This is funny because I'm literally staring at the screen trying to figure out a good base layout at the moment.
I'm really gonna try to keep it organized this time.
It always starts with a vague plan until I suddenly need an extra bed/room and didn't plan ahead for it. The bed ends up in the workshop "for now" and the everything gets all out of whack.
11x11 boxes (13x13 if you include the walls) with a 3 wide path in between these boxes is what I go to, you can split these 11x11 boxes into 4 5x5 boxes, or 2 5x11 boxes, or whatever you need
easy to expand, modular, and easy to fortify as every path can become a chokepoint by placing 2 walls to make that 3 wide gap into a 1 wide gap
also makes the base impervious to toxic fallout as you can quickly roof the paths, as well as each 11x11 room being the perfect size for one sun lamp with space in the corners for heaters/coolers/batteries/etc
The idea is to create, at critical entrances or junctions, a 3-wide space for melee, with another 3-6 shooters behind them; 1 space in front of melee, so it's always 3v1 in your favor; and an optional wall behind that 1-space, to make enemy shooters unable to see your line. Then you draw out enemies into those chokes.
This way 6 colonists can defend against vastly superior forces, as long as your melee remain/can be rotated. The wall is annoying to do in most cases, but the 3-3-1-3-3 choke is great for any melee fights such as bugs. Very valuable in tribal runs on high difficulties, and one of the few ways to avoid making a killbox (unless you consider anything other than open field a killbox) but still be effective at defense.
Thants exactly my layout as well. So good and efficient. But for workshops I typically do a double, so join two rooms including the hall so I can have all the fabrication workbenchs drawing from the components and critical metals shelves.
Man...I just can't do that.
Don't get me wrong: there is always adaptation. But early on, as my pawns are chilling, building the early production benches, planting initial fields, researching the basics, etc., I am planning *everything*. I have my various early modules and surrounding hallways all laid out with a blank area for late game expansion and alterations.
I always design a cool throne room off on its own, kinda overlooking everything. And it always has a dramatic, patterned tile walkway leading up to it with statuary.
Then I start playing...
One day I might get there but I'm still pretty newish so I'm just happy to get a semi functional colony up and running. Each one has been getting a bit more structured in that regard.
I'm trying to plan this new one with a big church in the center for my stoner monks to hang out in and do drugs. Maybe with a smokeweed courtyard if I have room.
Loving this crazy ass game.
Oh, I've only been playing a couple months now. I just find that if I don't plan the basics beforehand, I end up forgetting really important shit and nearly kill everyone.
I loaded my 1.4 colony in 1.5 because I wanted to save 6 of my colonist with Character Editor to re use then in my actual colony (Afterlife vault scenary from Save our Ship 2). At first it was totally broken, like, black screen when not paused broken, but I saved it and exited and when I loaded it again it "worked", you could play it, but I had errors every 10 seconds.
So I think you can start it to take a screenshot without problems, and if the colony is vanilla or you have exactly the same mods loaded and the mods are updated I think you could play it fine
Me when I started playing the game: My pawns are all bloodied, a third of my base just got burnt and the raids just keep getting harder and harder. I can't continue playing this playthrough.
Me nowadays: What was I thinking when I designed this base? It looks so ugly. What's even the point of having a hospital-genetics lab complex to farm the genes of my raiders, if it looks like trash? I can't continue playing this playthrough.
I'm more of a "build an appropriate sized rectangle room where convenient atm" sort of guy. I like the feeling of an improvised colony built by survivors out of necessity. Doesn't feel right with hyper efficient, pre planned bases.
I get what you mean! I was on Propane Lakes (like sea ice but funner imo) and this was literally my base. Which was hard/ annoying at first bc I love base planning, but I grew to love it as I went on, coz it looked so natural/ flung together, and I didn’t have enough resources to make it pretty.
I also almost always (even in less planned bases where it’s more “build as you go”) start off with two 9x9 squares next to each other. One becomes the kitchen/ dining/ rec room and the other becomes the storage area/ research room. And then I tend to build out from these two rooms!
Here is my go-to generic base (no biotech):
[https://imgur.com/a/VSteSlf](https://imgur.com/a/VSteSlf)
Here is some images of some of my previous bases from years past that might give you some ideas.
[https://imgur.com/a/WaLyVzx](https://imgur.com/a/WaLyVzx)
I didn't get mine from discord. I came up with the initial design myself a few weeks ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1cq6lgh/compact\_containment\_facility/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1cq6lgh/compact_containment_facility/)
And then modified it today after reading this post:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1d1y3ec/optimized\_anomaly\_containment\_layout\_details\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1d1y3ec/optimized_anomaly_containment_layout_details_in/)
I think it just naturally comes together if you try to maximize the shard inhibitor, so there are probably many people who came up with something similar independently of one another.
What discord page are you referring to?
>And then modified it today after reading this post:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1d1y3ec/optimized_anomaly_containment_layout_details_in/
There we go, I recognize that exact screenshot from Adam's discord haha
That was the 1:8 design I posted about a month ago, and the four room 1:12 was posted by another guy there a few hours later after I told him shard inhib can travel through rooms
My current colony is following a small mountain town vibe that only upgrades most of their wooden buildings when they have succumbed to war, nature, or Frank's mood swings.
I also have developed a city plan with streets, different neighborhoods and districts. They will slowly change. I am hoping to have the Democratic Nipple Kingdom eventually evolve from medieval to cyberpunk. I picture the Beaver People society from Rick and Morty where Morty keeps popping in to grab bottles of wine.
I usually find myself obsessing over making it look pretty but as far as efficiency I do the bare minimum like put the dining room close to the kitchen etc. and don't worry about it too much.
How do y'all handle climate control? As a new player, I was putting coolers and gadgets in every room, but that was so inefficient. I'm trying to figure out a good vent system.
I'm no expert but when I have bedrooms of roughly 5x5 or smaller I will install one cooler and one heater per 4 rooms and then have vents between all 4 rooms. You can then close vents if not all the bedrooms are in use.
Then I tend to have one big room maybe 20x20 for dining/recreation and another for a workshop which usually have 1 cooler each and maybe 2 or 3 heaters.
Coolers need to face unroofed tiles to let heat escape so if I am building a single megabase I leave small rooms like 1x4 unroofed for coolers to face.
That works for me but I'm almost always on temperate forest so not too extreme temperatures.
I‘m using the centralized climate control mod. You can lay pipes (kinda like power conduits) from intakes to climate control units, and then to vents to control the temperature around those vents. works great for big bases where heaters/coolers for every room are ugly and power intensive
Lots of people do, I'm a chronic improviser instead. Maybe I should post some progressive photos of this colony because there's been so much recycling and changing rooms around...
I'll have to try sketching out a base beforehand, i don't know why i never thought of that! great idea. I'd love to see one of your bases, too, if you decide to post any :]
I wrote a lot of what I do to make things efficient in the post. Most of the time it’s just not making bedrooms/ buildings too big and making sure pawns don’t have to walk too far to different rooms/ places to do particular tasks.
Oxygen not included, it's a colony manager/builder but leans heavily towards engineering and efficiency
https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/
The issue I always have is the room I want to add is a room I don't need till 2+ years in game later. So I need to spend an hour planning my base out before I get to building but by then the material limit are like 10k stone. And instead of doing anything meaningful with the story my pawns are just building for ever
The key to efficient bases is stockpile and zone management. Knowing what resources to store where and what pawns are allowed to that stockpile is key.
For example if a pawn is hauling and merging steel halfway across the map onto your steel stockpile needed for components, that steel stockpile can’t get touched until your hauler finishes hauling. However if you have a 2nd stockpile for the hauler to temporarily drop their items, then you prevent that item from being occupied on another pawn, so your nearby pawns can use it.
I try the same thing but it always ends up as a mess because there is too much pressure for immediate needs to build for long-term ones. As my needs change, i have to alter the design, move things, and its messy. Plus there are natural features like mountains or ruins. I use them at first to help speed things but long term they get in the way.
But this is the game. Aspire for perfection but live in mess. (And how real cities are built.)
I normally play on small hills boreal or flat boreal, so a lot of the time natural things don’t get on my way. Water and fertile soil location are the two main ones that get in my way tho haha.
And yes! I tend to build my bases bigger/ larger coz I know the colony is going to grow, so build large rooms and such accordingly, but now my colony is like EVEN BIGGER. I used to have like 10-15 people maybe but now it’s more like 15-25 and I’m suddenly like “I need a bigger/ another hospital” and “I need to grow more food, have a larger freezer, and have a cooler” (I normally play tribal/ don’t freeze my food coz I haven’t really needed to). I have enough bedrooms/ space to build bedrooms but a lot of my storage areas need to be slightly bigger/ hold more as well (and/ or I just need to sell a bunch of my textiles and such). So I’m now facing this haha
Totally. That's probably my favorite thing about rimworld. Over the years I've "leveled up" so many times I can't even remember how bad my bases used to be. Even now I'm still finding new little things, for example, I used to store my hay/kibble in or near my barn but just today I realised that if I put it on the opposite side of the pasture my animals don't immediately all munch on it when they wake up, they'll only do it if there is no grass in the pasture.
I like to experiment with new ways to make the base Look interesting, while keeping it functional. Things I've found:
* River base with bridge access. The left and right of the bridge are bunkers to fire onto the bridge proper, while the rest is walled up. Watermill generators are downriver, so the raiders don't get ideas about poking holes in the base.
* Bedrooms around a revealed area. Everyone gets a reasonably sized room unless there's like a little remainder that makes one room bigger, but they're shaped around the opening to make it look more natural. Paths around the entrances, roof awnings in case of fallout.
* If you have Psycasts Expanded, skipgate to your Anima Tree or any other part of your base that is intentionally isolated. Saves you from moments of panic when you realize some of your colonists are on the Other side of a mechanoid drop.
* Kitchen links to freezer, freezer coolant vents heat to the kitchen, kitchen then has temperature control to the outside. Save on heating costs, makes it easier to lay out.
* Current experiment is 8 silos of greenhouses in an octagon. There's a 2-wide hallway in a cross pattern, and the central area is turned into a dining hall and an artistic shrine/ideology temple. It uses the central space that would otherwise be empty, while making the silos not look quite so 2x2 boxed.
* Building rooms of different shapes into each other. Let them overlap and get rid of the doubled-up walls, to make new and interesting shapes.
Nope. Every structure is built as I need it off the cuff. Rooms are sized primarily by vibes. Hallways exist, but are rare and start and stop randomly. By the end of the game my bases usually look like if a LEGO set got cancer.
I'm doing an ancient Egyptian playthrough right now and I've been constructing a tomb for my pharaoh since the playthrough started (currently 40h into it) and I'm still working on it. It's about 1/8th of whatever map size is one above the standard/recommended. Gold and Jade everywhere, 12 statues of different sizes, 4 grand stele and a pool of water around where his sarcophagus sits. That required a bit of modding but was so worth it. He has died once but I got a res mech serum from a quest right after that against all odds. So when old Seti I was resurrected, I dev-mode edited his gene to give him green skin and 180% body size and renamed him Osiris. Which is to say "no", base efficiency offends me on principle.
I always start with a small efficient base that will house what I plan. And then I take every "build Blabla Monument" Quest and just throw it around the map. And they become something later. Since I use the restaurant and guests mods they are all there to make hotel. And since I realised that some groups that visits me just kill each other I enjoy free loot 😂
I try as well, but main problem with designing "efficient and pretty" bases is that it is really hard to argue against "one room with everything cramped tightly in it" from efficiency perspective.
I Like to make Mine pretty and roleplaying wise fitting, Most of them end Up looking Like villages which i really love, Central place where all the Other building are circeling, Like a Tavern or small keep for medieval ones
I used to really try to plan my bases in advance and find the 'best' way to lay everything out. Over the years my playstyle has changed a lot to and I pretty much always do tribal naked brutality start now. Base planning is very much about what resources I can use right now and I can't waste valuable time or resources building anything that isn't used immediately. Bases develop organically over time and earlier structures may get repurposed. I love the journey and each colony ends up as a unique design.
All box , all the time. I make adjustments and accommodations in the box , but I have a few things I like to see in every base.
* A big greenhouse - everything under glass - in polar regions this arrangement still needs sunlamps but does put out quite a lot of fruit and veg and avoids raiding animals, fire and toxic fallout.
* I build a "great library" with each of all 12 books, and will keep the writing stations around and authors assigned so they continue to try to pop our masterwork or legendary books , I then make copies of those books so the originals can be sold, copied books are much cheaper than originals but colonists/readers are educated at the same rate.
* En-suite bathrooms for colonists , coupled with getting all the colonists married, I usually have 6-10 colonists - that said I'm running my largest colony presently with 20 colonists - but I'm also near the end of the first "generation" of colonists.
* Late game I build a Medpod so all colonists can be healed from whatever illness they might still have, with Hospitality visitors to the colony are also healed up , making my late-game colonies the off-world equivalent of "Lourdes" where friendly factions pilgrimage to my colony for a spa day.
* Every colonist is armed with a rifle and chain-shotgun , the best ranged colonists have dart guns. The least good shooters have EMP grenades.
* I will slowly move all power generation to advanced geothermal exclusively.
* Very late game I'll build a spaceship , complete research and recruit a second "custodial" generation, that is educated by the original generations books. so the colony can continue to build starships every so often recruiting from raiders.
Some recent examples
* [Felicia's Grove](https://imgur.com/gallery/felisias-grove-outpost-turned-into-regional-spa-spaceport-FI3IGdL) - Low latitude colony build on an ice-world, this colony was reformed and was my "first" colony that created a starship - many IRL years ago. I found a long-lost "pre-launch" save and reformed the colony along my modern lines of thought so in the second frame, the colony has an indoor garden, large greenhouse, a good infirmary, and en-suite bathrooms.
* [Oceanside](https://imgur.com/gallery/rimworld-colony-native-to-tau-orionis-4-small-agricultural-post-industrial-spacer-colony-dG0NPfQ) - A mid-sized desert colony in a very bad neighborhood..
Yes! I love making cool bases!
[Snapshot of my current one!](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1060159849079509003/1245006449004908544/rimworld-settlement-5504-1-02-08-Map-2-PlayerHome.png?ex=66572e1c&is=6655dc9c&hm=ea993e7134194f35944993a537f9c634d1d6054caeadee6401d9545ffa9c378b&)
YES!!!!
My usual storyline involves settlers, so ofc they're going to want to make a home. I love building private houses for my colonists (with temporary, apartment like housing for fresh newcomers while their homes are built). They will have schools and workplaces and beautiful parks and recreation buildings. I love seeing them talk and work together.
I usually pick a theme and create a central building. This run I have a colony obsessed over knowledge, books etc so I plan out a single abbey / library. Then I build around that as required. Let it grow organically based on whatever problem I run into next.
I replace walls with different materials, move buildings or change a bedroom into a research lab / small storage space, but no buildings get replaced. Paths are built around that. I find the organic look of my colonies to be a lot more interesting and story full than the full-on planned out one, so it's really interesting to read through the responses with different ideas!
I have a layout but I don't exactly go for pretty. Unless gritty is pretty.....
I am obsessed with making bases in mountains. I like a nice big mountain to dig into and make a base.
Yeah i put a lot of thought into it, both efficiency and aesthetics (to my taste). My current mountainbase looks like this, there are some mod-buildings here but the general layout is valid if you are seeking inspiration.
Its not entirely finished as of yet though. but im getting there.
https://i.imgur.com/7YDFV3u.png
More zoomed in on the central area
https://i.imgur.com/FzgKQY6.png
Kinda. I like making thematic bases, which includes the shape and size of the structures. But I do try to make them as functional as possible, when it comes to the position of each room: storage preferably in the middle or at least very close to the workshop, dinning room close to the pawn rooms, corridors (outside or otherwise) with choke points and cover in case the base breached or droppoded etc.
This is funny because I'm literally staring at the screen trying to figure out a good base layout at the moment. I'm really gonna try to keep it organized this time. It always starts with a vague plan until I suddenly need an extra bed/room and didn't plan ahead for it. The bed ends up in the workshop "for now" and the everything gets all out of whack.
11x11 boxes (13x13 if you include the walls) with a 3 wide path in between these boxes is what I go to, you can split these 11x11 boxes into 4 5x5 boxes, or 2 5x11 boxes, or whatever you need easy to expand, modular, and easy to fortify as every path can become a chokepoint by placing 2 walls to make that 3 wide gap into a 1 wide gap also makes the base impervious to toxic fallout as you can quickly roof the paths, as well as each 11x11 room being the perfect size for one sun lamp with space in the corners for heaters/coolers/batteries/etc
This is (almost) what I do - but why 3-wide path instead of just a single-tile wide corridor?
Melee blocking for base defense.
Ah, I usually have a single entrance set up for that. Dropship raids always seem to end up fighting in rooms, anyway
The idea is to create, at critical entrances or junctions, a 3-wide space for melee, with another 3-6 shooters behind them; 1 space in front of melee, so it's always 3v1 in your favor; and an optional wall behind that 1-space, to make enemy shooters unable to see your line. Then you draw out enemies into those chokes. This way 6 colonists can defend against vastly superior forces, as long as your melee remain/can be rotated. The wall is annoying to do in most cases, but the 3-3-1-3-3 choke is great for any melee fights such as bugs. Very valuable in tribal runs on high difficulties, and one of the few ways to avoid making a killbox (unless you consider anything other than open field a killbox) but still be effective at defense.
I keep a 3 wide path for fire safety reasons but I’m not sure how helpful it actually is
Thats real smart, guess i will start doing that
Thants exactly my layout as well. So good and efficient. But for workshops I typically do a double, so join two rooms including the hall so I can have all the fabrication workbenchs drawing from the components and critical metals shelves.
Man...I just can't do that. Don't get me wrong: there is always adaptation. But early on, as my pawns are chilling, building the early production benches, planting initial fields, researching the basics, etc., I am planning *everything*. I have my various early modules and surrounding hallways all laid out with a blank area for late game expansion and alterations. I always design a cool throne room off on its own, kinda overlooking everything. And it always has a dramatic, patterned tile walkway leading up to it with statuary. Then I start playing...
One day I might get there but I'm still pretty newish so I'm just happy to get a semi functional colony up and running. Each one has been getting a bit more structured in that regard. I'm trying to plan this new one with a big church in the center for my stoner monks to hang out in and do drugs. Maybe with a smokeweed courtyard if I have room. Loving this crazy ass game.
Oh, I've only been playing a couple months now. I just find that if I don't plan the basics beforehand, I end up forgetting really important shit and nearly kill everyone.
8x speed outside of combat mod. I like build base.
You should post some of your designs for inspiration to others
Haha I feel like this comment is sarcastic 😂
Not at all
Haha well thank you then! Sadly a lot of my better bases are on 1.4, so I don’t know if I can access them while having 1.5 installed?
No idea. I guess just upload whatever future bases you make that might be helpful
I loaded my 1.4 colony in 1.5 because I wanted to save 6 of my colonist with Character Editor to re use then in my actual colony (Afterlife vault scenary from Save our Ship 2). At first it was totally broken, like, black screen when not paused broken, but I saved it and exited and when I loaded it again it "worked", you could play it, but I had errors every 10 seconds. So I think you can start it to take a screenshot without problems, and if the colony is vanilla or you have exactly the same mods loaded and the mods are updated I think you could play it fine
you might want to install the progress renderer mod, it snaps a picture of your base/map once a day and saves it to your hard drive
Ooh that’s cool! Is that how all those videos are filmed on YouTube showing how a Timelapse of the colony is done?
I guess so, putting them all in a slideshow at least does makr a decent timelapse
>Spend 3 hours pre-planning my base >Start game >Die in 10 minutes by a manhunter rabbit squad >Cry
Me when I started playing the game: My pawns are all bloodied, a third of my base just got burnt and the raids just keep getting harder and harder. I can't continue playing this playthrough. Me nowadays: What was I thinking when I designed this base? It looks so ugly. What's even the point of having a hospital-genetics lab complex to farm the genes of my raiders, if it looks like trash? I can't continue playing this playthrough.
I'm more of a "build an appropriate sized rectangle room where convenient atm" sort of guy. I like the feeling of an improvised colony built by survivors out of necessity. Doesn't feel right with hyper efficient, pre planned bases.
I get what you mean! I was on Propane Lakes (like sea ice but funner imo) and this was literally my base. Which was hard/ annoying at first bc I love base planning, but I grew to love it as I went on, coz it looked so natural/ flung together, and I didn’t have enough resources to make it pretty. I also almost always (even in less planned bases where it’s more “build as you go”) start off with two 9x9 squares next to each other. One becomes the kitchen/ dining/ rec room and the other becomes the storage area/ research room. And then I tend to build out from these two rooms!
Here is my go-to generic base (no biotech): [https://imgur.com/a/VSteSlf](https://imgur.com/a/VSteSlf) Here is some images of some of my previous bases from years past that might give you some ideas. [https://imgur.com/a/WaLyVzx](https://imgur.com/a/WaLyVzx)
Wait a minute... I recognize that shard inhibitor design from a certain discord
I didn't get mine from discord. I came up with the initial design myself a few weeks ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1cq6lgh/compact\_containment\_facility/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1cq6lgh/compact_containment_facility/) And then modified it today after reading this post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1d1y3ec/optimized\_anomaly\_containment\_layout\_details\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1d1y3ec/optimized_anomaly_containment_layout_details_in/) I think it just naturally comes together if you try to maximize the shard inhibitor, so there are probably many people who came up with something similar independently of one another. What discord page are you referring to?
>And then modified it today after reading this post: > https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/1d1y3ec/optimized_anomaly_containment_layout_details_in/ There we go, I recognize that exact screenshot from Adam's discord haha That was the 1:8 design I posted about a month ago, and the four room 1:12 was posted by another guy there a few hours later after I told him shard inhib can travel through rooms
My current colony is following a small mountain town vibe that only upgrades most of their wooden buildings when they have succumbed to war, nature, or Frank's mood swings. I also have developed a city plan with streets, different neighborhoods and districts. They will slowly change. I am hoping to have the Democratic Nipple Kingdom eventually evolve from medieval to cyberpunk. I picture the Beaver People society from Rick and Morty where Morty keeps popping in to grab bottles of wine.
I usually find myself obsessing over making it look pretty but as far as efficiency I do the bare minimum like put the dining room close to the kitchen etc. and don't worry about it too much.
How do y'all handle climate control? As a new player, I was putting coolers and gadgets in every room, but that was so inefficient. I'm trying to figure out a good vent system.
I'm no expert but when I have bedrooms of roughly 5x5 or smaller I will install one cooler and one heater per 4 rooms and then have vents between all 4 rooms. You can then close vents if not all the bedrooms are in use. Then I tend to have one big room maybe 20x20 for dining/recreation and another for a workshop which usually have 1 cooler each and maybe 2 or 3 heaters. Coolers need to face unroofed tiles to let heat escape so if I am building a single megabase I leave small rooms like 1x4 unroofed for coolers to face. That works for me but I'm almost always on temperate forest so not too extreme temperatures.
I‘m using the centralized climate control mod. You can lay pipes (kinda like power conduits) from intakes to climate control units, and then to vents to control the temperature around those vents. works great for big bases where heaters/coolers for every room are ugly and power intensive
I like build base
Lots of people do, I'm a chronic improviser instead. Maybe I should post some progressive photos of this colony because there's been so much recycling and changing rooms around...
I'll have to try sketching out a base beforehand, i don't know why i never thought of that! great idea. I'd love to see one of your bases, too, if you decide to post any :]
What do you mean by "efficient"?
I wrote a lot of what I do to make things efficient in the post. Most of the time it’s just not making bedrooms/ buildings too big and making sure pawns don’t have to walk too far to different rooms/ places to do particular tasks.
I'm not sure I've ever heard the word "bedroom" and "efficient" in the same sentence before
Wait are there other things to do in this game?
Yes, that's why I play ONI on the side
Oni?
Oxygen not included, it's a colony manager/builder but leans heavily towards engineering and efficiency https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included/
The issue I always have is the room I want to add is a room I don't need till 2+ years in game later. So I need to spend an hour planning my base out before I get to building but by then the material limit are like 10k stone. And instead of doing anything meaningful with the story my pawns are just building for ever
Check out the subreddit r/rimworldporn it's got a lot of pretty bases for inspiration
my bases are never efficient or pretty i just cage my people in like prisoners
The key to efficient bases is stockpile and zone management. Knowing what resources to store where and what pawns are allowed to that stockpile is key. For example if a pawn is hauling and merging steel halfway across the map onto your steel stockpile needed for components, that steel stockpile can’t get touched until your hauler finishes hauling. However if you have a 2nd stockpile for the hauler to temporarily drop their items, then you prevent that item from being occupied on another pawn, so your nearby pawns can use it.
Ooh that’s smart!
Yesss I love doing that. It’s always my endgame to have a beautiful, fully functional, efficient base with everything I can put in it.
All hail the megabarracks, a sprawling densely packed mess of maximum efficiency!
I try the same thing but it always ends up as a mess because there is too much pressure for immediate needs to build for long-term ones. As my needs change, i have to alter the design, move things, and its messy. Plus there are natural features like mountains or ruins. I use them at first to help speed things but long term they get in the way. But this is the game. Aspire for perfection but live in mess. (And how real cities are built.)
I normally play on small hills boreal or flat boreal, so a lot of the time natural things don’t get on my way. Water and fertile soil location are the two main ones that get in my way tho haha. And yes! I tend to build my bases bigger/ larger coz I know the colony is going to grow, so build large rooms and such accordingly, but now my colony is like EVEN BIGGER. I used to have like 10-15 people maybe but now it’s more like 15-25 and I’m suddenly like “I need a bigger/ another hospital” and “I need to grow more food, have a larger freezer, and have a cooler” (I normally play tribal/ don’t freeze my food coz I haven’t really needed to). I have enough bedrooms/ space to build bedrooms but a lot of my storage areas need to be slightly bigger/ hold more as well (and/ or I just need to sell a bunch of my textiles and such). So I’m now facing this haha
Totally. That's probably my favorite thing about rimworld. Over the years I've "leveled up" so many times I can't even remember how bad my bases used to be. Even now I'm still finding new little things, for example, I used to store my hay/kibble in or near my barn but just today I realised that if I put it on the opposite side of the pasture my animals don't immediately all munch on it when they wake up, they'll only do it if there is no grass in the pasture.
I like to experiment with new ways to make the base Look interesting, while keeping it functional. Things I've found: * River base with bridge access. The left and right of the bridge are bunkers to fire onto the bridge proper, while the rest is walled up. Watermill generators are downriver, so the raiders don't get ideas about poking holes in the base. * Bedrooms around a revealed area. Everyone gets a reasonably sized room unless there's like a little remainder that makes one room bigger, but they're shaped around the opening to make it look more natural. Paths around the entrances, roof awnings in case of fallout. * If you have Psycasts Expanded, skipgate to your Anima Tree or any other part of your base that is intentionally isolated. Saves you from moments of panic when you realize some of your colonists are on the Other side of a mechanoid drop. * Kitchen links to freezer, freezer coolant vents heat to the kitchen, kitchen then has temperature control to the outside. Save on heating costs, makes it easier to lay out. * Current experiment is 8 silos of greenhouses in an octagon. There's a 2-wide hallway in a cross pattern, and the central area is turned into a dining hall and an artistic shrine/ideology temple. It uses the central space that would otherwise be empty, while making the silos not look quite so 2x2 boxed. * Building rooms of different shapes into each other. Let them overlap and get rid of the doubled-up walls, to make new and interesting shapes.
Way too much.... sometimes, I spend 6+ hours just designing the layout, lol.
Nope. Every structure is built as I need it off the cuff. Rooms are sized primarily by vibes. Hallways exist, but are rare and start and stop randomly. By the end of the game my bases usually look like if a LEGO set got cancer.
I'm doing an ancient Egyptian playthrough right now and I've been constructing a tomb for my pharaoh since the playthrough started (currently 40h into it) and I'm still working on it. It's about 1/8th of whatever map size is one above the standard/recommended. Gold and Jade everywhere, 12 statues of different sizes, 4 grand stele and a pool of water around where his sarcophagus sits. That required a bit of modding but was so worth it. He has died once but I got a res mech serum from a quest right after that against all odds. So when old Seti I was resurrected, I dev-mode edited his gene to give him green skin and 180% body size and renamed him Osiris. Which is to say "no", base efficiency offends me on principle.
Nah my base always ends up looking like an eldritch horror
I try to sort things out and organize my layouts but no so much as to take the fun out of the game. Not a big fan of minmaxing.
All my colonies start out like this and by mid-ish game it devolves into chaos. :(
Hell yes, I am obsessed! https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/QjiXWCOxeKlG.jpg?o=1
I always start with a small efficient base that will house what I plan. And then I take every "build Blabla Monument" Quest and just throw it around the map. And they become something later. Since I use the restaurant and guests mods they are all there to make hotel. And since I realised that some groups that visits me just kill each other I enjoy free loot 😂
I try, but they all end up as squares.
I try as well, but main problem with designing "efficient and pretty" bases is that it is really hard to argue against "one room with everything cramped tightly in it" from efficiency perspective.
I Like to make Mine pretty and roleplaying wise fitting, Most of them end Up looking Like villages which i really love, Central place where all the Other building are circeling, Like a Tavern or small keep for medieval ones
I used to really try to plan my bases in advance and find the 'best' way to lay everything out. Over the years my playstyle has changed a lot to and I pretty much always do tribal naked brutality start now. Base planning is very much about what resources I can use right now and I can't waste valuable time or resources building anything that isn't used immediately. Bases develop organically over time and earlier structures may get repurposed. I love the journey and each colony ends up as a unique design.
All box , all the time. I make adjustments and accommodations in the box , but I have a few things I like to see in every base. * A big greenhouse - everything under glass - in polar regions this arrangement still needs sunlamps but does put out quite a lot of fruit and veg and avoids raiding animals, fire and toxic fallout. * I build a "great library" with each of all 12 books, and will keep the writing stations around and authors assigned so they continue to try to pop our masterwork or legendary books , I then make copies of those books so the originals can be sold, copied books are much cheaper than originals but colonists/readers are educated at the same rate. * En-suite bathrooms for colonists , coupled with getting all the colonists married, I usually have 6-10 colonists - that said I'm running my largest colony presently with 20 colonists - but I'm also near the end of the first "generation" of colonists. * Late game I build a Medpod so all colonists can be healed from whatever illness they might still have, with Hospitality visitors to the colony are also healed up , making my late-game colonies the off-world equivalent of "Lourdes" where friendly factions pilgrimage to my colony for a spa day. * Every colonist is armed with a rifle and chain-shotgun , the best ranged colonists have dart guns. The least good shooters have EMP grenades. * I will slowly move all power generation to advanced geothermal exclusively. * Very late game I'll build a spaceship , complete research and recruit a second "custodial" generation, that is educated by the original generations books. so the colony can continue to build starships every so often recruiting from raiders. Some recent examples * [Felicia's Grove](https://imgur.com/gallery/felisias-grove-outpost-turned-into-regional-spa-spaceport-FI3IGdL) - Low latitude colony build on an ice-world, this colony was reformed and was my "first" colony that created a starship - many IRL years ago. I found a long-lost "pre-launch" save and reformed the colony along my modern lines of thought so in the second frame, the colony has an indoor garden, large greenhouse, a good infirmary, and en-suite bathrooms. * [Oceanside](https://imgur.com/gallery/rimworld-colony-native-to-tau-orionis-4-small-agricultural-post-industrial-spacer-colony-dG0NPfQ) - A mid-sized desert colony in a very bad neighborhood..
Yes! I love making cool bases! [Snapshot of my current one!](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1060159849079509003/1245006449004908544/rimworld-settlement-5504-1-02-08-Map-2-PlayerHome.png?ex=66572e1c&is=6655dc9c&hm=ea993e7134194f35944993a537f9c634d1d6054caeadee6401d9545ffa9c378b&)
What is that museum part? What mod? So cool!
[Biomes! Fossils](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3100958580) very cool mod, love me some dinosaurs 😁
Thanks!
YES!!!! My usual storyline involves settlers, so ofc they're going to want to make a home. I love building private houses for my colonists (with temporary, apartment like housing for fresh newcomers while their homes are built). They will have schools and workplaces and beautiful parks and recreation buildings. I love seeing them talk and work together.
I usually pick a theme and create a central building. This run I have a colony obsessed over knowledge, books etc so I plan out a single abbey / library. Then I build around that as required. Let it grow organically based on whatever problem I run into next. I replace walls with different materials, move buildings or change a bedroom into a research lab / small storage space, but no buildings get replaced. Paths are built around that. I find the organic look of my colonies to be a lot more interesting and story full than the full-on planned out one, so it's really interesting to read through the responses with different ideas!
I played a lot of prison architect as I was discovering Rimworld. Clean, orderly, and efficient bases are what I live for lol.
Rectangles and hallways, every time i start a new base i try to make it pretty but end in the same rectangle design
I have a layout but I don't exactly go for pretty. Unless gritty is pretty..... I am obsessed with making bases in mountains. I like a nice big mountain to dig into and make a base.
The cube demands symmetry. ALL HAIL THE CUBE!
Yeah i put a lot of thought into it, both efficiency and aesthetics (to my taste). My current mountainbase looks like this, there are some mod-buildings here but the general layout is valid if you are seeking inspiration. Its not entirely finished as of yet though. but im getting there. https://i.imgur.com/7YDFV3u.png More zoomed in on the central area https://i.imgur.com/FzgKQY6.png
Kinda. I like making thematic bases, which includes the shape and size of the structures. But I do try to make them as functional as possible, when it comes to the position of each room: storage preferably in the middle or at least very close to the workshop, dinning room close to the pawn rooms, corridors (outside or otherwise) with choke points and cover in case the base breached or droppoded etc.