RimWorld Alpha 9 – Tales ‘o’ Drinking released

Posted February 18th, 2015 by Tynan Sylvester

Alpha 9 is out! This time we’ve added alcohol, drunkenness, binges, hangovers, multiple sculpture types with generated art based on historical events, personal shields for melee fighters, and dozens of smaller improvements. A full change list is at the end of this post.

If you own the game, you can get Alpha 9 by re-downloading from the link you used before (it is a permanent link and always has the newest version). You should also get an update email from us. Anyone still having trouble should start at this thread.

Also note that this build will not load old savegames or old worlds, so please don’t try to load these in the new version. They’ll probably just crash the game.

4:21 EST: I fixed a bug with forbidding and sculptures just two hours after initial release and hotfixed the build to Alpha9b. If you already got it, please re-download. Alpha 9 saves won’t be affected.

Change list:

Alcohol

  • Added hops growing, beer brewing, beer drinking, inebriated thoughts and ability impacts
  • Added special ‘binge’ mental breaks
  • Added teetotaler and chemical fascination traits
  • Added hangovers

Tales and art

  • There are now three tiers of sculpture: small, large, and grand. Grand sculptures are 2×2 cells.
  • Sculptures now have generated descriptions of what they depict.
  • Sculptures will depict events that happened earlier in a colony’s life, include: killings, drunkenness,vomiting, landing in drop pods, artwork created, struck ore, person captured, person recruited, animal hunted, surgery done, someone was on fire, someone went psychotic, someone gave up
  • High-quality weapons have art engraved into them.
  • All weapons now have quality levels, including guns and bows.

Age

  • Old characters have gray hair and more fleshed-out old age illnesses.
  • Old characters tend to spawn with higher skills.
  • Since people don’t age in cryptosleep, characters now have both chronolotical age and biological age. Even animals and mechanoids have ages.
  • Dates are now relative to specific years. The game starts in 5500.

New stuff

  • Personal shields added. These one-person shields block a certain amount of damage from ranged attacks and also prevent shooting out. Great for melee fighters.
  • Artillery shells are now needed by artillery cannons. Shells on the ground can explode. Siegers will come with shells to use to bombard you. Shells can be crafted at the machining table.
  • Added deterioration: items left outside for a very long time will deteriorate and eventually crumble away.
  • Surgery can fail now, sometimes catastrophically. Failure chance is related to the surgeon’s medical skill and the quality of the medicine.
  • You can now rescue incapacitated neutral people and heal them. Their faction will be appreciative.
  • Guns now have quality levels which affect accuracy.
  • Added Heavy SMG
  • Added psychic foil helmet
  • Added corn and rice crops.
  • Vomiting: Some diseases, drunkenness, cryptosleep sickness, and hangovers now cause people to vomit.
  • People can now get food poisoning. Bad cooks are more likely to accidentally poison meals.
  • Game now records total real playtime per colony.
  • Added ‘pause on load game’ option.
  • Many new sound effects from Alistair Lindsay for UI, work, and combat.

Misc improvements

  • Deep optimization on various systems – especially AI. This should make big colonies run much more smoothly.
  • Added bad thought for wearing tattered clothes.
  • Apparel becomes damaged when owner dies from violence.
  • Apparel actually takes the damage it absorbs as armor.
  • Apparel wears out over very long periods of use.
  • Uranium ore now appears as a minable natural rock.
  • Colonists will now go to extinguish nearby fires even if someone else is already coming to do it.
  • Cryptosleep caskets are now sealed, come with warnings, and can contain deadly ancient defenders.
  • Reworked the ‘do until you have X’ option on bills; it now works for more bills and shows the number you currently have.
  • Eating now takes priority even over emergency work (doctoring, firefighting) if a colonist is starving.
  • Colonists, when hauling to stockpiles, always haul the max amount they can carry, and drop the extra nearby if the target cell can’t hold it all.
  • Reworked ship takeoff sequence into a proper whiteout with nice credits.
  • Player can no longer magically toggle power on any item. Rather, you designate power to be toggled and the colonists go do it.
  • Temperature now equalizes through both walls and roof/floor.
  • Lengthened day from 20,000 to 24,000 ticks. Shortened month to 12 days.
  • Reworked auto-tutor to rely more on passive alerts and less on in-your-face interrupting modal dialogs.
  • Colonists are now bothered by people walking around inside the room while they sleep.
  • People newly woken from cryptosleep have cryptosleep sickness for a while.
  • Wind varies over time (not just with weather changes), and so will the power output of wind turbines.
  • Fonts are now nicely antialiased.
  • Tons of other refinements, rebalancings, and bugfixes.

54 Responses to “RimWorld Alpha 9 – Tales ‘o’ Drinking released”

  1. Alen Eisenhardt

    Tynan:
    I can not thank you enough for this new alpha release, with Drunkness and sculture history, soon the halls of the drunk will be erected and raiders from all the nearby systems will come to appreciate it …. and probably die afterward.

  2. Dr. Z

    So now I have to finish my Alpha 8 colony right during my finals…great. Please do some hotfixes so the time doesen’t feels totally wasted 😉

  3. Chargedpixelz

    Nice one guys! loving the changes.


  4. Thanks for the update!

    I’ve been anxious to see the new email hit my inbox! cant wait to play it later today!

  5. Valetgamer

    YES! Thanks you so much! Gonna be all over this tomorrow on my stream!

  6. Josh Hawley

    “Colonists will now go to extinguish nearby fires even if someone else is already coming to do it.”

    YAY! sooo much extra time was wasted when the fire is far away from colonists!

  7. Ouan

    My the drunken stupor of the future forever impede good decision making in my future colonies. No more potatoes! Only one crop to be had now. Sláinte!

  8. Niels

    thanks for the update. I like the new suff.

  9. Mtn

    Awesome. Keep up the good work :]

  10. Ciryll77

    Merci beaucoup les gars,bon boulot ^^

  11. Jesse

    Every time you release an update it feels like Christmas all over again >__< thanx for your hard work

  12. Tom

    Awesome update. You broke many things I have been taking for granted, making the game just that much more challenging. Keep up the great work! The replay-ability of this game is off the charts.

  13. Scream

    Though I’m a public tester, I’m thoroughly excited for the official release!

    Thanks for all your hard work, Tynan!

  14. Cheet4h

    Thank you a lot for this update 🙂

  15. OutlinedJoker

    Thanks for the update!

  16. Artist

    Another great release!
    However, shoehorning in melee combat by using shields feels wrong. It makes me instantly think “Why should the melee guy take a shield? Give him a gun and keep the shield….”
    Sorry, but all wrong about that, really.

    Now that settlers can get drunk we need them to fall in love and demand to move into the same room! 😉


  17. FYI the shields are modelled after an almost-identical technology in the Dune book series.

  18. OutlinedJoker

    Also, what is the average wait-time for updates to be emailed?

  19. Rob C

    Congrats on the new release, Tynan! Now we can live a wide berth of tech, from corn-loving medieval communities to corn-loving glitterworld vaults. Looking forward to the next version!

  20. ciditi

    Another incredible update, and a noteworthy update, prioritized eating! Great to hear that colonists will no longer cause themselves to break due to their infinite benevolence!

  21. comlink

    I don’t often post comments online, but when I do, it’s to laud people like you. Thank you for continuing to present us with update after update, never lowering the quality OR quantity of the content. Quite good work!


  22. […] more I have linked the video for the new alpha build below. The full patch notes can be found at Ludeon’s Blog as […]

  23. Leif

    Nice updates! Brewing should be a lot of fun, but I felt I had to point something out: Beer is made from barley (and water and yeast), hops is just a (nearly universal) flavoring. Just like you wouldn’t simulate ice-cream-making by cooking vanilla beans, maybe simulating brewing by cooking hops could use some work.

    In any case, great and fun game! I’m enjoying immensely. 🙂

  24. DevKonner

    This just came out today I see. I was almost going to be done playing Rimworld but then I thought “I just wasted 30 dollars on a game m never going to play”> Then I remember that games can update and now im attracted to it now! Thanks for this new Alpha 9 update.

  25. Luke

    Thanks for another great patch!
    I’m not all that interested in getting my people inebriated, or in alcohol in general within the game.

    I really hope to see an update which will let us launch attacks against conflicting colonies, perhaps using a spaceship or something like that to do so.

    Really great work so far 🙂

  26. Haywire

    YOU HAVE MADE MY NIGHT!!! THANK YOU TYNAN!!!!

  27. Dustin

    Thanks a bunch, get this game on Steam and make some money, its way better than any EA game out there.

    Also, any chance you could make a tab/button that would force all “civilians” into the home area or into the shelter? It would be slightly useful under attack unless you are driving towards making the AI smarter and to not clean while being shot at lol. Great game.

  28. Cammo

    Your updates are easily the best of any early access product that I’ve backed, and I’ve backed a few.

    Great title, keep up the great work. Thanks.

  29. Malorey

    Awesome new update and made me feel so happy when I woke up and checked my email. I love your game!

  30. EditedBug

    Ok so i download alpha 9 and is starts to start up and then it crashes and wont go to the main screen, i don’t have the previous Alpha on my computer anymore but I’m not sure what’s causing this. Any help would be appreciated.


  31. I can’t wait to make a new colony! I’ll be doing a Let’s Play of the new endeavour! Let’s get some drunkenness into the colony!


  32. Seriously?!?! As if I’m not busy enough, now you make me need to play this game again for hours on end!?
    Unacceptable.. and thank you!

  33. Wouter

    When I saw that there was a new Rimworld alpha, I just had to download it and play it right away! Just hope my boss doesn’t notice… 🙂

  34. Pattreth

    great update – thx guys!
    have to try it asap 🙂

  35. Woj

    I am very grateful for this release <3 keep the good work 🙂

  36. SeamusCameron

    I don’t know what kind of dark voodoo magicks you used to optimize this patch Tynan, but I can watch twitch while playing rimworld on my craptop now. Said laptop is about 5-6 physical years old now. Super impressed! You’re awesome!

  37. Dr. Z

    Important note for the changelog:
    Colonists will no longer cross the whole map to eat some fine meals when other meals of worse quality are nearby.

  38. Baker

    Love most of the update. I can’t say I really like food having two forms of degradation, does freezing prevent spoilage and hit point loss?

    Also I rescued a friendly faction guy after he bravely fought some mechanoids, but after I patched him up I noticed he was still in bed 4 days later. Turns out he lost a leg, and I now have to care for him for all eternity unless I want that faction to declare war on me, since I can’t give him a needed peg leg. Or I could deconstruct his bed and watch him starve to death ;.;

    I love the shields, they make great sense. It stops gunfire, period. It’s actually far more plausible than a one way field.

  39. Dogthinker

    @Baker
    I think all you need to fit a peg leg is one piece of wood (you patched him up, so you must already have someone with medic skill.)

    If you do decide to starve him to death (you monster!) you don’t need to deconstruct his bed (immersion breaking), locking the door to his room will have the same effect.

  40. Komisches

    Cooling seems to be broken? I’ve got two coolers running, trying to hit -15c and they’re maybe getting the room (about 6×7) to 1c.

  41. Quantumatt

    I’m having the same issue as Komisches. Coolers are buggy. I need 3 coolers for a 5×3 room to stay frozen, and the temperature fluctuates much more than before. Same design and utside temperature only needed 1 cooler in Alpha 8.

  42. Zenke

    I’ve also noticed this little problem. Didn’t know more coolers would help though, so I’ll put more in for now.

  43. Baker

    @Dogthinker I don’t think there is a way to operate on friendly faction guys you have rescued, is what I was getting at. I didn’t capture him, so there is no operations tab like there is for prisoners. Unless I am overlooking it. I can’t lock the door either, as it’s my emergency medical bed just inside the main entrance. I know it’s best to have a separate medical room now, since people now get upset when resting while others are in their room.

  44. Emil Sørensen

    There are a bunch of changes here that I’ve been anxiously hoping for! The changes to hauling and to eating priority are great solutions for the few annoyances the alpha presents currently. Then there’s all the new features, many of which are really cool. Cooking and doctoring will be more interesting now. I like the changes to items, since there’ll be more reason to keep your colonists’ equipment updated.

    The patch notes don’t say if the update makes crops more interesting. I’d like growing to involve more choices, with interesting benefits and drawbacks.
    I also wonder if there’ll be a beauty value on high-quality weapons, like especially ornate and well-crafted swords.

    I can’t wait to get home and download the new update! I’ll have to can my current save, but it’s somewhat played out (I was ridiculously lucky – I burrowed into a mountain to find a huge area that was cut off from the outside world, with only the tunnel I dug as an entrance and exit, leaving me with a perfect defensive position, plentiful farmland, and a mostly mortar-proof base. I’m contemplating putting up cryosleep caskets so I don’t have to turn good captives away).

  45. Scouse

    Is there any way to repair items?
    My power armour and helmets keep degrading, and finding high quality ones for the whole team takes forever.

    Also, I keep accidentally leaving weapons outside now, because of the new degredation mechanic, so when I leave the legendary or excellent weapons outside so they can be traded, I forget to get all the colonists to bring them back in.

  46. Artist

    Tynan Sylvester

    FYI the shields are modelled after an almost-identical technology in the Dune book series.

    IF that would be the case you could only fight shield-bearers with other melee fighters. But even when knowing about the Holtzman effect it still feels like a bad attempt to shoehorn melee back into gameplay.
    Doesnt feel right. And thats the first time I have this impression about a gameplay mechanic in Rimworld. But its a strong one.

  47. A rimworld player

    Cool update and all, but since I started it up, I’m missing the old font, is there anyway to switch it back?

  48. Tyson

    Hi Tynan, Great update ans all, but do you think it might be better to lower the break threshold from 20%-15%, I’ve started a new colony, snd my colonists keep getting dazed. I had to fight off 2 raiders with one guy, as the others were dazed. Thanks!

  49. bill

    seriously I still don’t get a emails for updated verisons.im on still on alpha 6.why have still make things so difficult to get the updates.i suggested like link in the main menu screen


  50. I don’t have an email to update, how do I get another one?


  51. If you need help with your download or a new link, please email [email protected].

  52. Eskir

    You guys rock! I watch a friend of mine play this a lot! Cool stuff!

  53. MrSurvivor

    I really like the optimization fixes for the new update!
    I also really enjoy the fact that we can grow rice and corn now and that we can get drunk!

    Thanks for everything Tynan! 😀

  54. Raven

    So when can we start making Sake and Vodka with the Rice and Potatoes? Or will we have to fix our fine spirits with mods?