From RimWorld Wiki
Revision as of 15:54, 9 June 2019 by Earen (talk | contribs) (→‎Handle: Add note about non-violent pawns not slaughtering)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Basics Menus Game Creation Gameplay Pawns Plants Resources Gear Mods
Menus Architect Work Restrictions Assign Animals Research World History Factions Menu



The Architect menu is mainly used to designate construction.


From the Work menu you can set the types of work 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.

Manual priorities



Assigning work


Incapable of work types


Prioritizing a task



  • Colonists will only perform work in their allowed area.

Work types


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: none


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


Doctors bandage wounds, treat the sick, and perform operations. Doctors also automatically rescue downed colonists. Doctors tend to colonists, anyone rescued, prisoners 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


Colonists will complete tasks that are unskilled and easy to complete. These include toggling power on appliances and switches, releasing prisoners, and opening containers.

  • Relevant skill: none
  • Category: none


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


Handlers tame animals. Handlers rescue wounded animals, train, feed, milk, shear, and slaughter.


  • Relevant skill: Animals
  • Category: Animals


Cooks butcher animals, prepare meals, and brew beer.

  • Relevant skill: Cooking
  • Category: Skilled labor


Hunters hunt animals marked for hunting, but will require a ranged weapon to do so (you will be notified via message of colonists with the Hunting job that are unarmed).

  • Skills: Shooting
  • Category: Violent



  • Relevant skill: Construction
  • Category: Skilled labor


Growers plant and harvest domestic crops.

  • Relevant skill: Growing
  • Category: Skilled labor


Miners dig out marked sections of stone and minerals; and operate deep drills.

  • Relevant skill: Mining
  • Category: Skilled labor

Plant cut


  • Relevant skill: Growing (listed as 'None' though)
  • Category: Dumb labor


Smiths create weapons at the smithing bench and the machining table.

  • Relevant skill: Smithing
  • Category: Skilled labor


Tailors craft clothing at the tailor's workbench.

  • Relevant skill: Tailoring
  • Category: Skilled labor


Artists make sculptures at the sculptor's table.

  • Relevant skill: Artistic
  • Category: Artistic


Crafters do general low-skilled labor at work stations such as stonecutting and smelting.

  • Relevant skill: Crafting
  • Category: Skilled labor





  • Relevant skill: none
  • Category: Dumb labor


Researchers do research work at a simple research bench to unlock new items and building options.

Researchers must use the hi-tech research bench for projects that require it.

  • Relevant skill: Research
  • Category: Intellectual


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, Recreation, and Sleep.



Assign tab displaying all its features. Note that 'Brawler' in the 'Current Outfit' tab is a custom outfit.

The Assign screen has the following functions:

ReactUndraftedFlee.png Flee (default)
ReactUndraftedAttack.png Attack
ReactUndraftedIgnore.png Ignore

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.
  • Soldier: Includes armor and clothing suited for cold weather.

The player may modify these outfits or create their own.









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.


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. If you are playing as New Arrivals, 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 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 if you are playing as New Arrivals. If you are playing as a Lost Tribe, people from this faction are usually very hard to recruit (difficulty 80+), though it is possible to do so. 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 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 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).


The Mechanoids are a faction of super-advanced robots, all of which are extremely formidable in combat. They come in three forms: Centipedes, Scythers, and Lancers

Centipedes are the Mechanoids' heavy tank unit, coming equipped with an 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' fast melee unit, coming equipped with twin blades and light, though still durable, armor. Scythers can deal a great amount of damage in melee, so they should be engaged with ranged weapons if at all possible.

Lancers are the Mechanoids' long range sniper unit. Their weapons (charge lance) are slow-firing, but are very accurate and are powerful enough to kill a humanoid or cause permanent injuries in one shot. They are relatively safe to engage in melee, as long as you can safely close the distance.

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 Psychic Ship and Poison Ship events, in which they will emerge from the wreckage of their ship and attack if a colonist attacks it.






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.











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 (Does not record the seed used to generate your world map)
  • Options - Provides graphics and sound settings for the game
  • Quit to OS - Quits the application


  • Review scenario - Displays the conditions of your current play through
  • Options - Provides graphics and sound settings for the game