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Ludeon Studios have just released a rather big expansion to the colony building sim RimWorld with Biotech, along with the free 1.4 update for all players.

This big new expansion really does change the game in quite a number of ways. With you being able to have children colonists now, who will grow up and you will be able to choose traits for them and hopefully turn them into productive workers. There's also the ability to turn colonists into a mechanitor, a person with a special brain implant that lets them psychically command semi-living machines. On top of that you also get gene editing, giving you the ability to create xenohumans with special exotic traits.

As a reminder on the 1.4 patch that includes:

  • Startup performance improvements.
  • Painting and color customization for walls, floors, furniture, and lights.
  • Actually useful shelves that store lots of stuff.
  • Two new turret types.
  • Starting possessions for some colonists.
  • Rot stink from corpses.
  • New mod manager UI.
  • New options menu.
  • Heat overlay.
  • Quest search bar.
  • Tile inspector.
  • + More
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Some compatibility notes to be aware of:

  • Unmodded savegames from 1.3 will load in 1.4.
  • Many mods have already been updated by wonderful modders during the 1.4 preview over the last few weeks. However, some are not yet updated and won't work on 1.4.
  • If you want to keep playing version 1.3, please use Steam beta branch "version-1.3-latest".
    To do this, r-click RimWorld in the Steam library, go to properties, open the betas tab, and select the version from the dropdown.

You can buy RimWorld for Linux from GOG, Humble Store and Steam. It has a Native Linux port and it is Steam Deck Verified too.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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6 comments

ExpandingMan Oct 21, 2022
Rimworld is one of those games that seems amazing but I've really struggled to enjoy. I find it plodding an tedious. Guess it's time to go back and try again, hopefully I'll stick with it long enough to get over the initial boredom.

I do remember having one game where there was a colonist who was really annoying because he had brain worms and then his girlfriend dumped him and he was becoming increasingly useless. Then he freaked out and attacked the village iguana. RIP annoying colonist, killed by an iguana in self-defense.


Last edited by ExpandingMan on 21 October 2022 at 4:08 pm UTC
Philadelphus Oct 21, 2022
First expansion I'm picking up on release, as I wasn't particularly interested in RimWorld when the previous two came out. Now to wait for enough of my mods to update to start a game…

Rimworld is one of those games that seems amazing but I've really struggled to enjoy. I find it plodding an tedious. Guess it's time to go back and try again, hopefully I'll stick with it long enough to get over the initial boredom.
So, I pledged to the original Kickstart campaign for RimWorld, including access to various alpha and beta builds along the way…and yet, up until this year, I never really got into it, even though I probably had some forty hours or so of started-and-abandoned playthroughs over the years; I usually start, play a few hours, then get bored and quit. What I found finally got me enjoying it long enough to keep going past that initial start was in large part a mod that lets you edit your starting colonists and situation. I gave myself two four [I checked] extra colonists and then tweaked all five seven of them to have mostly positive traits and a good spread of skills, and for whatever reason that got me through the initial first few hours where I'd usually lose interest and on to where I actually had a thriving colony of (eventually) over twenty pawn.

This is not to say that you should enjoy it, or will if you do the same thing, more that I understand where you're coming from and just wanted to share what I'd found that helped me finally enjoy the game in case it helps.

(Thinking about it some more, in Dwarf Fortress you start with seven dwarfs who are blank slates for you to customize, which allows you to get a pretty good spread of coverage for the skills that initially are the most useful. In RimWorld, you start with one, three, or five pawns, chosen from a randomly generated pool, which makes it difficult to reliably cover the skills you need early on. I know RimWorld's all about the procedurally-generated stories and the characters play into that, but I found myself much more attached to my colony by playing it more like a Dwarf Fortress start where I got to customize everything [and then get the procedural stuff on top of that later on]. Thankfully, there are mods for that. )


Last edited by Philadelphus on 22 October 2022 at 8:54 am UTC
denyasis Oct 21, 2022
Rimworld is one of those games that seems amazing but I've really struggled to enjoy. I find it plodding an tedious. Guess it's time to go back and try again, hopefully I'll stick with it long enough to get over the initial boredom.

I do remember having one game where there was a colonist who was really annoying because he had brain worms and then his girlfriend dumped him and he was becoming increasingly useless. Then he freaked out and attacked the village iguana. RIP annoying colonist, killed by an iguana in self-defense.

Lol. RimWorld is one of my favorite games, but I do agree; it has a slow start. I kind of figure that's a drawback of the genre and design as other games also suffer a slow beginning more or less (Factorio/Cities: Skylines, etc).

But compared to those, they're can be a lot of waiting, even with the time speed up.


Fyi, the Prepare Carefully mod is what I Think Philadelphius is mentioning. It's a very helpful mod that eliminates some of the potential rough/tedious starts dished out by the RNG without being cheaty.
Philadelphus Oct 22, 2022
Fyi, the Prepare Carefully mod is what I Think Philadelphius is mentioning. It's a very helpful mod that eliminates some of the potential rough/tedious starts dished out by the RNG without being cheaty.
Yup, that's the one. Not updated for 1.4 yet, sadly.
redneckdrow Oct 23, 2022
Instabought (tip: There's even a small sale on Fanatical!)... but I'm waiting to play it until EDB Prepare Carefully gets updated to play it. Yes I know about Character Editor, but it feels a little more cheaty and lacks a few features from EDBPC that I use.
Zlopez Oct 24, 2022
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How good is Rimworld on Steam Deck, could it be easily controlled by controller or it's just for the mouse and keyboard?

I must say I was really surprised how well Surviving Aftermath was playable on Steam Deck controller, it was a really great experience to see that even some RTS games could be played easily on controller :-)
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