Questions from a newbie

[balramdau94]

Hi guys, Just got into Rimworld, only played 20 hours, I love the depth of this game and I will probably spend a lot of time on it. however I find myself struggling even at low difficulty. This is my second colony (AI Cassandra classic), I am 40 days in and I now have 6 colonists. Although I'm playing a low difficulty (some challenge), the raids are already too strong for me (5 raiders with machine guns and explosives ) while I can only craft bows and melee weapons... also some events are really tough, like this one time where 3 of my colonists got malaria and all died when there was nothing I could do about it... Now whenever something really goes wrong, I load my autosave file, but I feel kinda bad doing this. I cannot even imagine what it would be like in permadeath mode or even in difficult mode. Any advice? Also here are some questions I couldnt find answers to:

1- What are good basic defense setup? I try to build a huge compound with walls and force raiders into chokepoint with traps but it's too greedy and doesnt work very well.

2- How do you get rid of unwanted weapons and apparel? I couldn't find a good way of doing this using stockpiles, ideally I would like to manually trash some weapons and clothes but is there a way?

3- Should accept every colonist? At first I thought, the more manpower, the better, but I read that raid strengh scales with number of colonists and wealth. should I try to remain a small poor colony so I can survive? (this would be strange btw)

4- Any advice for early game base setup? Here is a pic of my base right now

Cheers!

[Canute]

1. Basicly you need to learn it your own. Bow vs. mashine gun, you shouldn't do an open firefight.
Seek cover !!
Position your colonist behind wall, so they can fire from behind the wall while the raiders either don't have cover or they move to seek some cover too (trees,chunks).
You can micromanagment your pawn's too, when the raiders start to shoot back, move your pawn safe behind the wall, so the raider start moving again.
Mellee weapons work's well too. Position your pawn's behind the walls and move then at the edge when the raider are to move by it. Best would be to concentrate 3 of yours next to the doorway.
Place traps before these doorways. Steel if you can affort that, wood works too but then you need to build twice so much.

2. Once you have the electric smelter, you can smelt many weapons to get some resources back. (smeltable, below good, while you can use good+ self or sell)
Other you can sell. (non-smeltable, good and above)
All other just place somewhere at open space so they rot away. (non-smeltable quality below good)
Check the stockpile filters smeltable/non-smeltable  and quality.

3. Depend on your style. Some people accept anyone but they don't care less if someone die.
Personaly i only accept pawn's when they can do all jobs, or are real good in a job i need.
You need at last
Constructor
Crafter (better have 2 to craft good appareal for all pawns and for selling)
Cook (unless you like to use Nutripaste dispenser)
Doctor (better to have 2, just in case)
Animal handling (Animals for hauling, or for animal products like wool,milk,eggs,chemfuel,meat)
Social (trading, prisoner recruiting)
10-20% would be good for mellee fight too, like brawler,tough traits.

[Alenerel]

Pardon me for not articulating a post... Ill just hand out things:
- Try to rush plant herbal medicine when starting a game
- Save the good medicine for emergencies, like the malaria you mentioned. Herbal medicine can cure malaria too, but you need a proper doctor and a bed
- Bed have better tending quality than sleeping spot. Medical bed is even better
- They heal faster when they are in bed
- Do not feel bad for reloading if you dont know the mechanics of the game. What is the point of trying a challenge when you dont know how it works in the first place?
- You can lower the difficulty and change the story teller at any time without having to restart the game

2.
Unwanted smeltable weapons/apparel: smelt them in the smelter
Unwanted unsmeltable weapons/apparel (bows, pilas, shirts, etc): if you have more than enough space, save them and try to sell them. if you have many just store them outside and leave them to rot.
About tainted apparel, just dont strip dead people.
When I have a big pile of unwanted unsmeltable stuff outside, I end up throwing a molotov into them and leave them to burn. However you said you have 6 raiders so I doubt its a problem... This is a problem when you have 80 raiders. Too many useless stuff laying around.

3. Colonists dont add much more wealth. you can check your wealth in a tab in the lower part of the screen. Id say try to recruit decent ones and exclude useless ones, although what is "decent" is very subjective. I used to only accept burning passion pawns with only good traits for what I needed, but this takes a lot of time and can make a game painfully long... Actually, a normal passion and pretty much any trait is good enough.

Id recommend you to check youtube videos for basic tips because I feel like I talked too much and said almost nothing, and still there is a lot to cover...

[SeminarCaviar]

1. Basicly you need to learn it your own. Bow vs. mashine gun, you shouldn't do an open firefight.
Seek cover !!
Position your colonist behind wall, so they can fire from behind the wall while the raiders either don't have cover or they move to seek some cover too (trees,chunks).
You can micromanagment your pawn's too, when the raiders start to shoot back, move your pawn safe behind the wall, so the raider start moving again.
Mellee weapons work's well too. Position your pawn's behind the walls and move then at the edge when the raider are to move by it. Best would be to concentrate 3 of yours next to the doorway.
Place traps before these doorways. Steel if you can affort that, wood works too but then you need to build twice so much.

2. Once you have the electric smelter, you can smelt many weapons to get some resources back. (smeltable, below good, while you can use good+ self or sell)
Other you can sell. (non-smeltable, good and above)
All other just place somewhere at open space so they rot away. (non-smeltable quality below good)
Check the stockpile filters smeltable/non-smeltable  and quality.

3. Depend on your style. Some people accept anyone but they don't care less if someone die.
Personaly i only accept pawn's when they can do all jobs, or are real good in a job i need.
You need at last
Constructor
Crafter (better have 2 to craft good appareal for all pawns and for selling)
Cook (unless you like to use Nutripaste dispenser)
Doctor (better to have 2, just in case)
Animal handling (Animals for hauling, or for animal products like wool,milk,eggs,chemfuel,meat)
Social (trading, prisoner recruiting)
10-20% would be good for mellee fight too, like brawler,tough traits.

I second this post. You should learn what's best for you and your style.

[Jimyoda]

Try reading the user-created gameplay guides on the official wiki.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Guides
Read the Progression guides and then whatever else you're having trouble with... Combat, Construction, Food Production.

Be aware that even if you lose all of your colonists, you may to choose to keep playing and after a short time someone will join your colony. Any structures that your first colonists built will be a head start for the new colonists. RimWorld is meant to be a story, and any playthrough could actually be about a group of settlers that encountered a previous colony that didn't make it.