RimWorld - A "How to get going" tutorial.

So now you've gone and gotten your hands on RimWorld and can’t wait to get going. Good! But then you start it up and… now what? Well my friend, no worries. This gentleman is here to help you get a good going. Here I give you a short “Beginners Tutorial for RimWorld” by The Leauge of Nerdish Gentlemen [LNG].

I recommend starting with the Chill Callie Classic AI storyteller but, you know, whatever rocks your boat.

Example of a character setup

Anyway, let’s take a look at your three survivors. As these will be your main characters, their skills will have to be balanced to every aspect of the game (so far). The nobles won’t do manual labour but are often great in social, melee and shooting. Oafs don’t do intellectual but are great workhorses. What you want to have is characters that cover all fields. My personal line-up usually has at least one with higher skill for defence. The noble and the commissar are good for this position. The plus with these are that they also are good for social tasks as long as they aren’t vat grown soldiers. Talking about social, this skill is good for taking care of prisoners (warden) and trading via the comm device. Moving on with cover fields, you’ll want someone to be able to do research. You don’t necessarily need a scientist but it will make research go much faster since they have a higher starting skill. But anyone capable of intellectual work will do in my opinion since there isn’t a lot of research to do in this version. The skills mining, construction, repair, growing and hauling will be done by anyone as long as they aren’t incapable, so it’s as with the research, you don’t necessarily need a miner but higher skill makes faster work. Also, when a character does any kind of work it will train the skill involved. So with time you will get high skills any of your characters as long as they can do the work. That brings up another thing to make sure that you check in this phase, the background of the character. Hover over with your mouse to see which stats are affected by them and check what the character might be incapable of doing, such as the vat grown soldier is incapable of social and the noble is incapable of manual tasks.

You'd think a G.E.C.K would give a bit more...

 When you’re done picking characters the game the real fun begins. You start with your three colonisers landing beside a stockpile area, a dumping area and loose material (food and metal). There is also a small piece of rock close by with edges that has a yellowish pattern on it. This indicates that you can mine metal from it. But ignore that one for the time being. Instead you select the materials by clicking on them and then either press “F” of click on the button with the hand that comes up in the info field. Your people will (hopefully) go collect them directly. This will boost your initial supplies.

Red markers show steam geysers

Now you should look at the lay of the land. Use WASD or the arrow keys to move around and look for places where there is metal to mine, green areas and steam geysers. 

There are two geysers on each map (at least from what I’ve seen) and on these you can put the geothermal generator, which generates constant energy in contrast to the solar panels.

All-in-one room. Cosy, right?

After looking around the map, find a fitting place to place your home. First, put down one or two solar panels (unless you have a geyser close by), then make one or two batteries. Put walls around the batteries and connect the new building with the solar panels with a power conduit. You find these things in the architect menu (easy access by right clicking). Take a moment to familiarise yourself with it, then find the nutrient paste dispenser and put it down somewhere. It requires power so it’s best to have it connected with the batteries. You might have notices that walls have power conduits in it and that makes it easier to place things that need power. Make sure to have the dispenser under a roof as well (which you get from having walls form a room). The reason you want to have batteries and dispensers under roof is that they don’t like the rain very much. Don’t believe me? OK, try it out and see for yourself. But when you feel like continuing building the foundation for your colony, make room for beds. Your people start with sleeping spots beside the stockpile. As you will come to learn, your people have their thoughts about their situation and sleeping outside isn’t their favourite thing. They prefer a bed and their own room, which gives you an idea about how to form your buildings. But for easy starts, make a big room where you put three beds. This can be the same room/house where the dispenser and batteries are. Only make sure that whenever you build with walls, make sure that colonisers can reach the wall and repair it if needed. If a wall goes without repairing it might end up blowing and draining all stored energy in the batteries.

Can't a man have a biscuit? Google it!

When you have beds and roof, it’s time to get at garden started. This is why you need green areas. Place two growing areas at a good spot and your people will fix the garden. You need to do this soon after start or you will face starvation before you know it.

Right, good work! You now have the freedom to explore and expand as you wish. Until that time that pesky raiders decide to crash your party. Security is a tricky thing in RimWorld. You have access to auto turrets from the start. Problem is that you need to place a couple of them and place them smart. They shoot a burst of three shots but can be upgraded via research to four shoot bursts. They aren’t too accurate and they can’t withstand too much of a beating before blowing up. They also require a good amount of power (350W). But with a bit of tactical thinking you can learn what works best for your defence. The good Gentleman Niccro shared his tactic of making a choking point, leading raiders into a killing ground. Myself, I place sandbags so that my people have cover when standing their ground. But remember that attackers also look for cover when they come for you.  So you need to experiment with what works best for you. A final point on defending, you can put colonisers in "Draft mode" (quick key "R"), this let's you command them by telling them where to go and who to attack.

Tips -

#1: At the point where your characters land on the planet, there lies a pistol. Select the one who is the designated defender and have her equip it by right clicking on the pistol and select "equip".

 #2: If you are in dire need of food, under the "orders" menu you can select "Harvest" and then drag it across bushes and agave plants. If these are fully grown, you will get food from them. 

#3: Four walls will automatically get a roof. Don't cover solar panels!

#4: Don't forget doors!

So, now you have the first steps towards survival in RimWorld. I wish you good luck and many hours of good fun.