So if I get this right...

[Zefnoly]

This game has these generic specifcations for types of planets. Like Urbworlds and Glitterworlds.

So based on what ive experienced while playing. Humans have slowly colonized the galaxy for a many many centuaries already.

Where Glitterworlds are colonies that prospered into utopian life. Urbworlds prospered but mostly only industrial wise, as humans stil live in similar conditions as possibly Cyberpunk 2077 for example.

And rimworlds is a third specification of planet? Like rimworld isnt necesarily about one planet. But multiple planets. One different for each game.

Where "Rimworlds" is the third specification where a colony never prospered but failed instead. To the point where humans scattered around for survival. Failed hard enough that the whole colony spread across the planet into minor factions made by survivors. Some only caring for primitive survival. Others kept their knowledge and managed to keep the lights run. Others prospered in their own ways to the point where they live in these kingdoms from the DLC. Which I guess is the last actual remains of the original colonization attempt where they returned to royal way of living to keep these tiny cities going? While having near urbworld/glitterworld tech?

[Razor 2.3]

There are other categorizations, but you hear more about urb and glitter because they're more endpoints for a world's civilization. Most archotech comes from AI controlled worlds, which I don't believe are classified as either. There's also enough in the game to argue your world is a previously AI controlled world, and is still influenced by the dying AI.

Rimworlds are, as the name implies, at the outer edge of human colonization. I believe the classification also applies to post-apocalyptic worlds, that are just beginning to be recolonized. They aren't Urbworlds / Glitterworlds yet. The spaceship ending even implies as much, with the line about the ship's AI might decide to hide in the system until the world reaches glitter status.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by Razor 2.3:

There are other categorizations, but you hear more about urb and glitter because they're more endpoints for a world's civilization. Most archotech comes from AI controlled worlds, which I don't believe are classified as either. There's also enough in the game to argue your world is a previously AI controlled world, and is still influenced by the dying AI.

Rimworlds are, as the name implies, at the outer edge of human colonization. I believe the classification also applies to post-apocalyptic worlds, that are just beginning to be recolonized. They aren't Urbworlds / Glitterworlds yet. The spaceship ending even implies as much, with the line about the ship's AI might decide to hide in the system until the world reaches glitter status.

Yeah kindof what I guessed. Rimworlds are a classification for planets that are in an horribly unstable but colonized state. That either has a previous failed civlization. Which only have remains. Like a broken AI or etc... That may or may not develop back into a more prosper state once a proper government or civilization can redevelop there in the future.

[mrChips]

There's a fiction primer linked on the main menu which you'd probably find interesting.

The presence of things like ruins, ancient dangers and compacted machinery, the frequency with which we get trade ships, and now the Empire from the DLC, seem to me to imply that the Rimworld on which the average game takes place is a planet in the interior of colonized space that has regressed into anarchy rather than a genuine frontier world on the actual rim.

[Tohtori Leka]

Originally posted by mrChips:

There's a fiction primer linked on the main menu which you'd probably find interesting.

The presence of things like ruins, ancient dangers and compacted machinery, the frequency with which we get trade ships, and now the Empire from the DLC, seem to me to imply that the Rimworld on which the average game takes place is a planet in the interior of colonized space that has regressed into anarchy rather than a genuine frontier world on the actual rim.

Depends what you mean by interior. They aren't new planets being colonized for the first time and so aren't outside already colonized planets. But they are on the outer edges of colonized space, in the rim, so to speak. The wealthy and stable planets are mainly in the center, where the administrative bodies are also located. These are planets that have lots of people, trade and regulation. But the further you go from the administrative bodies, the wilder and less developed the worlds are.

It's basically the same thing that happened in America around the time of the civil war. On the east coast they had these old and civilized cities (glitterworlds) with all the wealth, culture and education and whatever. Then there were the fast growing industrial cities (urbworlds) which were fairly close to the "glitterworld" cities. These places generally had extensive road and railroad networks which made it easy and fast to travel. But then there was the wild west which was far away from all the civilized places and didn't have proper roads and trains didn't run so often and you couldn't even get everywhere on a train. This meant less trade and less people but most importantly less law and order because no one from the more developed places wanted to spend weeks on the road to go and see what the fuss is in the wasteland no one really cares about.

Now with space ships you don't need roads or railroads and the only factor to the length of the journey is distance, meaning all the wild and failing/failed planets would be on the outer edges of colonized space. If there was a failing planet on the interior of colonized space, it would have been quickly taken care of because the rich people don't want trouble in their neighborhood. But a failed colony somewhere who knows how far away? Who cares. Most likely there are no new planets being colonized and haven't been for thousands of years because so many of the outer colonies failed and going even further away would be just that much harder.

[Terripan]

Basically, according to the fiction primer there are a few different types of planets. The four you'll hear about the most are rimworlds, urbworlds, glitterworlds, and archotechs. Rimworlds are planets at the edge of known/colonized space, and they lack any kind of centralized government, meaning they are effectively like the wild west but sometimes with futuristic weapons/tech. Urbworlds are planets there are almost entirely covered by cities, hence the name(Urban + world). Though I don't think it is directly said, most urbworlds have loads of poor people and a lot of crime, but they also usually have the tech needed for spaceflight(presumably since they need to import food since they have no farmland). Glitterworlds are utopias that are incredibly advanced, and whose citizens live lives of luxury. They and archotechs account for most of the advanced technology that you can get your hands on(though with the Empire this may not be necessarily true anymore).

Lastly, archotechs are planet-sized computers, which, due to their immense computing power, can create technology far beyond human comprehension. People also don't really know what most archotech's agendas are. It is my personal theory that each storyteller in the game is an archotech, and whichever storyteller you pick is the archotech that messes with you, presumably for their own amusement. This would help to explain why so many archotech artifacts are on the rimworld, and why there are constantly psychic waves occurring around the areas your colonists inhabit(archotechs are described as sometimes sending out psychic waves and being one of the few producers of psychic technology in the primer, if I remember correctly).

[For_Science!]

There are also worlds less technologically advanced than urbworlds, but far more socially stable than rimworlds. "Midworlds" have roughly 19th-to-20th-century technology, and there are medieval, agricultural, or tribal worlds that stabilized at a less technological level.

All these places ONCE had technology, in order to be colonized at all, but they lost it due to catastrophe or gave it up on purpose. Presumably they could get it back fairly quickly if something disturbed the stable equilibrium they've fallen into; rediscovering a thing is faster than discovering it from scratch.

[Zefnoly]

Originally posted by For_Science!:

rediscovering a thing is faster than discovering it from scratch.

Yeah ive been thinking that is why you can easily research industrial/space age tech from scratch after just a few years. The research table is more to research how to use existing technology (the basic tech may be learned from components and compacted machinery you reverse engineer) and probably storage devices around. And knowledge you already know but dont remember how to actually use so you have to teach yourself how it actually worked.