Menus
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The following menus are found along the bottom edge of the screen. The first eight menus are bound to hotkeys F1 through F8. (See: Controls)
Architect
The Architect menu is mainly used to designate construction.
Work
From the Work menu you can set the tasks you want your colonists to perform, though some colonists cannot perform all tasks. For example nobles can only access research and firefighting whilst a settler can access all skills.
It is possible to get your base working very efficiently by managing who does what job; hover over a skill box to see the colonist's proficiency score out of 20. Each box will also show a colonist's passion for that skill indicated by one or two flames. This will help you decide who you want doing each task. It is a good idea to study your colonists' skills and apply them to their strengths. Using the wrong people will slow down your progression. To help keep you from using the wrong colonist for a job, a crunching sound is made when you assign a pawn to a work type which they won't do well due to low skill.
In standard mode, colonists will either perform a task or not, with tasks on the left ranked more importantly than tasks on the right. In manual mode, each colonist's tasks can be prioritized from 0 (blank) to 4. 1 is the highest priority, 4 is the lowest, and blank tasks will not be performed. Properly utilizing manual mode can make sure everyone always has something to do and avoids idle colonists.
Colonists will only perform work in their allowed area.
Some characters are incapable of certain work and/or certain categories of work (i.e. violent, dumb labor). This is listed under Incapable Of in the character tab. Characters with a skill level 0 in a skill are still capable of performing the relevant task, they will just be Extremely ineffective and inefficient.
For improved efficiency, colonists do cleaning and harvesting in batches.
Work types
Firefight
This task allows a colonist to extinguish fires. Colonists will not extinguish fires that are not both in their allowed area and the home zone.
- Relevant skill: none
- Category: Scary
Patient
Patients go to a medical bed to receive treatment for an immediately life-threatening health condition (i.e. a treatable illness). It is not advisable to ever disable this or severely lower the priority. See the 'bed rest' task to set the priority for non-disease injuries.
- Relevant skill: none
- Category: none
Doctor
Doctors bandage wounds, treat the sick, and perform operations. Doctors also automatically rescue downed colonists. Doctors tend to colonists and colony animals that are resting in a bed.
- Relevant skill: Medicine
- Category: Caring
Bed rest
This task prescribes a colonist to rest in bed to heal injuries. It does not designate a priority for sleep when a colonist needs to replenish rest or to recover from a disease.
- Relevant skill: none
- Category: none
Flick
Flickers toggle power on appliances and switches.
Flickers open or close vents.
- Relevant skill: none
- Category: none
Warden
Wardens feed prisoners, chat with them, and try to recruit them, as chosen by the player. Wardens also carry out prisoners releases and executions. These options can be selected for each prisoner on the Prisoner tab found on the inspect pane.
- Relevant skill: Social
- Category: Social
Handle
Handlers tame animals. Handlers rescue wounded animals, train, feed, milk, shear, and slaughter.
- Relevant skill: Animals
- Category: Animals
Cook
Cooks butcher animals, prepare meals, and brew beer.
- Relevant skill: Cooking
- Category: Skilled labor
Hunt
Hunters hunt animals marked for hunting, but will require a weapon to do so (you will be notified via message of colonists with the Hunting job that are unarmed).
- Skills: Shooting, Melee
- Category: Violent
Construct
Constructors build things, smooth floors, repair damaged buildings and structures, and fix broken-down equipment (requires components).
- Relevant skill: Construction
- Category: Skilled labor
Grow
Growers plant and harvest domestic crops.
- Relevant skill: Growing
- Category: Skilled labor
Mine
Miners dig out marked sections of stone and minerals; and operate deep drills.
- Relevant skill: Mining
- Category: Skilled labor
Plant cut
Plant cutters harvest food from wild plant and cut down marked plants.
- Relevant skill: Growing (listed as 'None' though)
- Category: Dumb labor
Smith
Smiths create weapons at the smithing bench.
- Relevant skill: Smithing
- Category: Skilled labor
Tailor
Tailors craft clothing at the tailor's workbench.
- Relevant skill: Tailoring
- Category: Skilled labor
Art
Artists make sculptures at the sculptor's table.
- Relevant skill: Artistic
- Category: Artistic
Craft
Crafters do general low-skilled labor at work stations such as stonecutting and smelting.
- Relevant skill: Crafting
- Category: Skilled labor
Haul
Haulers:
- Carry materials, items, and corpses to stockpiles
- Cremate corpses at the crematorium
- Burn apparel and drugs at a campfire or crematorium
- Open cryptosleep caskets and sarcophagi
- Transfer wort to fermenting barrels
- Strip pawns marked for stripping
- Refuel torch lamps and campfires
- Refuel fueled generators and other production stations that run on wood
- Rearm traps
- Relevant skill: none
- Category: Dumb labor
Clean
Cleaners remove filth such as dirt, blood, and vomit, which would otherwise negatively affect the beauty of a room.
- Relevant skill: none
- Category: Dumb labor
Research
Researchers do research work at a research bench to unlock new items and building options.
- Relevant skill: Research
- Category: Intellectual
Restrict
The Restrictions screen allows the player to schedule an activity for each colonist, for each hour of a 24 hour day. Activities include: Anything, Work, Joy, and Sleep.
Also, each colonist is assigned to an allowed area. By default each colonist is set to 'unrestricted' allowing them to do activities anywhere on the map. Clicking the allowed area box on a colonist's row assigns that colonist to that area. The 'Manage allowed areas' button opens a window where allowed areas may be created, deleted, or renamed. Up to eight allowed areas may be created.
Assign
The Assign screen has the following functions:
- Threat response: Sets each colonist's behavior when enemies are nearby. (This setting is also available on the colonist's inspect pane.)
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Flee (default) |
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Attack |
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Ignore |
- Outfits: Allows the player to manage apparel profiles. Colonists will automatically don apparel according to their assigned outfit using the best apparel possible and according to the season. They will automatically switch out damaged apparel for better apparel, or poor-quality apparel for high-quality apparel. A colonist will not automatically equip a personal shield if they have a ranged weapon equipped. If the player manually assigns apparel, the colonist will never remove it until the manual assignment is cleared. In the Gear tab manually assigned apparel is listed as 'forced'. Forced apparel can be cleared using the 'Clear forced' button on the Assign window, allowing colonists to remove them at will.
There are several default outfits as follows:
- Nudist: Allows only headgear. A nudist does not consider headgear to be clothing and will still get the appropriate mood buff.
- Worker: Excludes any type of armor but allows most everything else.
- Soldier: Includes armor and clothing suited for cold weather.
The player may modify these outfits or create their own.
- Drugs: Allows the player to edit and set drug policies that can be applied to each colonist.
Animals
The Animals window lists all the colony animals. Clicking an animal name will center the map to that animal.
- A button lists the animal's master, if it has one. Click the button to assign a new master.
- Allowed areas are also listed here including Unrestricted, Home area, and animal areas. Each animal stays in its assigned area unless its master is drafted.
- The [Manage areas...] button at the top of the window opens another window to edit allowed areas.
Research
The Research window is used to select the next technology to research. The Research button is also a progress bar of the current research project.
Factions
There are five different factions in the game besides your own: Tribes, Outlanders, Pirates, Spacers and Mechanoids. Each faction has its own unique characteristics and view of your colony. By default, only the Outlanders are non-hostile. However, attacking Outlander forces will cause them to retaliate and become hostile.
Tribes
The tribes are groups of neolithic people with basic weaponry such as bows and spears. They have probably inhabited the planet for a long time. They always wear tribal clothing, which is equivalent in stats to a standard shirt. They also wear parkas in colder climates. People from this faction are usually very hard to recruit (difficulty 80+), though it is possible to do so. Tribe names often have words derived from Spanish, such as 'miñoca', 'legua', etc. They may not seem very strong due to their low level of technology, but they make up for it with sheer numbers. It is not uncommon to see raids of over twenty tribesmen later in the game, even on lower difficulties. This faction is a formidable ally and foe alike. They may not be as dangerous as pirates, but they are not insignificant.
Outlanders
Outlanders use the same equipment and technology as pirates, but do not behave the same. Outlanders by default are non-hostile but can be provoked into hostility. Due to their similarity to your colony they can be considered the standard faction. They often use similar equipment and tactics as pirates, but rarely use high level gear such as charge rifles or sniper rifles. Be nice to them and you will have an ally and trade partner, but anger them and you basically have another enemy.
Pirates
Pirates sport modern weapons and gear, though occasionally use advanced gear. It is pretty much impossible to negotiate with them (any attempts to do so result in vitriolic insults being thrown at you over the comm system). Pirates are the primary source of raids, usually attacking from the map edge and occasionally dropping directly on your base. They kidnap incapacitated colonists if they have the chance. The Pirates can be considered the bad guys of RimWorld.
Spacers
Spacers are an off-map faction, similar to mechanoids. They affect your colony in the form of survivors from spaceship disasters, and often require medical attention in the aftermath of whatever they were escaping. Spacers can also often be found within the cryptosleep caskets of ancient ruins. No one knows what scenario forced them into their prolonged sleep, but those daring enough to awaken them should be prepared to defend themselves from an attack as the spacers sometimes lash out in dazed confusion. Sleeping Spacers often wield high-tech weaponry and powerful armor, but managing to subdue them gains skilled allies who will willingly join your colony (recruit difficulty <40).
Mechanoids
The Mechanoids are a faction of super-advanced robots, all of which are extremely formidable in combat. They come in two forms: Centipedes, and Scythers.
Centipedes are the Mechanoids' heavy infantry unit, coming equipped with a minigun, inferno cannon, or heavy charge blaster, as well as remarkably tough armor. Centipedes are capable of dealing a great amount of damage to your colony. Their primary purpose is to soak up damage from static defenses while suppressing enemy infantry's movements. They cannot move quickly, so it is often possible to run around it in circles and not get injured. Use this to your advantage when combating Centipedes.
Scythers are the Mechanoids' light infantry unit, coming equipped with a charge lance and lighter, though still durable, armor. Scythers can deal a great amount of damage per shot with their heavy weapon, and their range means that they can attack improvised turrets without retaliation. Their primary purpose is to pick off defenses and defenders, while maintaining enough mobility to chase down survivors. If at all possible, it is best to avoid engaging Scythers head on, as their weapon can do significant and possibly lethal damage in the first shot.
Once killed, all Mechanoids leave a mechanoid corpse which can be broken down at a machining table for even more metal. A Mechanoid attack can easily destroy your colony if you are not prepared for it. They have a decent combat AI that utilizes each unit's strengths, making them a dangerous enemy to face. Mechanoids can invade from the edge of the map, or they can be dropped directly into an unsuspecting base. Mechanoids are the enemies of the "Ancient Ship Crash" event, in which they will emerge from the wreckage of their ship and attack if a colonist attacks it.
World
The World interface provides information about the planet that the player has settled on. By default, the map is centered on the site of your colony, but can be moved via the standard camera keys. Individual colonies and caravans can be selected by clicking on their icons on the map. If the player selects an area, they can receive information through the planet and terrain tab.
Tabs
- Planet tab - provides both the name of the planet as well as the seed used in world generation.
- Terrain tab - provides information on the biome type, travel times for caravans passing through that area during the various seasons, the stone types (rock chunks), elevation, rainfall, average temperatures, growing times, and time zone.
Caravans
As of Alpha 16, caravans can be deployed from existing colonies by clicking on the colony and clicking the "form caravan" button at the bottom. The player will then be able to select who and what to bring, as well as which side of the tile that the caravan will exit. Caravans can also be formed by sending drop pods that contain at least one colonist (without a colonist, any items sent to an empty world map tile will be permanently lost, even if an existing caravan is on that tile). After a caravan is formed, the player can select the caravan and right click on the destination and the caravan will begin to move (similar to a drafted colonist). The caravan's speed is based on the terrain, and can change based on the time of the year as well as the health of the colonists in the caravan. Caravans are also capable of splitting and reforming while traveling, and cannot move if they become overburdened. In addition, caravans have a chance of being ambushed by raiders and wild animals, opening a small "sub world" and forcing the members of your caravan to fight. All of the statistics and information about a caravan can be checked and managed through the caravan menu. This is accessed by clicking on the caravan on the world map, or on one of the colonists in the caravan via the character bar at the top.
The caravan menu consists of five tabs. The gear tab displays both the weight of the caravan, as well as which items are being hauled. The social, needs, and health tabs allow you to check the individual statistics of the colonists in the caravans (to see their character stats, click the "info" button next to their name). Finally, the gear tab allows you to equip clothing and weapons to your colonists (very useful for traveling from warm to cold biomes).
Caravans can be used to settle in different areas, attack pirate bands, and trade with other NPC (non-player character) colonies (giving you an increased profit since you're making the trip). By default, the maximum amount of colonies that a player can create and maintain at one time is set to 1. This limit can be increased to as high as 5 in the game's options. These colonies will exist simultaneously. The severity and type of events that occur will be based on the individual colony's wealth. So 200-man tribal raids shouldn't occur on your new settlement even though your old settlement might be very developed. If a settlement is abandoned, all items, structures, and resources are lost forever, and the player can never re-enter the area.
History
Graph
On the History screen, the graph tab shows a historical graph. There are three different graphs:
- Wealth: This graph has lines depicting total wealth, item wealth, and building wealth.
- Population: This graph shows the free population and prisoner population.
- Colonist mood: This graph only displays the average mood of all of the colonists.
At the top of the three graphs is a series of colored circles that describe every random event that has occurred. Blue or white circles are positive or neutral events, yellow circles are negative events, and red circles are attacks. The event circles are chronologically in sync with the graph, so that each event happened at the time specified on the graph. The graphs can be filtered to include only results from the last 300, 100, and 30 days.
Statistics
On the History screen, the Statistics tab contains information about the colony, including the current Storyteller and difficulty scale, total colony wealth, the number of major threats and enemy raids, the total amount of damage taken and colonists killed, and the number of colonists launched into space.
Menu
The Menu is accessed by hitting the esc key or by hitting the corresponding tab at the bottom right of the page.
The functions are as follows:
- Save - Saves the current game manually
- Load game - Loads a previously saved game
- Review scenario - Displays the conditions of your current play through
- Options - Provides graphics and sound settings for the game
- Quit to main menu - Returns the user to the title page
- Quit to OS - Quits the application
In a save with Permadeath enabled, the functions are as follows:
- Review scenario - Displays the conditions of your current play through
- Options - Provides graphics and sound settings for the game
- Save and quit to menu - Saves the current game manually, then returns the user to the title page
- Save and quit to OS - Saves the current game manually, then quits the application