I’m happy to announce that we’ve just released RimWorld Alpha 15! This version adds a rich tutorial, an intelligent learning helper to help you pick up the game, a new drug system, deep drilling to provide resources in the end game, and a giant pile of other smaller improvements and fixes. A full change log and detailed info is below.

For Steam players, if you want to continue with Alpha 14 for any reason, you can get on the ‘alpha14’ beta branch in Steam. In the Steam Library, right click RimWorld, click Properties, go to the Betas tab, select alpha14 in the drop-down list, and restart Steam.

Non-Steam players who wish to update can simply download from the same download link as before; it has been updated to the new version. They should install the new version in a clean empty folder.

Save compatibility: As usual, Alpha 15 will not load Alpha 14 save games by default. However, a user did put together a guide that allows you to manually update save files with some text editing. Check it out here if you really want to try to continue that Alpha 14 colony.

Mod compatibility: Some purely XML mods will be compatible between versions. However, most significant mods will need to be adjusted and recompiled. Beware: If a mod author updates their existing mod to the new version, it’ll stop updating on the old version. You may wish to turn off Steam auto-updates if you really want to avoid this.

Change list:

Tutorial

Added new rich tutorial with step-by-step instructions.

Tutorial teaches the basics of setting up a game, building a small self-sustaining colony, and defeating the first

raider.

raider. Tutorial locks out irrelevant controls and highlights relevant controls.

At the end of the tutorial, the player can continue the game with a normal storyteller.

Learning helper

Added new learning helper system to replace yellow pop-up messages and yellow learning alerts.

Learning helper sits in the top right of the screen. If something happens relating to a concept the player hasn’t learned, that lesson will be activated and shown on the learning helper. It can then be opened and read. Lessons are automatically marked as learned when the player does the necessary interaction, and can be marked as learned manually. Lessons are shown as needed by circumstance, or on a slow timer. The overall idea is that you’ll never be shown a lesson you already know, but always be shown the lessons you need to know now.

Learning helper can be expanded and searched for any lesson, so you can look up how to do a specific thing at any time.

Drugs system

Added new drugs system. It’s not just beer any more!

Drugs typically create up to four effects. Not all drugs have all effects. Primary – The valuable short-term effect, whether it improves mood or work focus or combat effectiveness or makes one immune to a disease. Overdose – Excessive drug usage in a short time can build up blood toxicity, leading to unconsciousness and possible death. Tolerance – Long-term usage of a drug can build up a tolerance which makes subsequent usage less and less effective in producing the high. Addiction – Drug use can form an addiction. This generates a new need for the drug which the pawn will try to feed regularly. If the need isn’t fed, the pawn will develop withdrawal symptoms (low mood, reduced consciousness). Eventually withdrawal will pass and the addiction will go away.

Drugs can be assigned for regular taking through the drug policy system. Similar to Outfits, drug policies are an assigned schedule for taking drugs. You can set any number of drugs, each with a frequency. For example, you can assign a colonist to drink 2 beers every day, and take one Malari-Block every 5 days.

The drugs are: Beer – Improved mood but worsened capacities. Addictive. Malari-block – Prevents malaria infection for 5 days. Yayo – Stimulant pleasure drug, addictive. Flake – Cheap, short high, very addictive. Wake-up – Improves work performance, addictive. Smokeleaf – Improved mood but worsened capacities. More hunger, slower movement. Can form dependence. Go-Juice – Synthetic futuristic combat drug. Boost speed and fighting capacity tremendously. Addictive. Luciferium – Glitterworld mechanites that give huge bonuses to most capacities. However, without repeated doses the user goes insane and dies. It is impossible to clear the addiction, and the drug is 100% addictive on one dose.

Drugs are produced in various ways, typically at the new Drug Lab building, from various precursor chemicals and growable crops. They require research to create.

Deep drilling

The map now spawns with clusters of underground resources. These can be accessed by building a deep scanner to find them, and then building deep drills on top of them, and then working the drills. This slowly produces the resource.

Deep drilling tech is at the end of the tech tree. This should mitigate late-game resource exhaustion problems.

Misc