What are some good mods that anyone recommend for a re-return to RimWorld?

[Salary Mark]

Hi all, I've returned back to steam after a long period of being dead, and I recently got into the mood where I want to start playing the new RimWorld dlcs and mods that I missed out about.
There are so many things that I'm unfortunately new to as my absent and seeing now you can create both vampires and catgirls in space? Which I find strange, but I'm not totally unaware as RimWorld content on youtube exists.
Sorry for the long paragraphs, it's just I have a strange gist to write a lot of stuff on one page. Writer instincts I guess.

I wish to learn the wisdom of this beautiful community of masocists and randy random fanboys and girls.

[ichifish]

Sorry that this probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'd recommend playing biotech without any mods. It adds A LOT of stuff, from different raid types depending on the factions, kids and gene-editing, lots of xenotypes, and of course tons of new mechs to fight and build yourself. No need for content mods imo until you've played it a few times. If you haven't played since before 1.3 animals and caravanning have been updated and work much better than before.

I'm putting together a run with Zombieland to start up next week for a last-of-us style game. The mod seems really well-developed. Other than that most mods don't interest me.

I did check out the Vanilla Expanded psycasts mod, and if I were going to add a massive mod (which I doubt I am) I might add that. My understanding is that Hospitality has been repeatedly updated as well, so if you're into running a hotel or... other kind of establishment... check that out.

If you're looking for UI mods I guess I'll be a let down here as. I've been using more or less the same ones off and on since 1.0: Rimhud, Fluffy's Work Tab, Cleaning zones, Pick up and haul, and Area unlocker (additional zones).

Glad you're back, though! Enjoy the rim.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there are couple of biomes mods that add a bunch of new land features. I saw them promoted on Jadziax's YT channel, and they do look cool.

[MadArtillery]

Wall Lights, for the love of god wall lights. I'm still somewhat at a loss as to why this is a mod not baseline.

Replace Stuff so you can actually upgrade your base without it being a pain in the ass.

Alpha animals give more of a reason to want to tame stuff and more pests that are worth dealing with to keep things interesting. Well designed, everything in it is meant to have a purpose, positive or negative for your colony. Better designed then the basegame animals imo.

Speak up and Interaction Bubbles is still a good combination to actually see your colonists interacting and can sometimes clue you in on issues you hadn't noticed.

Rimsenal is also a big ol pile of well balanced and well made stuff.

Depending on your taste lots of alien race mods are still well updated though ones that try to roll aliens into the biotech system seem plagued by technical issues still like missing heads.

Biotech has honestly taken the place of one of my fav mods for robot cleaners and hauler though I still run it as I love my little roombas jsut like my irl one. Misc robots.

Trade UI revised was probably the first mod I slapped in when I came back recently again myself, dear god do I hate the stock trade menu.

Rim-War is still going too, very much user beware though, it can absolutely crush you if you ignore it, or even if you dont, but the world map actually mattering makes the game a lot more interesting in my opinion. Caravans to attack or have trade with you, smaller scouting parties hunting for caravans and seeing raids coming on the map. Just wish raids had more of a cooldown for targeting the player as losing a colony to a quadruple drop pod raid is just unfair as hell. It's tied to individual settlements so if they get you surrounded all hell can break loose. Never piss off the empire in it unless you want to get absolutetly drowned in air dropped power armour. Has issues for sure and is my most hesitant suggestion, glad it exists though.

[Salary Mark]

Originally posted by ichifish:

Sorry that this probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'd recommend playing biotech without any mods. It adds A LOT of stuff, from different raid types depending on the factions, kids and gene-editing, lots of xenotypes, and of course tons of new mechs to fight and build yourself. No need for content mods imo until you've played it a few times. If you haven't played since before 1.3 animals and caravanning have been updated and work much better than before.

I'm putting together a run with Zombieland to start up next week for a last-of-us style game. The mod seems really well-developed. Other than that most mods don't interest me.

I did check out the Vanilla Expanded psycasts mod, and if I were going to add a massive mod (which I doubt I am) I might add that. My understanding is that Hospitality has been repeatedly updated as well, so if you're into running a hotel or... other kind of establishment... check that out.

If you're looking for UI mods I guess I'll be a let down here as. I've been using more or less the same ones off and on since 1.0: Rimhud, Fluffy's Work Tab, Cleaning zones, Pick up and haul, and Area unlocker (additional zones).

Glad you're back, though! Enjoy the rim.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there are couple of biomes mods that add a bunch of new land features. I saw them promoted on Jadziax's YT channel, and they do look cool.

Thanks, as my head already spinning with Biotech but hey, it's a special experience, as finally you can have space vampires and drugged up supersoldiers.
I'll be seeing all you space cowboys for one wild ride in RimWorld.

[Salary Mark]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Wall Lights, for the love of god wall lights. I'm still somewhat at a loss as to why this is a mod not baseline.

Replace Stuff so you can actually upgrade your base without it being a pain in the ass.

Alpha animals give more of a reason to want to tame stuff and more pests that are worth dealing with to keep things interesting. Well designed, everything in it is meant to have a purpose, positive or negative for your colony. Better designed then the basegame animals imo.

Speak up and Interaction Bubbles is still a good combination to actually see your colonists interacting and can sometimes clue you in on issues you hadn't noticed.

Rimsenal is also a big ol pile of well balanced and well made stuff.

Depending on your taste lots of alien race mods are still well updated though ones that try to roll aliens into the biotech system seem plagued by technical issues still like missing heads.

Biotech has honestly taken the place of one of my fav mods for robot cleaners and hauler though I still run it as I love my little roombas jsut like my irl one. Misc robots.

Trade UI revised was probably the first mod I slapped in when I came back recently again myself, dear god do I hate the stock trade menu.

Rim-War is still going too, very much user beware though, it can absolutely crush you if you ignore it, or even if you dont, but the world map actually mattering makes the game a lot more interesting in my opinion. Caravans to attack or have trade with you, smaller scouting parties hunting for caravans and seeing raids coming on the map. Just wish raids had more of a cooldown for targeting the player as losing a colony to a quadruple drop pod raid is just unfair as hell. It's tied to individual settlements so if they get you surrounded all hell can break loose. Never piss off the empire in it unless you want to get absolutetly drowned in air dropped power armour. Has issues for sure and is my most hesitant suggestion, glad it exists though.

Thanks too, mate. I had a look at some of the mods I installed years ago and the new ones to the workshop, actually, I think I got wall lights installed not too long ago. Haven't looked at the animal mods, as I suck at keeping animals alive in farms so I tend to hunt more than breed. Rim-War sounds like it's going to kill my computer, but heard it's very chaotic.
Thanks and I'll be seeing all you space cowboys.

[MadArtillery]

Originally posted by Deutsch Mark:

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Wall Lights, for the love of god wall lights. I'm still somewhat at a loss as to why this is a mod not baseline.

Replace Stuff so you can actually upgrade your base without it being a pain in the ass.

Alpha animals give more of a reason to want to tame stuff and more pests that are worth dealing with to keep things interesting. Well designed, everything in it is meant to have a purpose, positive or negative for your colony. Better designed then the basegame animals imo.

Speak up and Interaction Bubbles is still a good combination to actually see your colonists interacting and can sometimes clue you in on issues you hadn't noticed.

Rimsenal is also a big ol pile of well balanced and well made stuff.

Depending on your taste lots of alien race mods are still well updated though ones that try to roll aliens into the biotech system seem plagued by technical issues still like missing heads.

Biotech has honestly taken the place of one of my fav mods for robot cleaners and hauler though I still run it as I love my little roombas jsut like my irl one. Misc robots.

Trade UI revised was probably the first mod I slapped in when I came back recently again myself, dear god do I hate the stock trade menu.

Rim-War is still going too, very much user beware though, it can absolutely crush you if you ignore it, or even if you dont, but the world map actually mattering makes the game a lot more interesting in my opinion. Caravans to attack or have trade with you, smaller scouting parties hunting for caravans and seeing raids coming on the map. Just wish raids had more of a cooldown for targeting the player as losing a colony to a quadruple drop pod raid is just unfair as hell. It's tied to individual settlements so if they get you surrounded all hell can break loose. Never piss off the empire in it unless you want to get absolutetly drowned in air dropped power armour. Has issues for sure and is my most hesitant suggestion, glad it exists though.

Thanks too, mate. I had a look at some of the mods I installed years ago and the new ones to the workshop, actually, I think I got wall lights installed not too long ago. Haven't looked at the animal mods, as I suck at keeping animals alive in farms so I tend to hunt more than breed. Rim-War sounds like it's going to kill my computer, but heard it's very chaotic.
Thanks and I'll be seeing all you space cowboys.

Surpringly never had an issue with performance from rimwar. Now wild animal breeding, thats a mod that'll kill your computer lol. I expected more of a performance hit from rimwar too but it seems whoever is running it is a decent at keeping it optimized. I assure you missing out on a base cleaning pet is quite the thing though, love those little dirt sponge blobs. Really should give it a try, no surprise you don't care about animals much given default offerings.

RandomPlus is one I forgot about, really good mod if you hate clicking random too many times for specific stats for a particular run.

[Salary Mark]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Originally posted by Deutsch Mark:

Thanks too, mate. I had a look at some of the mods I installed years ago and the new ones to the workshop, actually, I think I got wall lights installed not too long ago. Haven't looked at the animal mods, as I suck at keeping animals alive in farms so I tend to hunt more than breed. Rim-War sounds like it's going to kill my computer, but heard it's very chaotic.
Thanks and I'll be seeing all you space cowboys.

Surpringly never had an issue with performance from rimwar. Now wild animal breeding, thats a mod that'll kill your computer lol. I expected more of a performance hit from rimwar too but it seems whoever is running it is a decent at keeping it optimized. I assure you missing out on a base cleaning pet is quite the thing though, love those little dirt sponge blobs. Really should give it a try, no surprise you don't care about animals much given default offerings.

RandomPlus is one I forgot about, really good mod if you hate clicking random too many times for specific stats for a particular run.

Interesting, as I do find clicking on random things to be very tedious so I'll add it on my list of mods. And Rimwar, I'll see if it could run on my computer as I find that the factions of RimWorld are just very static in their wars, heck, they violently fight over your property instead on their own soil. Plus, I'll try to use the animal mods, to further see if I'm worthy of finally farm animals or I'll be forever doomed to just hunt and farm crops. Thanks for the suggestions.

[MadArtillery]

At worst you'll have more interesting manhunter events even if you don't use the critters themselves. Some mechanically different enough to actually change strategy against them.

[Salary Mark]

Good to know, as I find vanilla manhunter packs very repetitive as you either build killboxes or a lot of spikes or maybe get a little slow to prepare your colonists' from the manhunters. It's always great to experiment different strategies that you can use against the manhunters instead of cheesing the enemy AI. Sorry for the long response time, the steam notification and the RimWorld soundtrack merged together there.

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

At worst you'll have more interesting manhunter events even if you don't use the critters themselves. Some mechanically different enough to actually change strategy against them.