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[also tried to reduce some of the really annoying freezing you see in vanilla RimWorld's loading process]

Hello all,

Now supports both Rimworld 1.0 and 1.1!

Following the success of my mod BetterLoading which I posted here a year or so back, I've finally been through, cleaned up the UI, added support for HugsLib's mod initialization (which runs after the main game initializes), rewrote the backend to hopefully make it more stable, and also tried to reduce some of the really annoying freezing you see in vanilla RimWorld's loading process, especially towards the end.

I'm happy to announce that this process is now finished and (in theory) the mod is ready for public consumption.
However, I've had to make a pretty significant change to the loading process in order to fix the freezing, so mod incompatibilities might occur (I just fixed an issue which could have affected a lot of mods, so hopefully we should be golden now).

The ONLY incompatibility I'm aware of is Startup Impact - and it's not a major issue, just that Startup Impact may not be 100% accurate due to the changed loading process. I don't know, I haven't looked at its code, but there is a little warning saying something like "Failed to measure time" at the bottom of its dialog box.

Update 2.1 (2020-02-17 @ 17:35 GMT)
Added 2 new loading stages to provide more useful info than "Waiting for vanilla" just before the "finalizing mods" stage.
Also, this mod MUST now be loaded above Startup Impact (and Fluffy's Mod Manager will warn you) or your game will not finish loading, ever!

Please put this mod above core in the load order for best results!

If you use the steam workshop, the mod can be obtained here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1999454301. There are also a couple screenshots of the UI on that page.
Alternatively, you can get the mod from github releases at https://github.com/SamboyCoding/RimworldBetterLoading/releases/latest

[Downloads]

Better Loading for Rimworld

Better Loading is a mod that aims to fix the monotony and uncertainty of the vanilla game's loading screen. Currently, said loading screen displays only three stages for any major length of time: "...", "Loading Defs..." and "Initializing...". That's not useful, it doesn't give a sense of movement, and it's boring to watch.

This mod aims to solve these issues.
Firstly, it has clearly defined stages that hopefully give more info away than the three vanilla stages.
Secondly, it has progress bars that give a sense that something is actually happening, and that, to some degree, take away the monotony of that endlessly looping "...".

At the same time, it aims to do what it does without negatively affecting load times - which, in my tests, it succeeds at.

The mod also contains a custom loading screen for loading saves, as these, too, can take a while once they have a lot of playtime, if they have a high coverage %, or a high map size, or a lot of mods... you get the point.

Position in load order shouldn't matter, except that the higher the mod, the earlier it can take over from the vanilla loading screen, so for best results put this mod at the very top of the mod ordering (yes, even above core)

Downloads

GitHub Releases: https://github.com/SamboyCoding/RimworldBetterLoading/releases
Steam Workshop TBD.

License-wise, feel free to do with this as you wish, as long as you don't upload all or part of my code and call it your own. Thanks!

There was a mod, in alpha 6 I believe, that added the ability to repair old wounds using Biomatter, which could be obtained from corpses. I've taken this idea and reimplemented it in modern versions of the game.

Simply put,

• You get 10 biomatter from each corpse, using the Nanite Chamber, once it is researched.
• 20 biomatter can heal a single old injury, or, once further research is done, a single scar.
• The amount of biomatter got from each corpse can be upgraded to 15, and then 20, per corpse, with research.
• You can research how to make "Tissue Samples". Each tissue sample costs 30 biomatter (3 corpses, or 2 with further research)
• 3 of these tissue samples and 20 biomatter can be used to regrow missing fingers, toes, ears, or noses.

Please give plenty of feedback - I don't know if this is balanced, has any incompatibilities, is just generally a terrible mod, or if it has any bugs.

The mod (in zip form) can be obtained from my site, or it can be got from the steam workshop.

Enjoy!