Any must-have mods for newbies?

[Fried Noodles]

Or should I just jump in and do a game in vanilla?

I've got very little experience with the game but was interested in trying out some of the modlists that I saw (that change Rimworld to a LotR or Star Wars sort of setting).

After downloading the mod and sorting the load list so everything was happy and green, I still see a giant error box whenever I load up the game, indicating all sorts of conflicts and issues.

When I actually jump into the game, it seems that many things do not work.
I cannot scroll in or out with the mouse wheel, cannot really interact with the UI, and when I mouse over anything that brings up a small tooltip, the tooltip never goes away when I move the mouse away, leaving the screen incredibly cluttered.

I guess I need to go lighter on the mods.

Does anyone have a good mod list suggestion that I could try? Maybe one that has a recommended load order?

I do not have either of the DLCs that released for Rimworld, if that matters much.

[whatamidoing]

There are no must-haves. The best way is to play vanilla, take mental note of anything you think could be improved, and then look for mods that address those specific things.

[Bullwinkle]

Must-have mods for newbies in my opinion are usually QoL mods that don't really affect game play, just improve access to information already there. Color Coded Mood Bar and Numbers are two such mods. Prepare Carefully changes the game, but (last I looked), it was the most popular mod, so worth mentioning. That and it's recent competitor, Character Editor.

Just search the Workshop for Top-Rated, All-time. EDIT: oh, and be sure to click the "1.3" box when searching... that is the current version of the game.

[Daliena]

Personal opinion - Deep Storage and RimFridge.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1617282896

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180721235

.. I just hate having to make walk-in freezers.

[psychotron666420]

Go in vanilla. Unlike other games with mods, this game has no must have mods. The mods are strictly for changing the game in specific ways you want, not like universal bug fix mods or stability mods like Bethesda games.

After some time playing vanilla, you'll get a feel for what type of mods you want.

[VoiD]

Several must-have mods, but I wouldn't say so for newbies, it's always better to understand the base game before you decide to mod anything.

But after a while you'll start seeing the exact same 100ish mods in every single playlist ever created on steam and realize that they either fix broken features, or implement missing basic features that should be part of the base game.

Every modlist is the same, the same 100 fixes for the base game, and then a couple of overhaul/content mods that makes one playlist different from another.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by VoiD:

Every modlist is the same, the same 100 fixes for the base game, and then a couple of overhaul/content mods that makes one playlist different from another.

I don't know why you keep saying that, because it's objectively wrong. They never use the same mods nor 100 of them. Almost like it's not actually broken and different people want different things.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Originally posted by VoiD:

Every modlist is the same, the same 100 fixes for the base game, and then a couple of overhaul/content mods that makes one playlist different from another.

I don't know why you keep saying that, because it's objectively wrong. They never use the same mods nor 100 of them. Almost like it's not actually broken and different people want different things.

Don't lie.
He can browse the workshop and see for himself anyway.

Edit: Oh, and before you start trying to quotemine again.

The longer version/context of what he's talking about.

Originally posted by VoiD:

Originally posted by Neko Time:

They can lie depending on if the statitics were skewed based on the choices of samples.

For example: 97% of all Americans are democratic voters > got all their data from California.

99% of Americans hate their jobs: Got their data from Wal-mart employees and fast food workers.

92% of gamers enjoy RPG games > only sampled people from steam communities of RPG games.

You get the point. Every statistic has a story, make sure the story isn't biased.

The issue happens whenever you take one number to conclude something about another group.

IE: 99% when you poll walmart employees and ask them if they hate their job, you can get an estimate of how many walmart employees hate working at walmart, but these employees are also american, and working at walmart is also a job, therefore, if you want to mislead people, you can say that 99% of americans hate their jobs, even though you didn't pick a random sample from the entire group of americans, and you didn't ask people from different areas either.

Just like the people claiming that whoever didn't install a mod must love vanilla here. If you want to get an honest number you'd have to either poll every player who HAVE downloaded such mods, and then decided to uninstall them to play vanilla because they think it's better, and the ones who have chosen to keep them instead, not the ones who don't play RW at all (impulse buyers), the people who just wanted to check it out and didn't play much, the ones who never use mods, the ones who don't know how mods work, the ones who don't even know these mods we're talking about exist, etc... That's just dishonest.

Another semi-reliable way to do this is by comparing it with other mods, and other games, to see if, proportionally, more people tend to use these mods to fix the base game, compared to other games too.
And as you've mentioned, the answer is: absolutely yes, there is no doubt about that. In fact, if you're feeling too lazy to compare it with other games just check out the full modlists in the workshop, they all share the same 100ish mods to fix vanilla before any actual content is added, unless the list is created specifically to group up a certain multi-mod overhaul and not mix it with anything else, this doesn't happen in many games.

But even in the examples I was talking about you still end up seeing a ton of the same must-have mods, like Allow tool and many others.

[whatamidoing]

Yes, collections that are complete load orders don't all have the same qol mods between them. There are zero common to all of them.

[glass zebra]

"People who like to add a lot at the same time to their game without looking too closely at what it is must really like every detail what is in there" what. How is "people who like to bloat their game" proof for anything regarding quality?

@OP: just play vanilla until you feel something is missing. Rimworld has a lot of different areas which work well together, but don't have a ton of focus. If you feel like "I would really like more ranching" or "I would really like more focus on trade" or anything like that, you will likely find several mods that do what you want. Rimworld works great without mods, which is also why it greatly moddable.

[JD]

Here are the mods that absolutely must have in my opinion, all just QoL and do not change the game mechanics in any way (in an alphabetical order):

- Damage Indicators [1.3]
- Dubs Mint Minimap
- Fixable Mood Debuffs Alert
- Interaction Bubbles
- InventoryTab
- Numbers
- Set Owner for Prisoner Beds
- Show Draftees Weapon
- Smart Speed

And here are some pretty balanced, fair or just useful:

- All Memories Fade
- Please Haul Perishables (Continued)
- RPG Style Inventory
- RimHUD
- Tiny Shelf
- Wall Light

But yeah, it's a good idea to play vanilla first.

[Tactical Drongo]

pick up and haul is very useful
rimfridge noted above is neat too

but as said before, go vanilla the first time and then enhance
after that (personal preference)
vanilla expanded 8as many as you want)
giddy up
interaction bubbles
rim hud
(wall lights is kinda included in vanilla expanded but if you dont like that this is a good mod)

[Bullwinkle]

Other QoL mods that really help without changing the base game play:

Wealth Display (you don't have to click anything to see your total wealth)
Bionic Icons (boxes of different bionic body parts don't all look the same any more)
More Visible Pause (makes it OBVIOUS if the game is paused or not)
Level Up! (chime sound and sprite when someone gains a level)
Heat Map (you can see the temp of everything on the map with one click)

[The Yeen Queen]

Originally posted by VoiD:

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

I don't know why you keep saying that, because it's objectively wrong. They never use the same mods nor 100 of them. Almost like it's not actually broken and different people want different things.

Don't lie.
He can browse the workshop and see for himself anyway.

Just curious, where's he lying? Because he's 100% correct.

Edit: Oh, and before you start trying to quotemine again.

The longer version/context of what he's talking about.

So you copy-pasted a big wall of text to highlight you saying the same thing from your comment in this thread that they quoted where the context of the whole post didn't change what you highlighted one iota and preemptively accuse them of quote mining.... I'm....confused.

[Paper_Flower]

I would say an absolute must has to be Replace Stuff, with Run and Gun a close second. There are plenty of QoL mods but i think these two are the most help for new players. You should learn to handle reading the information and understanding it through a fairly vanilla run otherwise.

[Jigain]

There are no must have mods. "Must have" implies you cannot play without them, and as RimWorld is perfectly playable without mods (I for one played my first 1000+ hours completely vanilla), the only "must have" mods are the ones you've been playing with for so long that you've developed a dependency on them.

You'd be better off playing vanilla for a bit until you feel you have a decent grasp of the game, then add things you think would enhance your enjoyment out of it. Whether that's Void's list of mods he's convinced all three million players are subscribed to, or those Lord of the Rings and Star Wars mods you mentioned.