Fairly New Player looking for mods

[mvargus]

I just got Rimworld recently, and my girlfriend is a bit mad at me because I have been playing it so much. 

That said, I'm noticing that the vanilla game does kind of run out of things to do once you get a colony set up (even if you really mess it up like I have). 

I've already uploaded a lot of the mods in the suggested lists found here and in the reddit for Rimworld.

What I'm looking for now are the ones that add what I'd call color.

More animal types
Races other than humans
More things to research
etc.

I'm not too excited by the combat and weapon upgrades and right now I'm avoiding the bionics.  Yes, I know they can improve the game, but I'm looking for things that make the game more interesting by adding story, not interesting because I've raised the difficulty from challenge, to "OMG! what was I thinking"

Hopefully you'll have some suggestions.  Right now I'm browsing the list of mods on steam, but there are quite a few and I am not sure what will fit what I'm looking for.

Edit:  I do want to know if there is a good mod for adding more factions to the start of a game.  The most I've seen in the base game is 5, and that is usually 2 trading factions, 1 tribe and 2 pirate gangs.  I'd love to see more variety here.

[Canute]

Just found it with a forum search with the keywords "more faction".
[A17]More vanilla factions
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=29246.0
Serveral other mods adds custum faction too, with own cloth and weapons sets.

Human races, search for Orassan, Apini, Asari (more races from this author).
Most of them add world factions too.

I just suggest find and add mods, start a new colony play a bit.
Maybe then add more and more.
You don't allways need a new colony, but if you encounter problems you may either uninstall the latest mods or start a new colony.

My fun it is to play many colonies with different sets mods and races to varie the playstyle.
Other like to add all kind of mods at once, and play with the huge variation.

[mvargus]

Canute,

Thanks.  I had missed a couple of those you suggested.

[FosterKicks]

Try out Megafauna mod. It adds huge animals.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=34432.0

[mvargus]

Try out Megafauna mod. It adds huge animals.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=34432.0

I'll definitely be adding this one to a future playthrough.

[FosterKicks]

Or Animal Collab Project A17 it adds plenty of new animals from various authors,but you cant use A Dog Said with it https://github.com/XenEmpireAdmin/AnimalCollabProjectA17

[mvargus]

Or Animal Collab Project A17 it adds plenty of new animals from various authors,but you cant use A Dog Said with it https://github.com/XenEmpireAdmin/AnimalCollabProjectA17

Thanks I'd just subscribed to this on steam and will try it with my next "death run".

I've have some fun with base building, but have gone insane and created a scenario where I start with one person, very limited resources and tribal level technology.  So far in 2 runs I've lasted as total of 22 days.  My runs were:

11 days and died of heat stroke.  (temp hit 150F and I didn't have a cooler built)
11 days and died to a mad animal  (it broke down my door and killed me in my home.)

I'm about to start attempt #3. 

[Canute]

A an extrem settler ! :-)
A lonely tribal with permadeath is very extrem. Do you give him at last a good jade club ? Or some minion who do some homework for you. :-)

Next time at a heat wave and no passive cooler you should grab your food and start another colony a bit away.
Better to start over then to die, the research progress you don't loose at last.

[Nameless]

Megafauna, Mechanoid Extraodinare by Spino
Rimsenals by rooki1
GeneticRim by SargBjornson

are my go-to now.

Also more vanilla turrets and EPOE and Misc Robots.

[faltonico]

When you feel you are ready for a challenge, you can add more factions to an ongoing game, but only if you install the Faction Discovery mod, that would let you, as its name implies, discover new factions other than the starting ones.

Factions like Talons, Cesarstwo Wschodnie, one that would try really hard to screw you over Ghost Army (steam only), factions from the Star Wars mod (only factions!). Alien races (there are a lot of them now!), and also mods that adds its own factions but also a lot of gameplay changes, like Glittertech and Mechanoid Tech.

[mvargus]

A an extrem settler ! :-)
A lonely tribal with permadeath is very extrem. Do you give him at last a good jade club ? Or some minion who do some homework for you. :-)

Next time at a heat wave and no passive cooler you should grab your food and start another colony a bit away.
Better to start over then to die, the research progress you don't loose at last.

no club or minion.  The poor single colonist gets a pistol with 14 rounds of ammo, 10 packaged food, 8 medicine, 5 components and 225 wood to start.  There are a couple of ship shards lying around as well, but that's it.

Strangely, I've been able to craft a bow and a club both times I've played this out.  I just haven't been able to get the base far enough along I could survive.

Well, I was surviving the manhunter until my settler left the building to try to collect the ripe crops.  I realized my mistake, but the manhunter followed to the door and broke it down really fast.

[mvargus]

Megafauna, Mechanoid Extraodinare by Spino
Rimsenals by rooki1
GeneticRim by SargBjornson

are my go-to now.

Also more vanilla turrets and EPOE and Misc Robots.

I've loaded Megafauna, although I haven't seen any.
More Vanilla turrets I have, haven't used
EPOE I have, not sure I'll ever use, I am a bit of a prostelphobe (or whatever the anti-bionic trait is.)

I'll look at the other 2.