I just picked this up and I’m wondering if any of you want to share your strategies about getting started in the game. So far, I built some beds and a storage shed. I designated an area to grow crops and one of my colonists planted some potatoes. We also chopped down some trees and shot a rabbit.
In general, what’s a good direction to go here? Are there certain buildings to prioritize or activities that I should investigate before aimlessly clicking around in the interface? Any serious “gotcha” moments or ways to royally screw up?
A couple of things. What storyteller/difficulty? How long is your growing season?
You need to worry about where you are getting your food from, and storing it so it won’t spoil. This means getting a freezer going. Build/dig an area with an airlock entrance to prevent raising the temp every time someone goes in. With the cooling unit, place the outflow into a hallway of your base if you have cold seasons. This will freeze your food and keep your base warm (but it can get too warm in the summer).
If you do have winter you want to get a lot of crops going, harvest bushes, and hunt the occasional animal. You also want to get a stove and to start cooking simple meals since raw food hurts the mood of your people.
Get some solar panels and at least one wind mill going to a couple of batteries. You are going to want a reserve of energy.
At the same time start limiting access to your base. Decide where to funnel in attacks and give your guys barricades for protection while removing anything the enemy can hide behind. Loot bodies and drag the corpses far away from your base. Or bury them.
Once you have that down, start looking to research and manufacturing. If you have winter months, you want the indoor crops sooner rather than later.
Good question! I just picked it up also this week.
I did notice that @Jab created a couple starter videos that he posted on Steam that I intend to go through to give me a head start on learning the systems and the game.
I was going with the laid back storyteller and the 2nd difficult level, to start.
I got the crops going and can harvest berries. I built a slaughter table and a wood stove and set one of my colonists to hunt. He has killed a few animals, but only collected the carcass of one of them and taken it to the slaughter table. I had him shoot a boar, for example, and nobody ever collected it; spoilage. There doesn’t seem to be any way I can force them to pick it up…
You can force them to do things. Select a colonist and then right click on the thing you want them to do. In this case if you right click on a dead animal it will say prioritize hauling carcass. First make sure you cleared the red X on it though, or the body will be off limits.
On that note, also make sure you manage your storage areas. For instance only allow food and dead animals in your freezer. Set up an area inside for clothes, weapons etc, and then a place outside for metal and stone and things that won’t deteriorate outside.
Awesome - I totally missed that. Thanks! I’ll play out my game a bit more until I figure out what I’m doing and then probably start again. You said something about digging out an area so that they don’t get too hot… need to figure that out, too. :)
If you want to see me mess with Rimworld more, I just started a LP on my Youtube channel to see if I can actually survive past the third bandit attack.
I have to ask for the expert players, how are you dealing with combat?
I’m running into two big problems. First is that my colonists are just horrible at fighting; the person with 16 in shooting can’t hit anything. I tried setting up some sandbags to create areas to shoot behind, but then I’m leaving my walls open for anything to wander in.
And the second problem is that no matter what my people fight, they will nine out of ten times lose. I can’t seem to organize them to fight as groups, and even then, they seem ineffective no matter what weapon I give them.
I am no expert, but I can say how I do it. Early game I make it so they can only come in from one direction (which doesn’t meant they won’t try different areas, but most will come through that way). That way is either through a pond or I clear all the trees. Taking away their cover makes a huge difference. I create sandbag/wall spots for my guys. I have also tried clogging that area with rocks. Gives me hiding, and slows down their melee guys from getting to you.
Late game when I have more resources/tech/time I set a chock point with walls. They come in with no cover, and face turrets. Traps weren’t in the game when I played a year ago, but I plan to set that choke point with traps as well.
For my guys, I just set them in cover with my melee guys in hiding to call in if needed. If the enemy hasegrenades I try to micromanage them to avoid it, but that’s difficult to do. I try to start with one good shooter, give him a rifle and he’s dangerous early on.
The game gives you the ability to stop time and control your dudes. I am a heavy user of this. If you stop time as soon as you see an encounter is coming, then you first call your guys back into your base, directing them to pick up weapons and assume defensive positions. The defensive positions usually involve a killbox/killing field you have set up at your base that the enemy will run through to get to you. Turrets and sandbags are helpful, but be aware that turrets explode with a radius so you want the positions to not be like 3 sqs . Your guys hold these positions until the enemy approaches, and the shooting commences. They hold positions unless they are going to be overwhelmed. Then you micromanage their shots by pausing and ordering/adjusting position if need be, because the AI makes them all fire at the closest target by default, so they all fire at one or two guys instead of appropriately dealing with threats. Long guns are quite helpful. If you build the killbox right, they never quite get to you, and the AI loves to attack turrets first. You must kill grenade guys before they get in range, or it could be a disaster. As soon as the fighting is done, you snag all of their wounded and throw them in the klink. They will come around eventually.
How about when hunting? Even though I have four people set as hunters, they only fight one at a time and can barely deal with any animal who is aggressive.
Yeah, I know. I’m quoting you from 2013, but what’s up with this? Since it’s three years later, I’m assuming this is the final - not temporary - art style, yes?
I’m kind of torn so far. I like that it’s got more open dynamic gameplay than a straight builder like Prison Architect, but I’m really frustrated by the way the game communicates (or usually not) why things are or aren’t happening. I also hate that it’s got that Prison Architect thing going on where people will start building walls haphazardly instead of sequentially, then wander off to do something else, then maybe come back, etc.
Honestly, I’m kind of sick of games that expect me to watch a bunch of Let’s Play videos or read through ever-changing wikis. I want to stick with this, but it feels like it’s fighting me every step of the way.
Frankly, they should stay away from anything they can’t kill. The AI does not think in terms of teamwork. You have to, so you have to micromanage or forget it. Good advertisement for being a vegetarian. Grow crops. I have never seen enough animal kills to survive, though hitting a passive herd can be helpful.
Under the work tab, set it to numbers instead of check marks and then carefully setting priorities will stop this, or at least help you understand why they do what they do. If you need this wall built now, make sure construction is set to 1 for your best builder for example. For each person I go through and set necessities like doctor and rest to 1. Things he is good at get a 2. Everything else gets a 3 or 4. I will change it up as necessary. For example, if hauling and cleaning aren’t getting done, I will set them at 1 or 2 temporarily so it gets done.
Of course when you want something done immediately, especially with hauling, I just right click and tell them to it now.
Yeah… This is the kind of thing I hate. I get why some games get as granular as they do with their AI priorities, but I hate managing this stuff to this level. I feel like this kind of thing should be more streamlined. I’d love to be able to just right-click someone, point them to a wall outline, and have them go build it. Just stop whatever they were doing and build the damn wall. If a bad guy shows up, I’d love to be able to box-select a bunch of dudes, right-click on the bad guy and have them all go attack.
Kinda. I mean I’d love one of these games to come out and be a little less obtuse and more intuitive.
It’s great that there’s this level of control that’s available to invested players, but there should be a level of control that’s easier to access for noobs like me that don’t want to dig through a bunch of user-made tutorials.
