What you'll learn

You'll learn what content folders starting from your RimWorld starting location have and what use they might have in modding.

Base game folder structure

Mac users: Installing Mods details how to enter your Rimworld directory.

The RimWorld****** root

In your Rimworld install directory, you can find three folders, two text files and your RimWorld******.exe file:

 RimWorld*******/
   Mods/
   RimWorld******_Data/
   Source/
   Readme.txt
   RimWorld******.exe
   Version.txt

We'll focus on the folders, since the files are pretty self explanatory; Readme.txt contains a readme, Version.txt contains the version string and the .exe starts the game.

The Mods folder

Main article: Modding Tutorials/Mod folder structure

The Mods folder contains a Core folder with most if not all XML files used by Rimworld:

 RimWorld******/
   Mods/
     Core/

This folder (Mods, not Core) is also the place you place any mod folders you downloaded.

The mods inside /Mods/ may contain the following folders:

Folder	Contents	Description
About	About.xml and Preview.png	These files are used in the in-game mods list. They contain some info about the mod and an unformatted text description.
Assemblies	Custom .DLL files	Mods with custom C# code have a .DLL file in this folder.
Defs	All defs	All XML code is stored in this folder, usually further categorized in subfolders and -files.
Languages	All translations	Every language file contains a DefInjected folder with a translation for everything in the game.
Sounds	All sounds	Even though the main game's sounds are stored in compressed resource files, mods might use a folder for them.
Source	Assemblies' source code	Mods with an Assemblies folder might store source code for the C# code in here.
Textures	All textures	The main game uses compressed resource files to store textures, but most mods store textures here.

Data folder

This folder contains a few files which are important for the base game but not necessarily important for modding it:

 RimWorld******/
   RimWorld******_Data/
     Managed/
     Mono/
     Resources/
     level0
     mainData
     output_log.txt
     resources.assets
     resources.assets.resS
     sharedassets0.assets
     sharedassets1.assets

These files are; .DLL's which contain the game code, compressed resource files containing the game graphics and audio, several files automatically generated by Unity which contain settings and such, a copy of Mono and a Steamworks .DLL.

What you might at one point be interested in are the Managed/ folder and output_log.txt, which contain .DLL's required for writing custom C# code and a more detailed version of the game's debug log.

Source folder

This folder contains a small amount of the game's C# source code:

 RimWorld******/
   Source/
     RimWorld/
     Verse/

These can be seen as tiny examples someone might use to get started with C# modding.
Anyone interested in bigger chunks of the source code is better off decompiling it by themselves.

Next up

Mod Folder Structure

Modding Tutorials/Folder structure

Contents