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I tried Rimsenal and GlitterTech for the first time lately, and they are cool, but left me feeling a bit ... empty.  They both feel very gamey to me, just using a lot of resources to get a better resource (like mixing more steel into plasteel) when I usually think of future tech as making life easier, or making new materials out of previously useless substances, or making an expensive factory that makes cheap items.  So, I don't know if I want to start modding myself yet, but I thought I'd brainstorm some ideas and see what people think. 

Plastic - That hip 20th century futuristic material that makes so many things in life so easy.  I'm kinda surprised it doesn't exist in vanilla RimWorld.  I personally imagine that future spaceships and killer robots will be made out of new types of plastics, not metal.  One exciting new plastic innovation is bio-plastic, made from biodiesel, which in RimWorld would be Chemfuel.  Nylon and Polyester fabrics are a form of plastic as well.  Plastic trash is also famous for being nearly invulnerable to the forces of nature, which is a bummer for real world conservation, but would be very useful in RimWorld.  Extending this trait are new Self-healing or self-repairing polymers, which are modeled after biological processes.  Plastic Composite materials incorporate a mix of plastics, combined with other materials like wood, steel, carbon fiber or graphene (perhaps the true identity of Plasteel).  Conductive and even superconductive plastics are on the horizon, combined with plastic fabrics may result in electrical clothing.  Reactive polymers (mechanophore?) are being invented which can change physical properties when stress, chemical changes or electricity is applied to them, allowing a material that can change from flexible to hard depending on the situation. 

Carbon - That good ol' fashioned molecule which comes in so many useful allotropes.  Graphene, a nanoscale material said to be super strong and have wonderous electrical properties.  Carbon Fiber, a strong but lightweight structural material.  Synthetic diamonds, giving anyone the strength of the hardest material in the world. 

Tungsten - Something of a wonder-metal, it is as hard as diamond, as dense as gold and doesn't melt until it reaches 6000 degrees F (3400 C).  In real life, it is used for bullets when depleted uranium won't do, and the filaments in lightbulbs. 

Aramid Fiber - (Kevlar, but that's a brand name)  Contrary to what RimWorld might have you believe, it is not grown from bright red mushrooms.  I would have to look up more about how they are made, wikipedia says: "Kevlar is synthesized in solution from the monomers 1,4-phenylene-diamine (para-phenylenediamine) and terephthaloyl chloride in a condensation reaction yielding hydrochloric acid as a byproduct. " so that's a start. 

Nanocellulose - These are forms of cellulose with particularly interesting nanoscale construction.  I think I've heard that they might be as strong as steel, but 1/8 the weight, but others say it is more similar to aluminum or kevlar. 

Amorphous Metal - Metals which are coerced into an amorphous molecular structure instead of a crystalline molecular structure, which gives them additional strength (also perhaps the true identity of Plasteel). 


Thoughts about Plasteel:  So first of all, it bothers me that GlitterTech's formula for Plasteel is a reduction of steel.  Conservation of matter, if you're putting in 10 units of steel and getting 5 units back, then that should mean that the Plasteel is twice as dense as Steel, which it clearly isn't because Plasteel is lighter than Steel.  If Amorphous Steel is Plasteel, then it should be a 1-to-1 conversion from steel to plasteel, because you are just heating your steel to realign the molecules, you just need a special furnace that can go from hot to cold very very quickly.  My original theory was that Plasteel is not steel at all, but a type of plastic that acts like steel (only sharper and lighter), maybe a graphene-composite plastic, and it's sharp because of a molecular sharp edge.  It could also be a little-of-everything, graphene-amorphous metal-composite polymer.  But if Plasteel is a material like that, then it's definitely a material not found in nature, and definitely shouldn't be showing up in the ground (unless the implication is that ships have been crashing on this Rim World for thousands of years or something).  But if building a spaceship requires plasteel, then ship chunks should render plasteel when deconstructed. 

Thanks for the support.  I've found a few mods that do some of the things that I want to do, so I'll spend some time to study them and get a feel for things. 

For now, I'm wondering how a medieval setting would work with RimWorld's structure. 

For the Dwarf Fortress version, I had the Furry Fortress civs replace the vanilla civs, and I might do that here.  No spacers or tribals, just the various medieval animal people.  Same with technology, the space tech would go away, and you might instead get a progression from dark age, middle age, renaissance.  But that would obviously mess up all the other mods people were using, and boy, there sure are a lot of them, so maybe it would be better or more popular if I work the Furry Fortress world into the default RimWorld situation. 

So one way to co-mingle the concepts is that the critter folk are medieval era aliens or genetic creations that are native or unique to this particular planet.  The vanilla background flavor texts suggest that medieval planets exist, so this seems fine.  Spacers begin landing on the critter planet and these new aliens and their strange technology become a part of the existing struggles. 

Another way is that the critter folk are advanced alien races akin to the human spacers and orassans.  The burden here is that I would want the critter folk to have strong differentiation between them, and I have always thought of this in terms of medieval things, foxes with kimonos, katanas and sake, rabbits with tunics, tucks and cider.  If I want to know, what would an Old English Rabbit drink, I can go look that up (and just did, cider is close enough).  But I have no idea how a Japanese Fox ray gun would be different from an Ancient Egyptian Goanna ray gun, or if they have some kind of specific technology like Pyramid Power or Pagoda Power and what would that even be?  That said, a lot of these cultures are still around and have produced modern or WW2 weapons and sci-fi to draw from, like English Rabbits could have Browning guns and TARDISes, while Japanese Foxes could have Type 99 rifles and Super Robots, but some potential cultures like Ancient Egypt, Vikings, Zulu or Australian Aboriginal might be trickier. 

I might also do some kind of religious things, as that's absolutely something you think about with people like Ancient Egyptians or Vikings, and I think that would be important to a medieval culture if I go that road.  I'm not sure what this would be like, for now, I'm thinking the easy way is to just make a shrine as a Joy activity.  It would be interesting to have something like Sierra's old ancient egypt game where you need to balance pleasing the various gods, but I'm not sure I want to go that far into it.  I probably would not have the exact gods, for example, Ancient Egyptians would not have Anubis or Thoth, they would worship something like the Underworld Jackal or Librarian Ibis. 


I've also been thinking, if it's supposed to feel medieval (or more like dwarf fortress) I would want to do a more complicated metal industry, instead of just mining steel chunks out of the ground, you'd have iron ore, and need to mix it with carbon to get steel.  One of the things I had thought up for the DF version was to have a different kind of smelter for iron, since in real life, iron needs higher temperatures than other metals.  It's also more complicated than DF's iron and steel, there is wrought iron, pig iron/cast iron, pattern welded steel, laminated steel, crucible steel, puddled steel and monosteel (modern steel, although that can also be more complicated).  But as it's a game, I prefer playability over realism, and I'd like to leave room for fantasy metals, so I'm not sure yet how I would do this.  It might be kind of interesting to make the research fields like Civilization, where you start as stone age and work up to bronze age, iron age, modern tech, but that's more work than I want to tackle. 

Also if it's supposed to feel medieval, I would want to make guns a little more difficult.  You should need to make or find black powder or some fantasy equivalent to make them work, and of course need to research these things first. 


And now, for my own records and whoever's watching, here's a quick brainstorm of critter/culture combinations that I might work from:

(The rule is that all animals must be around the same size, I feel weird if there's something like a lion and a squirrel that are the same height) 

Japanese Foxes - Katana, Naginata, Kanabo, kimonos, sake, sushi, super robots, Shinto

Ninja Tree Frogs - (more fictitious version) Ninjato, Nunchuck, Kusarigama, ninja clothes, stealth technology, Shadow Gods

Old English Rabbits - Tuck, Billhook, Truncheon, Long Bow, english knightly armor, tunics or victorian apparel, cider, beer, boiled food, TARDIS, Anglican/Templarism/Arthurian

Ancient Egyptian Goannas - Khopesh, Fan Axe, Disk Mace, scale armor, shendyt, head dress, bread beer or blood wine, kebab (if they are carnivores, there's not a lot of meat dishes from Ancient Egypt), Pyramid Power, Osirian

Pirate/Nautical Spurdogs (a small kind of shark) - Cutlass, Harpoon, Battle Oar, pirate clothes, rum, grog, long lasting foods, stealing/capturing/boarding or travel devices, Cthuluism

Viking Ravens - Viking Sword, Great Axe or Bearded Axe, Winged Spear or Hewing Spear, mail armor, tunics, cloaks, mead, lutefisk?, Stålenhag walker, Earth Power (modern Scandinavia has a lot of wind, hydro and geothermal power), Odinic

German Raccoons or Black Eagles - Zweihander, Ahlspiess, Halberd, Kriegshammer, german knightly armor, dirndl, lederhosen, lager, schnapps, pretzels, wurst, (not sure about sci-fi, image search gives me a bunch of Nazi dieselpunk, maybe something from Fritz Lang's Metropolis), Teutonic Order/Alchemical Occultism

Zulu Ratel or Dikdik - Iklwa, Knobkerrie, Impi Axe, long shield, (I don't know what Zulu clothing is called, but there's a specific style to it), (I also know nothing about South African food or booze come to think of it), (...or sci fi or technology), Unkulunkulu (I looked it up) 

Ancient Chinese Pangolin/Water Dragon/Red Panda/Monkey(not sure) - Ji, Pudao, Wolf Fang Mace, Tiger Fork, chinese armor, hanfu, Urban Development technology (like Shanghai Tower), Daoism/Confucianism

Kung Fu Cranes - (more fictitious/modern) - Jian, Dao, Qiang, Gun/Bang (staff), kung fu clothes, body enhancement technology, Buddhism/Shaolin

Australian Wallabies - Boomerang, Leangle Club, Waddy, Sword Club (it's amazing look it up), Parry Shield, beer, vegemite, Mad Max stuff, Dream Time

Roman Ants - Gladius, Pilum, Scissor, Trident, (or greek/greco-roman, Kopis, Labrys, Dory), legion armor, toga, wine, food???, sci-fi???, Roman Paganism/Olympian

Indian Cobras - Talwar, Gada, Trishula, indian armor and clothes, curry, not sure about sci fi/tech, Hinduism (since there are a lot of potential Indian medieval weapons, I have considered splitting India into two groups to cover all of them, like with Japan/Ninjas and China/Kung Fu, but I'm not sure what the divide would be.  First thought was to split them into swords and non-swords, tulwar, katar, khanda, urumi, pata, khyber knife, haladie, vs gada, bullova, tabar, zaghnal, bhuj, trishula, bagh nakh, shishpar, sonta.  )

Pan-African Servals - Hook Sword, Leaf Spear, Hunga Munga, quilted knights, various African clothing, armor, drinks and foods, probably medicine tech, non specific polytheism I need more research

Elven Squirrels - Elven Saber, Bladed Bow, wood armor, elfy robes, elven wine, lembas bread, nature harmony tech, nature god

Orcish Boars - Squishka (club), Cutska (machete), Stabska (spear), orcish looking armor and clothes, 40k ork tech, war god

Dwarven Badgers - War Spade, Mattock, Hammer, Drill Lance, dwarven looking armor and clothes, mushroom wine, stone soup, mining and metalurgy tech, earth god/craftsman gods

Vampire Hunter Fox Bats - Stake, Falx, Mace-Whip, Throwing Cross, vampire fashion, fruit wine, fruit salad, not sure how tech would work, Moon Goddess (they are possibly convinced that everyone else is vampires) 

Street Rats - Brass Knuckle, Crowbar, Combat Knife, SWAT armor, modern clothes, hot dogs, nachos, not sure about tech or religion. 


There are more animals and cultures out there, but that's already more than I could realistically achieve. 

Do you really have to? This is such a great game...

With that logic, why have a modding forum at all?

RimWorld is absolutely a great game.  It's just that Furry Fortress is something I've wanted to do for years, and RimWorld's framework gives me the chance to possibly make it happen in a much cooler way than Dwarf Fortress ever could have. 

If you're worried about Furries, I'm not really into Furry culture.  Using animal-people mostly just strikes me as a more interesting way to approach fantasy or alien races.  With fantasy races, you're generally stuck with Tolkien's or Gygax's list, and I find a lot of alien races are just based on a quirk of the human condition blown out of proportion, which doesn't feel very alien, whereas the animal kingdom provides an inexhaustible and incredibly diverse selection of characteristics to build from.  Having a foxoid or rabbitite gives you a much more specific expectation than a river elf or a schlazn'nad.  I've thought of changing the name to something else, since the recurring feedback I got on the Dwarf Fortress version was "I was afraid to try this because of the name, but actually it's pretty cool". 

Hello.  I am fairly new to RimWorld, but a long time player of Dwarf Fortress, and I'm wondering if I could remake my DF mod Furry Fortress for RimWorld.  If you want to read the DF topics, here is FuFo2 and FuFo3, but basically the idea was to replace the fantasy tropes like elves and dwarves with ancient culture themed animal-people.  The main three were Samurai Foxes, English Knight Rabbits and Ancient Egyptian Goannas, plus big huge lists of other possibilities that have shifted over time. 

Before I dive into the RimWorld modding scene, I want to quickly ask if what I want to do can be done in RimWorld, since a lot of my ideas for Dwarf Fortress were not possible within its modding structure.  I've programmed games for years, so I'm comfortable enough with programming.  (I've never actually used XML, but it looks simple enough) 

So here are a few things I would like to be able to do: 

- DF-style Civilizations - The idea that a particular political entity is inhabited by one particular race, and they have a particular style of clothing, weapons, crops and booze.  For example, the civilization of Samurai Foxes all wear kimonos, wield katanas, grow rice and drink sake, while the Egyptian Goannas wear shendyts and khopeshes and grow barley and drink bread beer (or blood wine, as carnivores).  Ideally, you would be able to play as one of these civilizations and be restricted to a particular set of clothing and weapons.  (actually, in the later DF FuFo versions, carnivore civs could gather plants but not grow them, though immigrants from other civs could do it.  In RimWorld, I could see a carnivore civ needing to research growing technology first.)  (That said, I do like the idea of pluralistic societies as well, and I'm sure some players will have a gotta catch 'em all attitude)

- Race specific abilities - Like, the rabbit people can run faster, goanna people have teeth, claws and a tail-slap attack, foxes are more balanced.  If possible, ectotherms vs endotherms and carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, ruminants (eat grass/hay), piscovores or insectivores (although I guess RM doesn't have fishing or vermin critters like DF did).  Preferred food items would also be interesting, like rabbits get some kind of mood boost when they eat carrots (which is actually inaccurate) or there's a legend that kitsune are especially attracted to sweetened tofu.  Or I always wondered about making a race of frogs that catches bugs or a race of anteaters that farms anthills.  Also, I feel like different races should have different attitudes towards cannibalism, like a race of goannas or sharks shouldn't be too bothered by it, foxes might be okay with eating other races, but not foxes. 

- Fantastical Materials/Biomes - Aside from the animal people, my mods also added more fantastical elements, like ironwood, dragon bones, pyrochalcum, neutronium.  I assume that kind of thing is simple enough to mod, but I'd still appreciate any advice you might have. 

- Warfare - There are various medieval combat equipment things I would want.  Like shields, I feel like it should be simple enough to give your citizens a wooden plank to hide behind.  Pikes would also feel more genuine, a 10+ ft spear that only works at distance.  Mounted combat, of course, but I saw a mod for that already, I'll try it out soon.  I'd also like to be able to assign people both a melee weapon and a gun, or at least combo weapons like a gunsword or bayonet. 

- Mahar/Wyverns - One thing I always wanted to mod in DF was to make a race like ERB's Mahar.  They are a race of giant pterodactyls (I might call them Wyverns or Zieverns) who are super intelligent, but need slave labor to function as a civilization.  In the Pelucidar books, they are friendly with the gorilla-like Sagoth and employ them as police and military, and then they enslave humans for labor and sometimes as food.  The Mahar can neither speak nor hear, but communicate telepathically, and thus they do not understand that human beings have any semblance of intelligence.  I'm not sure I want to bother with that bit in a video game, but it's interesting. 

Any advice you can give me or good modding tutorials you could point me to would be appreciated.