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๐ Survival Guide
1. Picking Colonists โ Three People Decide Your Fate
Colonist selection is the single most important stepโmore critical than your landing site. The skill combinations of your three starting pawns determine whether you'll survive the first three days.
| Role | What to prioritize | What to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Builder | Can reliably build and handle basic production | No restriction that blocks essential labor |
| Grower/Cook | Can connect growing with food handling | Someone can keep meals coming |
| Researcher/Doctor | Can cover medical care, or research once stable | Medical care is not completely uncovered |
โ ๏ธ Do not select by one high skill alone: the group needs to build, feed itself, and treat injuries. Check work restrictions and traits that interrupt those core jobs.
โ
Useful traits: steady work capacity, faster learning, and manageable mood give a new colony more room to recover.
2. Landing โ The Right Spot Is Half the Battle
- Terrain: Beginners should pick Temperate Forest or Arid Shrubland. Avoid ice sheets and deserts.
- Mountains vs. Flat: Mountains are defensible but spawn infestations. Flat terrain is easy to build on but hard to defend. Large Hills is the sweet spotโsome mountain cover without too many bugs.
- Growing Season: favor a longer growing period and a reliable early food source. Short seasons need earlier storage plans.
- Stone: Check that the landing site has enough nearby stone to cut. Replacing wood around critical rooms matters more than memorizing one preferred stone type.
- Faction Proximity: Don't settle too close to pirates. Friendly tribe nearby is great for trade.
3. First 3 Days โ Action Checklist
| Order | What to Do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Step 1 | Make a growing zone and plant suitable crops | Establish renewable food, then connect harvesting, hauling, and cooking. |
| Step 2 | Build a roofed temporary wooden hut | 7ร7 is only a three-pawn example. Fit sleeping space and critical supplies first; replace the walls with stone later. |
| Step 3 | Place 3 sleeping spots + a campfire | Give every pawn a roofed place to rest. On cold maps, move heat and insulation even further up the list. |
| Step 4 | Process available food + make simple meals | Connect hunting, butchering, hauling, and cooking before your starting food runs low. |
| Step 5 | Set up indoor storage + move critical supplies | Keep medicine and food out of rain and heat; store components and construction materials to cut later hauling. |
| Step 6 | Build a research bench + research the current gap | Address the urgent power or survival problem first. When reliable refrigeration is needed, research Air Conditioning, which unlocks the cooler. |
๐ก Core Loop: RimWorld's survival loop is "Food โ Shelter โ Defense โ Research." Stable food always comes first; building comes second.
4. Week One: From Surviving to Stable
- Build butcher table + stove: Simple meals won't last forever. Upgrade to fine meals ASAP (need stove + plants + meat/eggs).
- Build 3 individual bedrooms: Private rooms give +5 mood. Much better than a barracks.
- Build stonecutter's table + cut stone: Wood walls burn (one lightning strike = base gone). Switch to stone walls fast.
- Build a horseshoes pin: Cheapest recreation item. Prevents the "Recreation-starved" mood debuff.
- Set up a dumping stockpile: Corpses, rock chunks, and slag go far away โ not inside your base.
5. Your Week-One Triage: Fix the Risk That Can End the Run
Do not build a finished base on day one. Each day, identify the immediate failure point and solve it before comfort projects.
| When you noticeโฆ | Do this first | Put this off |
|---|---|---|
| Meals are low and crops are not ready | Connect hunting, gathering, processing, cooking, and food hauling | Mining, research, map-wide hauling |
| Pawns or supplies are exposed | Finish a roof, sleeping space, and indoor stockpile | Large rooms and decoration |
| A pawn is down, bleeding, or there is a fire | Switch to rescue, treatment, rest, and firefighting | The next construction blueprint |
| Survival is stable but paths are chaotic | Pull kitchen, storage, beds, and work areas closer together | Opening several big projects at once |
โ
The useful rule: remove the risk that can kill a pawn or end your food supply today; optimize comfort after that.
โ ๏ธ Four Early-Game Traps
- Specializing everyone immediately: with a tiny colony, retain coverage for essential jobs before narrowing roles.
- Growing food without staffing the chain: crops still need hauling, processing, and cooking before they become meals.
- Treating wood as permanent: use it to get safe quickly, while leaving a layout that can become stone later.
- Researching through emergencies: a hungry, cold, or injured colony cannot protect the research schedule first.
Next, set up work priorities. When storage is the issue, continue with temperature and refrigeration.
๐๏ธ Day 0โ7 action plan
โฑ๏ธ Give each day one result to achieve
| When | Do first | Pause | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| First 0โ6 hours | Plant, roof, and move essentials indoors | Research and large expansions | Supplies stay dry and crops are planted |
| Day 1 | Butcher, cook, and haul ingredients | Hunting without a clear food goal | The next meal is covered and no one sleeps outside |
| Days 2โ3 | Stonecutting, a medical spot, and a clean kitchen | Building every bedroom at once | Food and medicine are indoors; injured colonists can be treated |
| Days 4โ7 | Stone for key rooms, early cold storage, first cover | Hoarding useless raid loot | A short outage or small raid does not break the colony |
โ
Work rule: with few colonists, give everyone a main job and a backup. Your grower should be able to cook; your builder should be able to haul.
โ ๏ธ Three field calls
- You have rice but no meals: raise cooking priority first; pause research and trips.
- Someone falls in the first raid: leave one colonist in cover and send one to rescue. Do not rush everyone outside before the enemy leaves.
- Everything is outside: move medicine, food, components, and weapons first. Stone and wood can wait.
If food actually runs out, use Food Emergency; before a raid, use Defense Check.
๐งญ Where to go next
๐ Version and source check
Scope: base game 1.6 series; last checked 2026-09-19. Layout sizes and research order are beginner examples, not fixed rules: map temperature, population, DLC, and mods can change the right answer.
Sources for this page: Ludeon 1.6.4850 update notes, RimWorld Wiki: Basics, and RimWorld Wiki: Cooler.