify people to create xenohumans - humans with exotic traits. Genetic modifications range from subtle personality traits and eye color to hulking furry bodies, glands for fire-breathing, rapid regeneration, and even immortality.
The world contains a new set of xenohuman types and factions, including unstoppable super soldiers, fur-covered animal-controlling arctic settlers, toxin-immune human bioweapons, fire-breathing horned desert imp-people, psychic-bonding concubines, and more. The darkest of them drink blood, live in shadows, and live forever.
You can make your own xenotypes from scratch, and build infrastructure in your colony to enhance your people. Curate a collection of exotic genes by purchasing them from traders, accepting them as quest rewards, or extracting them from your menagerie of xenohuman prisoners. You can harvest the genes from anyone and implant those genes into your colonists and prisoners. You can also recombine genes to make bizarre and advantageous mixes of traits for implantation. Experiment with gene extraction and recombination to build your colony of xenohumans!
Why Biotech?
Hey everyone - Tynan here. I thought it would be worth explaining the thought process behind why we decided to make this expansion. Here’s what I’ve been thinking:
Why mechanitors?
Mechanoids have been RimWorld’s end-game foes since way back in 2014. Fictionally, however, they are human-created for human purposes, so it was natural to extend this and allow the player to control the mechanoids somehow.
Since RimWorld is a character-oriented story generator, I didn’t want to just add the mechanoids as independently-controlled robots the player can order around like an RTS. This would have been moving away from the character-orientation that defines RimWorld. The mechanoids needed to be human-connected.
That’s why I designed a system where each mechanoid is linked to a specific person, the mechanitor. The mechanoids are an extension of the human who controls them, with all the human complexity that entails.
I also didn’t want to destroy the economic balance or progression rate of mechanoids. This would have been easy to do. Human beings are inherently quite expensive - they need complex foods, decent living quarters, social relationships, entertainment, even rituals with the Ideology expansion. In a naive game design, a colony of mechanoids could skip most of these needs and be absurdly overpowered - fun for a short time but ultimately uninteresting.
Making the mechanoids human-linked alleviated part of this concern, but they needed another cost since they are inherently so much less needy than people. Just eating resources wouldn’t feel novel or interesting enough, so we needed a new kind of cost. I decided to explore the concept of pollution. Pollution doesn’t cost anything to make, but it incurs challenges that come afterwards. It’s a bit like going into debt - not a problem at first, but if you let it catch up to you, it soon becomes a transformative challenge. We made sure there are a variety of ways to approach pollution, so players can choose whether to try to stay clean, suppress the effects, or just let it happen and adapt to the changing landscape. This linked in nicely with the gene modding system as well, since some genes help with pollution resistance.
Pollution itself is designed to be interesting - it interacts with the insects, generating them and powering them up. It transforms the landscape visually and economically, replacing normal plants and animals with a new set of pollution-specific plants and creatures. The new polux tree is a natural way to alleviate pollution. It’s livable, but there are special challenges to living in pollution.
Finally, player-controlled mechanoids were going to open up new ways to do combat. In the past, the player’s units were limited in how diverse they could be since they were mostly humans. Mechanoids can have much more exotic types of movement, weaponry, and combat tools. They can also be more expendable than humans. All this opened up opportunities for more types of player-side combat strategies, which we’ve explored in depth with new types of combat mechanoids. It gives the player more tactical choices in combat, and more ways to be aggressive instead of risk-avoidant.
The naturalness of fiction, human-connectedness, unique new costs and strategies together made player-controlled mechanoids a really attractive design path. It took a lot of work to build all that but we had the time and resources to do it right.
Why reproduction and children?
The core design goal of RimWorld is to generate emotionally-compelling human stories. This has always been a challenge when designing a game, because games tend to be very impersonal. In games, progress often focuses on economic gains, increases in power, or expansion of map control. These sorts of numbers-oriented systems work great for games because they’re predictable and mechanistic, which means players can reason about them strategically, and computers can simulate them.
The problem is that a good story isn’t just a sequence of changes in economic numbers, damage amounts, or map control markings. Good stories are about people, emotions, and relationships. Good stories take things that individual humans value - safety, family, love - and put these things up for grabs, and let the character struggle to gain them, or avoid losing them. There must be a relatable person at the center of the story, who is experiencing strong and relatable emotions about something they value.
Which are some of the strongest and most relatable emotions? Those that come from family relationships.
They’re powerful because family is important to us. They’re relatable because everyone has a family, so everyone can empathize with what it might be like to help a brother or parent, have a child, help them, or fear losing them.
This is, of course, obvious, and that’s why other narrative media have explored this topic for thousands of years. Family-linked drama is the bread and butter of stories across older media. From the most classic novels of high culture to the bawdiest barroom tales, questions of family obligation, sacrifice, life and death, and relationships are central to our most compelling stories. From “No, I am your father,” to “I will find you and I will kill you,” to “You are the father,” family relationships are at the center of story. This is true in the western stories that RimWorld is inspired by as well.
Extending that into RimWorld makes obvious sense and it’s something I’ve always been interested in. However, it took a long time to get here because these are such complex topics. Reproduction, birth, baby care and child raising all have a lot of fine details and rich content that I always knew would take substantial effort to get right. I wanted to make sure we had the development power to make the game generate these kinds of powerful family-oriented emotions without cutting corners or excessive jank. Biotech being the longest expansion development cycle, with the most developers we’ve ever had, I decided that it was time to bite off this big challenge.
Why gene modding?
Genetically-modified xenohumans have always been part of the RimWorld universe fiction. They are RimWorld’s way to explore how biologically-different humanoids might tell new stories or unlock new types of gameplay. With reproduction already being part of this expansion, it was natural to extend that into allowing genetic modification.
Like everything else in RimWorld, gene-modding is an inherently character-oriented system. It changes who people are and what they can do, which alters their relationships and the emotions those will produce. It also opens up new gameplay paths - genes can unlock new combat tactics, economic roles, and so on. It gives individuals more distinct visual identities. It even generates new moral choices, as players decide what kinds of modifications they are willing to apply to their people, their children, or their prisoners.
It added more variation to the human world, in the form of different types of factions. Instead of just different human factions with different diplomatic orientations, now those different factions are dominated by different types of xenohumans. This alters how they fight, which makes combats more distinct from each other. Fighting a raid of furred yttakin warriors is quite different from a raid of baseliner humans, or neanderthals, or fire-breathing impids, or pigskins. There’s a lot of fun colorful differences between them too - a raid of squealing pig people feels quite different from a raid of bear-calling furred yttakin.
We experimented with a lot of gene effects before settling on a set that is diverse and consistently fun to play with without breaking the game. It took a while, but in the end testers are loving it.
(I also had a ton of fun writing the name generators for the new xenohuman factions - especially the pigskins. Polork!)
Update 1.4
Update 1.4 is available now on the Steam unstable branch for public beta testing, and to give modders more time to update before release. (The main branch that most people play is unaffected and still on version 1.3 for now).
If you’d like to try 1.4, you can play on the Steam branch unstable. (To get access, go to your Steam library, right-click RimWorld and select "Properties", then select the BETAS tab and choose branch unstable. Restart Steam if your game does not automatically update.)
See info on key features below (changelog at the end):
Startup performance improvements: We spent months optimizing launch and game loading times. In our tests launching RimWorld and loading savegames are roughly 37% faster! On an example system, that’s a startup time improvement from 33 to 21 seconds. Loading a fresh savegame dropped from 7.9 to 4.6 seconds.
Painting and color customization for walls, floors, furniture, and lights: Give your colony a custom look by painting the walls, floors, and furniture of your settlement any of a huge variety of colors using dye harvested from the tinctoria crop. Install a range of new colored carpets in your colonists’ living spaces. Set the mood with lamps that you can set to any color to create your romantic rouge bedroom or an eerie fluorescent laboratory. We expect screenshots to get even more wild thanks to this.
Styles always available: You can now use all styles of all buildings, items, and floors and visually customize your colony even without Ideology active.
Actually useful shelves that store lots of stuff: Fill your storerooms with shelves, which can now hold up to 3 stacks of most items. (Our testers were very excited with this one!) There is also a 1-tile mini-shelf. Shelves should help to keep your colony tidy and organized, and protect your items.
Two new turret types: We added two new turret types. The foam turret spits firefoam to extinguish nearby blazes. The rocketswarm turret is a defensive launcher - when triggered, it blankets a wide area in a barrage of small missiles. It is excellent against large groups of weaker enemies, but only works when you press the button, for extra drama!
Starting possessions: Depending on backstory, your starting colonists might come with their own possessions! Not only does it make it a bit easier to start with imperfect colonists, it also gives them a personal touch.
Rot stink: Keep rotten corpses and meat away from your colonists. In addition to being disturbing to look at, decomposing tissue now releases rot stink gas. Colonists that are chronically exposed to rot stink may develop the new “lung rot” disease. Keep extra empty graves and garbage dumps available for times when you’re overwhelmed with bodies!
More prisoners to trade, release, and interact with: In addition to all the prisoners you got before, now you’ll get a new class of prisoner who is unwaveringly loyal to their home. They can’t be recruited, but they can be sold, sent home for diplomatic benefits, used for gene extraction or blood farming in Biotech, or used in rituals and enslaved in Ideology. We did it this way because we wanted to make all the uses for prisoners besides recruitment more viable. Adding a new stream of unwaveringly loyal prisoners does that without destroying the population progression balance. They can be disabled in the storyteller settings.
New mod manager UI: Managing your mods is really easy and smooth with the new UI. Mods are now visibly split into active and inactive lists. You can access your mod options directly from the manager screen. You can also save and load mod lists and mass unsubscribe to any outdated or disabled mods. Press CTRL + left click to select multiple mods and drag them around. Also, new art banners!
New mod mismatch window: Mods are now displayed in three columns: added, missing, and shared. You can save your current mod list and load it later on.
New options menu: We’ve organized the options menu into tabs. (Mods get their own tab!) It is much easier to navigate.
Heat overlay: A togglable heat overlay on the map visually shows you how chilly or hot it is indoors and outdoors.
Quest search bar: A search bar in the quests menu to help you sort through all your available, active, and historical quests.
Tile inspector: Shows you the details of a specific tile when you hover over it and press the “alt” key.
We’ll be posting blog posts over the next few weeks about specific features of Biotech - stay tuned for those.
The Biotech expansion is our biggest yet. We hired more people and took more time than ever before to create more systems, content, and storytelling possibilities. There's so much that we considered splitting this into two separate products - but decided to keep it all together as one extra-juicy expansion.
Biotech’s release date isn’t quite announced, but will be within weeks. More info to come!
After 14 months of work, the team is very excited to finally bring you Biotech! 🧬⚙️
- Tia
Update 1.3.3387 includes improvements for Steam Deck and other bits
Hi there, we've got another update for you today! This update cleans up some rough edges in Steam Deck, and expands the number of game modes that can use Ideology functionality.
The update should be compatible with all saves and mods.
If the update cause problems and you have a bug to report, or you want to help us test, please join the Official RimWorld Development Discord! Thank you to all of our testers for your feedback.
Have a great week!
- Tia
Steam Deck Improvements
- Fixed multiple cases where on Steam Deck some keyboard shortcuts were mentioned - Commands now show "button A" glyph instead of "A" label on Steam Deck. - When architect search bar is focused on a Steam Deck and the on-screen keyboard is visible, move gizmos up so that they're still visible. - Added "Keyboard mode" option on Steam Deck in case someone connects a keyboard to the SteamDeck.
Ideology Improvements
- Drum and dance parties can be held in the "Ideology system inactive" mode. Party hard! - Relics system now works in "Ideology system inactive" mode. You can do the relic chase, quests, build the reliquaries, and so on. - Colonists no longer get upset for delaying a ritual. - Colorized some ideoligion-related text in ritual trigger letter. - Negative thoughts related to not having enough scarification scars do not apply at very low expectations or lower. - "No slaves in colony" thought does not apply at "Very low" expectations or below. - Ritual opportunity letters are skipped for most rituals for the first 10 days of play. - Adjusted reliquary description. - Adjusted inspect pane and stat readout for relics in classic mode.
Misc
- Updated player creative content. - Changed the nutrients needed for lavish vegetarian and lavish carnivore meals to 1.25 (previously 2.5).
Fixes
- Fix: Dismissing on-screen keyboard on SteamDeck doesn't unfocus the text field. - Fix: Not all precepts are added to memes during fluid ideoligion development. - Fix: Malformed letters are sent to the player regarding ritual obligations that should not send letters. - Fix: Multiple funerals generating for ideoligions. - Fix: Word of serenity does not work on catatonic breakdown. - Some minor fixes to how ideoligions are generated.
RimWorld is back on Steam in Australia
Hello everyone! We have great news for our Australian players - RimWorld is once again available for purchase on Steam in Australia. This means Australians have access to the RimWorld Steam store page and can gift and receive Steam keys for the game. (It also means you can read this news update. 😉) Everything should be back to normal!
We appealed to the Classification Review Board and they agreed to review the game’s rating on April 20. We assembled a lot of useful evidence and had a great legal team to help us. Our community was also amazing and helped us by providing examples of games on Steam that had similar cases to us, like Disco Elysium and Fallout. The review concluded with a happy ending - RimWorld’s classification changed from “Refused Classification (RC)” to “R 18+ (Restricted)”, and now we're back on Steam!
So a big thanks to everyone for your support, that was a wild couple of months!
- Tia
Update 1.3.3326 brings full support for Steam Deck
Hello everyone!
It’s Tia - I’m back with update 1.3.3326 which brings full support for RimWorld on Steam Deck!
Before I get into the update, I wanted to share that our developer who was living in the Ukraine is now safe in Germany. He’s staying with one of our former team members and we're doing what we can to help him get set up there. Thank you for all the kind comments and for thinking of our team. 💛
Today’s update makes the Deck controls more intuitive, refines the touchscreen interface, improves the UI and keyboard, and adds an easy way to access the Deck's controller config options.
The Steam Deck requires that we use a new version of the Steamworks API which breaks compatibility with a few mods. To prevent breakages, three weeks ago, we released a public beta to give modders time to update, and we personally reached out to dozens of modders to help prevent mods from breaking. The known incompatibilities should be solved now - thanks to all modders who responded!
If you don’t want this update for any reason: right-click RimWorld in your Steam library list, click Properties, then select the ‘betas’ tab. Select ‘version-1.3.3287 - Previous 1.3 version’ from the drop-down list. This will keep you on the previous version. Your game should auto-update - if it doesn’t, restart Steam.
Modders: Your mod can now be marked as compatible with major and minor versions. For example, you can mark a mod as compatible with 1.3.3287, but not 1.3.3326. More info at this link.
The full changelog is below for you to peruse! Thanks to everyone who helped us test the beta. If you experience any bugs with update 1.3.3326, or want to help us test in the future, please join the Official RimWorld Development Discord.
I’m excited to hear how players are enjoying RimWorld on Steam Deck. Maybe I’ll spot someone playing it on the train!
- Fix: Reforming a fluid ideo lists some precepts as "incompatible" when they actually aren’t. - Fix: Ability gizmos are still available for roles that have been removed via reformation. - Display incompatible issue and precept names instead of just precept names in reformation confirmation dialog. UI Improvements - Show accept key command hotkey on SteamDeck. - Set new, better SteamDeck menu icons. - Larger float menu options on SteamDeck. - Main buttons position change (change height instead of y). - Keyboard on a SteamDeck now shows automatically when a new text field is focused. - Show a special window at the top of the screen which shows the typed in text, since SteamDeck keyboard can sometimes block the text field view. - Increase text input font size. - Don't show tooltips when the SteamDeck keyboard is open. - Change quests SteamDeck icon.
Controls
- Touch screen scrolling improvements on SteamDeck. - It's now possible to scroll through lists by dragging your finger on SteamDeck. - Make zooming faster on SteamDeck. - Holding a special "middle mouse button" button on SteamDeck, now translates left clicks into right clicks. This makes it possible to give goto orders to drafted pawns by using the touch screen. - Don't pan the camera if the middle mouse button is held and a colonist is selected on SteamDeck. - Allow more zoom on SteamDeck for better touch screen support and easier navigation. - Better time controls on SteamDeck, it's now possible to increase/decrease time speed with back buttons. - Accept key on a SteamDeck now activates the first command.
Misc Improvements
- Tutorial now mentions the correct button names on SteamDeck. - Added triggered modal ConceptDefs which explain SteamDeck controls. - Added controller configuration button to options on SteamDeck. - Added an option to disable tiny fonts in options.
Technical
- Added SteamDeck configuration file. - Added SteamInput. - Make ScrollWheelZoomRate a static property. - Suppress SteamDeck ConceptDef warnings. - Added UnityGUIBugsFixer calls to LearningReadout since it uses GUI.BeginScrollView directly. - Ensure FixSteamDeckMousePositionNeverUpdating() works even for non-1 scales. - Updated steam dlls in root directory. - Updated Steamworks so that it's possible to show the correct on-screen keyboard on SteamDeck. - Added "Simulate using Steam Deck" debug setting. - AllTypes now tries to use all types it could load instead of failing entirely. - LearningReadout now uses Widgets.BeginScrollView instead of GUI.BeginScrollView to support SteamDeck fixes - Added support for build numbers in LoadFolders.xml
Fixes
- Fix: Mouse position never updates on Linux builds. - Fix: Missing EventUp event in MultiPawnGotoController on SteamDeck - Fix camera movement on SteamDeck. "Middle mouse button" camera movement on SteamDeck now works as well. This also allows using touch screen to move the camera. - Fix Unity bug with GetMouseButton() returning false. - Fix: Changing GUI.matrix also breaks mousePosition, added 1 more UnityGUIBugsFixer callback to fix this - Fix: Main buttons have a 1px gap at the bottom and they can't be clicked there - Fix: Keyboard instantly hides after appearing - Fix: Mouse position never updates on a SteamDeck - Fix: Error after pressing quit to OS button - Fix: The "absorb clicks area" around gizmos is too large and it makes the left part of every gizmo unusable, even though the gizmo is highlighted. - Fix: Q and E hotkeys shown on a SteamDeck. - Fix: Null ref error in SelectApproximateBestTravelSupplies when sending caravan - Fix: Only a small part of ideo appearances precept box is clickable because an incorrect rect is used
Steam Deck support in mod compatibility testing
Hi everyone, it’s Tia. We’ve released our Steam Deck update 1.3.3300 as a beta branch on Steam. This update has full support for Steam Deck!
However, for that to work it has to use a new version of the Steamworks API, which will break mods that access Steamworks.
If you’re working on a mod that accesses Steamworks, please prepare to update to its new version to prevent breaking the game.
We are planning to release this version to everyone on Wednesday April 6 at around 5pm EST.
Players who want to use Steam Deck should also use this branch for now. Everything except a few mods should work.
To play this beta on Deck or PC: right-click RimWorld in your Steam library list, click Properties, then select the ‘betas’ tab. Select ‘steam_deck - Steam Deck update’ from the drop-down list. Your game should auto-update - if it doesn’t, restart Steam.
In a previous announcement, we said support for the Steam Deck would be delayed until after the console’s release. Since then, our tech lead Piotr Walczak has been working hard to put together this integration update.
The update focuses on Steam Deck changes and improvements. The UI changes make it easier to read on-screen text and type with the Steam Deck keyboard, and menus look a lot better. The controls make more sense now with improved scrolling, zooming, time control, and touch screen navigation. Overall, playing RimWorld on Steam Deck should be a lot smoother with more intuitive controls. There may be more changes on the way to get RimWorld a “Verified” status for Steam Deck.
We also fixed some sources of annoyance in the ideoligion configuration screen.
The full changelog is below.
Ideology Improvements
- Fix: Reforming a fluid ideo lists some precepts as "incompatible" when they actually are. - Fix: Ability gizmos are still available for roles that have been removed via reformation. - Display incompatible issue and precept names instead of just precept names in reformation confirmation dialog. UI Improvements - Show accept key command hotkey on SteamDeck. - Set new, better SteamDeck menu icons. - Larger float menu options on SteamDeck. - Main buttons position change (change height instead of y). - Keyboard on a SteamDeck now shows automatically when a new text field is focused. - Show a special window at the top of the screen which shows the typed in text, since SteamDeck keyboard can sometimes block the text field view. - Increase text input font size. - Don't show tooltips when the SteamDeck keyboard is open. - Change quests SteamDeck icon.
Controls
- Touch screen scrolling improvements on SteamDeck. - It's now possible to scroll through lists by dragging your finger on SteamDeck. - Make zooming faster on SteamDeck. - Holding a special "middle mouse button" button on SteamDeck, now translates left clicks into right clicks. This makes it possible to give goto orders to drafted pawns by using the touch screen. - Don't pan the camera if the middle mouse button is held and a colonist is selected on SteamDeck. - Allow more zoom on SteamDeck for better touch screen support and easier navigation. - Better time controls on SteamDeck, it's now possible to increase/decrease time speed with back buttons. - Accept key on a SteamDeck now activates the first command.
Misc Improvements
- Tutorial now mentions the correct button names on SteamDeck. - Added triggered modal ConceptDefs which explain SteamDeck controls. - Added controller configuration button to options on SteamDeck. Technical - Added SteamDeck configuration file. - Added SteamInput. - Make ScrollWheelZoomRate a static property. - Suppress SteamDeck ConceptDef warnings. - Added UnityGUIBugsFixer calls to LearningReadout since it uses GUI.BeginScrollView directly. - Ensure FixSteamDeckMousePositionNeverUpdating() works even for non-1 scales. - Updated steam dlls in root directory. - Updated Steamworks so that it's possible to show the correct on-screen keyboard on SteamDeck. - Added "Simulate using Steam Deck" debug setting. - AllTypes now tries to use all types it could load instead of failing entirely.
Fixes
- Fix: Missing EventUp event in MultiPawnGotoController on SteamDeck - Fix camera movement on SteamDeck. "Middle mouse button" camera movement on SteamDeck now works as well. This also allows using touch screen to move the camera. - Fix Unity bug with GetMouseButton() returning false. - Fix: Changing GUI.matrix also breaks mousePosition, added 1 more UnityGUIBugsFixer callback to fix this - Fix: Main buttons have a 1px gap at the bottom and they can't be clicked there - Fix: Keyboard instantly hides after appearing - Fix: Mouse position never updates on a SteamDeck - Fix: Error after pressing quit to OS button - Fix: The "absorb clicks area" around gizmos is too large and it makes the left part of every gizmo unusable, even though the gizmo is highlighted.
Update 1.3.3300 brings support for RimWorld on Steam Deck
Hi everyone, it’s Tia. I’m excited to bring you a big support update for Steam Deck!
In our previous announcement, we said support for the Steam Deck would be delayed until after the console’s release. Since then, our tech lead Piotr Walczak has been working hard to put together this integration update.
The update focuses on Steam Deck changes and improvements. The UI changes make it easier to read on-screen text and type with the Steam Deck keyboard, and menus look a lot better. The controls make more sense now with improved scrolling, zooming, time control, and touch screen navigation. Overall, playing RimWorld on Steam Deck should be a lot smoother with more intuitive controls.
We also fixed some sources of annoyance in the ideoligion configuration screen.
You can read the changelog below. There may be more changes on the way to get RimWorld a “Verified” status for Steam Deck.
This update should be compatible with all saves and mods.
Thank you for all of your feedback on the public RimWorld Development Discord. (Readers, you’re welcome to help us test!) We’re looking forward to hearing how those with a Steam Deck are enjoying RimWorld!
- Fix: Reforming a fluid ideo lists some precepts as "incompatible" when they actually are. - Fix: Ability gizmos are still available for roles that have been removed via reformation. - Display incompatible issue and precept names instead of just precept names in reformation confirmation dialog.
UI Improvements
- Show accept key command hotkey on SteamDeck. - Set new, better SteamDeck menu icons. - Larger float menu options on SteamDeck. - Main buttons position change (change height instead of y). - Keyboard on a SteamDeck now shows automatically when a new text field is focused. - Show a special window at the top of the screen which shows the typed in text, since SteamDeck keyboard can sometimes block the text field view. - Increase text input font size. - Don't show tooltips when the SteamDeck keyboard is open. - Change quests SteamDeck icon.
Controls
- Touch screen scrolling improvements on SteamDeck. - It's now possible to scroll through lists by dragging your finger on SteamDeck. - Make zooming faster on SteamDeck. - Holding a special "middle mouse button" button on SteamDeck, now translates left clicks into right clicks. This makes it possible to give goto orders to drafted pawns by using the touch screen. - Don't pan the camera if the middle mouse button is held and a colonist is selected on SteamDeck. - Allow more zoom on SteamDeck for better touch screen support and easier navigation. - Better time controls on SteamDeck, it's now possible to increase/decrease time speed with back buttons. - Accept key on a SteamDeck now activates the first command.
Misc Improvements
- Tutorial now mentions the correct button names on SteamDeck. - Added triggered modal ConceptDefs which explain SteamDeck controls. - Added controller configuration button to options on SteamDeck.
Technical
- Added SteamDeck configuration file. - Added SteamInput. - Make ScrollWheelZoomRate a static property. - Suppress SteamDeck ConceptDef warnings. - Added UnityGUIBugsFixer calls to LearningReadout since it uses GUI.BeginScrollView directly. - Ensure FixSteamDeckMousePositionNeverUpdating() works even for non-1 scales. - Updated steam dlls in root directory. - Updated Steamworks so that it's possible to show the correct on-screen keyboard on SteamDeck. - Added "Simulate using Steam Deck" debug setting. - AllTypes now tries to use all types it could load instead of failing entirely.
Fixes
- Fix: Missing EventUp event in MultiPawnGotoController on SteamDeck - Fix camera movement on SteamDeck. "Middle mouse button" camera movement on SteamDeck now works as well. This also allows using touch screen to move the camera. - Fix Unity bug with GetMouseButton() returning false. - Fix: Changing GUI.matrix also breaks mousePosition, added 1 more UnityGUIBugsFixer callback to fix this - Fix: Main buttons have a 1px gap at the bottom and they can't be clicked there - Fix: Keyboard instantly hides after appearing - Fix: Mouse position never updates on a SteamDeck - Fix: Error after pressing quit to OS button - Fix: The "absorb clicks area" around gizmos is too large and it makes the left part of every gizmo unusable, even though the gizmo is highlighted.
RimWorld removed from sale in Australia on Steam, existing owners unaffected
Hello everyone,
Unfortunately, we've just been informed that RimWorld has just been made unavailable for new purchases by Australian customers on Steam.
This does not seem to affect existing owners - it only prevents new purchases. Anyone who already owns the game is still be able to play, receive updates and access community features like the forums and workshop. The Ideology and Royalty expansions are also not affected.
We don't have a ton of information about this since it just happened within the last few hours, it's Friday evening, and most people we could ask are not at work.
From the info we have, this happened because a few days ago, the Australian Classification Board classified a potential console version of RimWorld as “Refused Classification (RC)”, meaning it can't be sold in Australia.
We did not expect this to affect the Steam version because in previous similar cases, as with Disco Elysium for example, an RC rating on a console version did not affect the availability of the PC version on Steam. We're not sure why this decision was made in RimWorld's case.
I'm sorry this news was so sudden and for anyone who is frustrated by this. We are working to resolve this situation and make RimWorld available to everyone again as soon as possible, but we don’t yet know what that might require or how long it may take.
Thanks for your understanding everyone.
- Ty
Update 1.3.3287 makes ideoligions smoother to play
Hey everyone, it's time for another update!
This update fixes a variety of bugs and includes a number of changes that should make the ideoligions system less restrictive and more flexible.
Key among those is a new way to play with Ideology content active, but without actually running the ideology system. The ideology system is great for players who want to do something different, but it could be overwhelming for someone on their first game or who just wants to relax. This new option allows running the game without the complexity of the ideologion system, but with almost all the Ideology content active, including the biosculpters, ancient complex quests, Gauranlen trees, public executions, and more. (Some buildings like skullspikes and loudspeakers are still buildable despite not doing much without ideoligions active - they make nice visual flair if you want them.)
We've also reworked how a few pieces of Ideology work to make common ideoligions reduce micromanagement and annoying situations, especially when you're hosting guests from NPC-generated ideoligions.
There are also a variety of bug fixes and other improvements - see the changelog below.
This update should be compatible with all saves and mods.
- Added a new play option that allows playing with Ideology content active, but without the ideoligions system active. This is appropriate for someone on their first game, or who isn't trying to do something specific with ideoligions. Ideology content includes things like: Ancient complex quests, biosculpter technology, Gauranlen trees, ancient debris, etc.
UI improvements
- Reworked ideoligion setup UI. Classic, custom and load buttons are now selectable elements that take effect when the player hits "next". - The old "classic" mode is now called "classic-like" and is one of the "mild" presets. - Meme tooltips now list all prevented precepts instead of just saying how many there are. - Randomizing precepts no longer brings up a confirmation dialog if the user has not edited precepts. - We now draw a thin faint box around ideoligion preset selectables, precept and meme boxes. Looks better. - Ideoligion building missing alerts now specify what building it is a variant of. It also displays where you can find it in the architect menu or which buildings produce it. - A "Show all" checkbox on ideo dialog shows all hidden precepts. - Updated meat eating precept and thought labels and descriptions to better match gameplay.
Tuning - General
- Added a 0.75x factor to pawn points for colony slaves when calculating threat point (wealth points was already adjusted for slaves). This means having slaves won't attract larger threats as much as colonists. - Reduced mechanoid CenterDrop raid arrival mode weight at 1000+ points 3.5 -> 1.3. Mechanoids are now more likely to arrive by walking in to the map edge. - Reduced mechanoid RandomDrop raid arrival mode weight at 1000+ points 1.9 -> 1.3. Mechanoids are now more likely to arrive by walking in to the map edge.
Tuning - Ideoligions
- Meme FleshPurity no longer forces the anti-biosculpting precept. This should allow players to use biosculpting to recover limbs for their purists so they don't end up being all amputees after a while. - Bigotry precepts don't have associated memes any more, so won't appear unless specifically configured by the player. This reduces annoyances around dealing with bigoted guests and recruits. - Remove the carnivore precept requirements from the Rancher meme. Reduce Rancher meme's plant work speed factor from 0.9 to 0.70. Reduce Rancher meme's impact from 3 to 2. This reduces annoyances and fiddliness with carnivore food restrictions, and balances the meme more simply, with an upside to animal raising matched by a downside to crop raising. - Remove the 'no recent animal slaughter' negative thought from the rancher meme, along with all associated code and content. This particular thought was too limiting for players and not worth having. - Remove most meme associations from vegetarian and carnivore precepts. These shouldn't appear unless player specifically configures them. This should reduce annoyances around food requirements of specific guests or recruits.
Misc
- Added a debug tool for spawning meals with specific ingredients. - Reworked eclipse precept artwork. - Updated "name in game" player names. - The system now ensures all mods adhere to their forceLoadBefore and forceLoadAfter lists. - Only log warning message if quest script is unaffected by points and population. The user is warned with "[not now]" if affected by points or population. - Added fail message for generating single quest. - Improve some charity quest-related message texts. - In classic mode, ensure factions generated after initital world gen use the same classic ideoligion. - Raid sample debug outputs now correctly uses lastRaidFaction and resets it afterwards.
Fixes
- Fix: Rendering bug (all rectangles are white) on intel graphics. - Fix: Error generating sampled raid info under faction's min points to generate combat encounter. - Fix: NullReferenceException when attempting to trade from shuttle. - Fix: "Assign owner" tooltip for animal beds mentions humanlike owners. - Fix: Getting raid sample info for non-hostile factions re-selects a hostile faction, giving inaccurate results. - Fix: Torture crown is automatically equipped by colonists. - Fix: Classic mode ideoligions don't start with some classic precepts. - Fix: Blindness from resurrector mech serum is not cured by biosculpter regen cycle. - Fix: Resurrector mech serum plays resurrection sound on item pickup, not on application. - Fix: Error when generating pawn from factions that do not have allowed cultures, or their allowed cultures do not have styleItemTags. - Fix: Faction ideoligions are not reset on going back from colonist selection screen if the player first chooses classic, then another option. - Fix: Mods without forceLoadBefore/forceLoadAfter cannot be enabled. - Fix: Mods with forceLoadBefore/forceLoadAfter cannot be disabled. - Fix exploit: Player is able to claim ruined furniture on non-home maps and draw out an enemy attack on the claimed furniture. Now ruins are only claimable if there is no non-downed hostile pawn on the map. - Fix: RitualObligationTrigger_EveryMember doesn't recache active obligations on ideoligion reform. - Fix: Non-site psychic emanation and suppression ship parts don't have their gender randomized. - Fix: Bugs related to copying an ideology for reform process. - Fix: Shelves, chairs and stools don't have style dominance. - Fix: Ideoligion info available on ritual begin dialog in classic mode. - Fix: Loading classic mode game gives the player non-classic rituals. - Fix: Execution requires altar or ideogram in classic mode. - Fix: Inverted check when checking if a player can claim factionless buildings. - Fix: Jumping resets "Fire at will" toggle. - Fix: Exception using some mods. Added LastAnimalSlaughterTick property as obsolete. - Fix: NullReferenceException slaughtering animals without Ideology installed. - Fix: Research warning doesn't check for minor ideoligions. - Fix: Fluid ideoligion with proselytizer gains development points for all conversions, including conversions to other ideoligions.
Steam Deck support improvements are coming, but delayed
Hey everyone, just a quick note about the Steam Deck release and RimWorld.
RimWorld works on Steam Deck as it is now, but there are a number of UI issues and some general jankiness we intend to solve with an update.
Our developer who was working on this lives in Ukraine. After delays getting the Deck to him, the current situation there means he won't be making progress any time soon.
Our tech lead Piotr Walczak is taking over Steam Deck integration efforts. However, we probably won't have an integration patch out until after the Deck is released.
To those of you excited to play RW on the Deck - We are excited too! Please look forward to updates that should solve issues you might find. If you can, consider waiting for the update before you dive in. We want the experience to be as great as possible and we're working to make that happen.
We also welcome reports of any issues on the official dev Discord here. Knowing the problems helps us solve them!
