Wild West Rimworld: How to make a Western out of Rimworld

This guide is for those looking to make Rimworld less Sci-Fi and more Western. I originally did this myself by looking at lists of mods folks used to do the same so I'll break down what mods work for the older Rimworld version B18 versus the newer version 1.3. This should help folks pick what they want if there are other mods (older or newer) that work with a certain patch of Rimworld.

The first third or so of this guide is just for setting up a Western Rimworld while the latter parts are how to do well with a Wild West Rimworld. Last, but not least, for those that just want to know what Wild West apparel give what bonuses so you don't have to craft everything to find out, I've listed what I know in Appendix A.

Fair warning, there is a lot here so pick and choose what you need.

Introduction

When I first found Rimworld, I had mentioned my desire to play Dwarf Fortress to some friends, but I just couldn't get past the text base format of that game. Someone mentioned and recommended Rimworld instead and I couldn't have been happier that I tried it out. The base game itself is very well done by its creator, Tynan Sylvestor, but the modding community has really outdone itself.

Want a magic Rimworld? A RimWorld of Magic
Want Lords of the Rings? Lord of the Rims - Dwarves
Want vampires? Rim of Madness - Vampires

But if you're here, you're looking to give your game a Western Flavor, partially or entirely. That's where I sat after I got bored of my first Rimworld playthrough. I liked the base game, don't get me wrong, but I have always wanted a Western game that played like Rimworld, but didn't involve Sci-Fi.

Luckily, there are plenty of mods for that!

What I'll do is first list the mods I used to recreate 19th century Wild West, except on a Rimworld planet, and why I chose each one. I'll also link all the copies of those mods for Rimworld versions B18 and 1.4. The reason being is two fold: 1) When I first discovered some of these mods, they were only available in the B18 version (Westernization Project and Steamworld), and 2) some of you might want to also include other B18 mods that were not updated to newer versions of Rimworld.

Recently I have both updated my own Western modlist and this guide as well so I have a lot of mods to recommend. Due to the length, I don't go into detail for each of these, but I do list them for easy access and use.

Luckily for 1.3 and 1.4 users, all the mods I put together for my experience are all available for download/subscribing from Steam. It's a little bit more work to get the B18 versions hence why I provide the links.

By the way, for those wondering what the advantages to either version are:
B18's advantages:
-Allows for older mods to be used that may have not been updated
-Camels provide both milk and camelhair in B18 while in 1.4 they only provide milk (camelhair provides cold insulation that's only slightly worse than muffalo wool while having higher heat insulation; it probably has the best all around temperature insulation in B18)
-Muffalos provide both milk and wool in B18 while in 1.4 they only provide wool
-Traps can be reactivated where in 1.4 if triggered, you need to rebuild traps
-The recreational items Piano and Bar are available with the Westerado B18 mod (I wrote up a code fix to Mlie so this should be fixed for 1.4 soonish.)

1.4's advantages:
-1.4 versions of the Wild West mods are all accessible through steam and are much easier to install
-Molotovs are available allowing for easier disposal of dead raiders and old clothing
-Watermill generators are available allowing for earlier and more diverse power production rather than just relying on steam power only
-Allows for current and new mods to be used

Lastly, I'll go over my strategies on how I survived my "Wild West" using the tools and options I had available. It's a new type of playthrough because there are no freezers, refrigerators, blasters, turrets, or dropships. You will rely a lot more on pemmican and freezing temperatures to make "iceboxes" to make food last so your pawns can survive. Also the armor really only gets as good as the apparel you can craft from the likes of animals and devilstrand since there are not many options for metal armor, just a helmet and cuirass.

So let's get started.

The Wild West Mods

Before I list the mods I use, I want to mention a few things. I didn't use Combat Extended, though some players will swear by it. It did not feel right when I tried it (usable ammo made my base even more cluttered), but your mileage may vary from mine.

Second thing I want to mention is Xwynns' Let's Play of "Wild West - Rimworld Extreme". I highly recommend it so you can see what a Wild West version of Rimworld is like. I have screenshots of my setup and I did things a little differently from Xwynn but I did not make any videos and his videos give a really good taste of the Wild West - Rimworld style.

By the way, some of these mods are still linkable and subscribable through Steam. Whenever I could, I linked them so it's much easier to install/uninstall. However, some of the below mods you will have to manually install if you want to run the B18 version of Rimworld.

My Western Mod List for B18 Rimworld:
1. HugsLib
2. Simple Sidearms [github.com](V18 version)
3. Faction Control
4. Snowy Trees[github.com]
5. Steamworld
6. Rimroads
7. JecsTools For Rimworld B18[www.patreon.com]
8. Basic Bridges
9. ED-Embrasures[rimworldbase.com]
10. Extended Storage Fluffy Harmonized[github.com]
11. Westerado
12. Rimworld Westernization Project[ludeon.com]

I have since put together a 0.18 Western Rimworld mod collection in case that's easier.

My Western Mod list for 1.3 Rimworld:
1. HugsLib
2. Harmony
3. Simple Sidearms
4. Snowy Trees
5. Steamworld
6. Rails and Roads of the Rim (Rails and Roads of the Rim did not exist in 0.18)
7. Simply More Bridges (no 1.3 for Basic Bridges)
8. Seamless Embrasures (no 1.3 for ED Embrasures)
9. Extended Storage
10. Westerado
11. Rimworld Westernization Project
12. Vanilla Expanded Framework
13. Vanilla Factions Expanded - Settlers

I have since put together a 1.3/1.4 Western Rimworld mod collection in case that's easier. Be fair warned...I have added a lot more mods to the list above since I first wrote this guide.

The newly added mods I added in fall 2022 include:
1. Decorative Railway Prop
2. Dual Wield
3. Faction Customizer
4. Giddy-Up! Add-on: Animal Saddles
5. Giddy-up! Battle Mounts
6. Giddy-up! Caravan
7. Giddy-Up! Core
8. Gunplay
9. Packed Sand and Dirt
10. Range Finder
11. RunAndGun
12*. SRTS Expanded
13. SRTS Trains
14. Total Control
15. Vanilla Outposts Expanded
16. Westerado Wilderness (Continued)
17. [SYR] Set Up Camp
*Make sure you use the 1.4 version if you're playing 1.4.

Big thank you for all the work that Mlie has done to resurrect so many mods. It's pretty insane actually how many he's revamped for 1.3.

Reasons for Each Mod

In case you're not familiar with any of the mods I've suggested for a Wild West Rimworld, I've written a small blurb about what each is and why I include it in my Wild West games. Because this list is already too long, I did not go over the mods I've added to this guide in Fall 2022.


HugsLib is a lightweight shared mod library for Rimworld. In my case, it's required to run Simple Sidearms and Seamless Embrasures.


Harmony is a C# mod that is required for Rimworld versions 1.x and beyond (you do not need it for B18). In my case, it's required to run Simple Sidearms, Faction Control, Snowy Trees, Roads of the Rim, Simply More Bridges, and Extended Storage.


Simple Sidearms allows for a pawn to carry more than one weapon and fits very well in a Wild West setting where it makes sense for a character to have a rifle and a bowie knife backup, as an example. This mod also allows you to limit how many sidearms a pawn can carry. I prefer to limit it to their carrying capacity.


Faction Control allows the player to tailor which and how many faction groups and bases show up on your map. In my case, I'm using it to disallow certain factions from the base game, Westerado and Rimworld Westernization Project (RWP) while allowing others. In version 1.3, the vanilla game comes with its own faction settings so the Faction Control mod is not required.


Snowy Trees just adds snow to the trees and adds a bit of flavor to your world. Completely not needed, but gives the world more depth. Pretty sure this works, to a certain extent, even in deserts.


Now this, in my humble opinion, is one of THE most important mods you can add to make your Wild West more true to life. Why? It disables all high tech items and research for everything and everyone. No more air conditioning, turrets, high tech armor, high tech weapons, mechanoids, etc. In addition, it also adds a much needed coal resource as well as coal power so while you will not have access to solar or geothermal power, you can mine coal and use it to power your base. Without this mod, you'll be playing Cowboy while the rest of the world/universe is not.


Runs well, but you have to use B18 version of JecTools which is only available through his patreon website. Using the 1.0 version off of steam will not work. For version 1.3, you can use Roads of the Rim, the successor to RimRoads or use Rails and Roads of the Rim, where I added buildable Rails.




Required by RimRoads in order to run.


Basic bridges is what I used in B18, but it's not available for version 1.3. For 1.3, you'll need to use Simply More Bridges or something similar. Both allow for researching and then building bridges that allow for heavy objects to be placed upon them (ie walls).



I used ED Embrasures for B18, but like many mods, didn't make it to 1.3. You'll need to use Seamless Embrasures or something similar.



Extended Storage is one of those mods that you don't realize you need until you try it and it makes your gameplay SO much better. In my case, since refrigeration is not an option, I have to grow and store a lot more food to last a whole year after harvest. The amount of floor area needed to house stacks of 75 food just gets to be too much. With Extended Storage, I can store 575 food in two slots vs 150 food on a floor and that's just for uncooked food. Plus the original author did such a great job making each storing container look the part.


If you're using version 1.3, sadly the bandit or gang factions from Westerado and RWP do not function properly. To troubleshoot this, I recommend Vanilla Expanded Framework and VFE:Settlers. They're great add-ons anyways and their "Bandits" faction works as well as RWP's Bandit Gangs.


I've mentioned above that I use Westerado mainly to have a more authentic "tribe" faction than vanilla, but it does offer quite a bit more. Plenty of weapons, apparel, buildings, scenarios, etc. I do put this before RWP just in case there are any conflicts and if there is, the RWP will take precedence (because Gatling Guns? Amirite?).


The King of "Wild West" Rimworld in my eyes is RWP. It has Bandit Gangs, US Marshalls, Frontier Towns, Shotguns, Revolvers, Rifles, Cannons, Mortars, and Gatling Guns. Did I say Gatling Guns? Why, yes, yes I did.

And by the way, you have not "lived" a Rimworld life until you have fired one of these bad boys.
Whole. Lee. Smokes.

Settings for the Faction Control mod (B18) or Factions Settings (1.3)

Faction Control allows the player to tailor which and how many faction groups and bases show up on your map. In this section I'll go over how I'm using it to disallow certain factions.

For me, I love the factions that RWP adds, but it is missing a native american faction.

Lucky for us, Westerado adds two factions, "Outlaws" and "The First Nations". However, we only need "The First Nations" as we have "Bandit Gangs" already through RWP.

Here are my basic settings under Main Options. By the way if you're not sure how to alter mods, go to "Options" > "Mod Settings". I think I could actually get away with 4 factions here, but leaving it at the default of 5 has yet to negatively impact my gameplay. I also set Nation Building to "None" as the whole "world" is the wild west though this could be set differently if you want a few scattered towns to unite or tribal villages to unite. More importantly, since we're not using the vanilla factions, you want to set "Outlander union", "Tribe", and "Pirate band" factions to "0" since we're replacing those factions with ones in RWP and Westerado.

Here you see my "Factions 1" settings. You'll notice a few things - all of which you can tailor to what you actually want, this is just how I set up my world.
#1 I set Bandit gangs to 5. You can raise or lower this as you see fit, but 5 seemed to work best for me. "Bandit gang" faction is added by RWP and my preferred replacement of "Pirate band", but some players may want to use "Outlaw gang" added by Westerado instead.
#2 I set "Law enforcement agency" to "1" since it makes sense there were only be one set of "Marshalls". If I could rename a second to something like Pinkertons, I'd add a second, but I haven't figured out a way to do that.
#3 "Frontier town" I maxed out since, in my mind, you should have more towns than gangs.
#4 I also maxed "First Nation", which is the tribal faction that is added by Westerado. This is the faction that fits my need for Native Americans and replaces the vanilla "Tribe".
#5 I set "Outlaw gang" to "0" since I already have "Bandit gangs" added by RWP.

Now you should be set for a "full" world as far as Wild West Factions.

In contrast, if you're using version 1.3, you won't be using the mod faction control as the base game allows for changing faction settings when you are generating the map.

You can see the settings I used for Factions. Change the map settings however you like, but to get a fairly "realistic" dispersion of factions, I chose the following:

• 1 US Marshall (having more than 1 does not make sense)
  
• 8 Frontier towns (this is from RWP, but you can drop this in favor of Civil settlers from VFE: Settlers.
  
• 6 Cordial tribes (Depending on how hostile you want your native american tribes to be--I went 50% friendly, 50% hostile)
  
• 6 Savage tribes
  
• 3 Civil settlers (this is from VFE:Settlers, increase/decrease in relation to Frontier towns)
  
• 5 Bandits (this is from VFE: Settlers, unfortunately Outlaw gang and Bandit gang factions from Westerado and RWP do not work correctly in version 1.3)

Rimworld Settings

I altered a few settings before starting my second Wild West run for a few reasons. First, the traits generated by RWP and Westerado just didn't show up enough and I wanted to put them to good use (Frontiersman and Gunslinger for instance) and second, infestations broke the immersion for me. It felt too much like my Wild West was suddenly Starship Troopers.

So how do we do alter the settings for a new game?

Click "New Colony" then "Scenario Editor" and finally "Edit Mode".
We want to get rid of infestations so select "Add part" and then "Disable Incident".

If you did that correctly, you should see this:



Next click on the incident listed ("Toxic Fallout" in my case) and change it to "Infestations".


If you followed all those steps correctly, you should see that "Infestations" are now disabled:

Note that this does not disable the insects and hives that spawn upon map generation for cave locations. Luckily these hives do not multiply like infestation do though so this is less of a problem.

I also like to force the RWP/Westerado traits provided in the mods for more Wild West flavor so I made the following changes as well:
Deadman's Hands is also one but I feel like that one is more interesting if it shows up "naturally".

By the way if you're curious as to what "Frontiersman", "Gunslinger", and "Deadman's Hands" do:

Frontiersman

• +1 Shooting
  
• +1 Cooking
  
• +0.10 Move speed
  
• +5% Eating speed
  
• +5% Butchering speed
  
• -5% Food poison chance
  
• -5% Mental break threshold
  
• -18.0F Minimum comfortable temperature
  
• +18.0F Maximum comfortable temperature

Do note that Frontiersman does a major downside as the pawn "...longs for the wilderness and will randomly leave to seek it out." You can counter this by arresting the pawn when they randomly decide to leave, but this can get tiresome by the 10th time you have to arrest and then recruit again and again.

Gunslinger

• +2 Shooting
  
• -3 Melee
  
• -10% Aiming Time
  
• +0.2 Shooting Accuracy
  
• 90% Melee Hit Chance

Deadman's Hands

• +10% Aiming Time
  
• -0.2 Melee Dodge chance

Obviously tailor any of these to your tastes, but hopefully that gives you an idea how to do so.

Surviving the Wild West - Early Game

Early game, like many starts for Rimworld, is about getting food and shelter. Because shelter is less of an issue, I will cover food first.

Obstacle 1: Surviving Until Rice

Depending on how sadistic adventurous you are and harder the biome, the tougher this will be. Unlike in vanilla Rimworld, the Wild West version is more demanding such that, as far as I know, the most extreme biome, the ice sheet is not survivable. You can survive in colder climates such as very cold mountains or hot deserts. It just takes planning and resourcefulness.

Some of what I'll discuss is probably obvious, but realize that food sources are that much more important because #1 you don't have any way to freeze your food, #2 hydroponics are not available, #3 severe lack of fuel means less cooking if you picked desert or tundra, and #4 because you do not have access to solar or geothermal power, building a greenhouse is probably not an option until you unlock coal mining and coal power.

So similar to most icesheet guides, you will need to fight tooth and nail for any source of food. Gather ripe berries, agave, and mushrooms. Hunt every single animal. And grow rice and potatoes as soon as possible. The tricky part is lasting long enough for rice to be harvestable. I believe crops in Rimworld are first harvestable at 60+%. You get less yield than if you harvest at 100%, but if it's that or starving, harvest a few crops first.


Another option is if you chose a location that contains caves. In this case, you can harvest insect jelly and the occasional mushroom. But be careful and watch the insects' hunger. If you take too much insect jelly and starve the insects, they will die. No big deal, insect meat for my pawns! Actually if all the insects die, then the insect hive will not get maintained and disappear. I made the mistake of attacking the insects until they were all gone but one and the single, surviving insect did not maintain the hive enough and the hive disappeared-- no more free insect jelly for my pawns. I should mention, at least in my B18 playthrough, the insects were not hostile. Not sure why, but I didn't have to worry about them.

If you can make it long enough to harvest rice, you should be fairly safe from starvation. Just make sure to keep growing food and making pemmican whenever possible. Prioritize corn if you can get it grown fast enough since its shelf life[rimworldwiki.com] is much longer than rice or potatoes. By the way, if I didn't stress it enough before, pemmican is your emergency backup. You cannot make packaged survival meals due to technological limits; it's not a 19th century option. You can haul corn to feed your pawns for long travels outside your base, but pemmican is not only the best winter survival meal, but also the best for long caravan trips.

Obstacle 2: Avoid Winter/Spring Starvation

Our next big goal now that we avoided initial starvation is to create a pemmican stash and a 19th century food storage/freezer so we don't starve in the upcoming winter or spring. The image above is from my second playthrough at my initial temporary base. Pemmican storage is highlighted in red, kitchen food supply in blue, and "long term" "freezer" is in green. Now the freezer won't actually freeze until temperatures drop below 32F (0C if you use that scale), but I have it prepped, full, and ready to go for when it does. Setting this up will make food stored in the natural freezer last at least one more quadrum (season/quarter). Use multiple doors as well like I have set up in the freezer area and kitchen storage (highlighted in orange). When temperatures start to go up, it will help insulate the inside against higher temperatures outside and keep it cooler inside further prolonging the shelf life of the food inside.

For the pemmican storage, you just make pemmican whenever possible, put it in a locked room, and throw away the key ie forbid the doors so your pawns/animals do not eat it (fyi - a pawn can eat up to 20 units of pemmican in a single meal). Also forbid meat from being used in meals at this point as you need every scrap of meat to make pemmican. Your pawns are now on a veggie diet until you have a full blown base up and running.

By the way, be pretty careful of how you use what little wood you start with. If you started on Tundra or Desert, you'll very quickly run out. Also realize, for the first year, your pawns will probably have to eat raw food until you have steam power up and running--you simply don't have enough wood to cook a year's worth of food. You can actually see in the picture above, I am out of wood. Do not stress, your pawns will survive. They will get mood debuffs for eating raw food, but it's better than starving. Just make sure to use most of that wood making pemmican as pemmican has to be cooked.

Surviving the Wild West - Mid Game

Setting Up Defenses

Now that we have food taken care of, we can worry about long term shelter. You probably have already set up a temporary base, but it is time to look for a long term base. Hopefully you picked a mountainous area to build in because that's what we're going to use.

Apologies if you had to restart because you didn't read this far before starting your game. Do keep in mind, how I build my base does not have to be the way you build your base. I prefer a mountain base for reasons you'll soon see, but you can easily have a more true-to-life Wild West game by building a Frontier Town in just about any location and having a impromptu town spring up--similar to the photo above.

Obstacle 1: Natural Limestone or Granite

You want a location that is mountainous and has limestone or granite. Limestone and granite are the strongest building stones for walls and make for great natural barriers against raiding Bandit Gangs. Three unit thick natural granite or limestone walls can take a tremendous beating. If possible, select a location near or on a roadway, on a river if you're using version 1.3 so you can use a watermill generator, and if you're lucky, on a system of caves. You can see I did all of that, just being short granite the ultimate stone, but I did get limestone. Also, since I was playing on B18 I did not get to use a watermill (molotovs are also not in B18), but the river itself is a great barrier to raiders.

Do be careful of the growing period and temperatures. If you pick a site that is really hot all year long, you'll struggle. Crops won't grow, you probably won't see freezing temperatures very often, and wandering animals will be sparse. Make sure you have a halfway decent growing period and workable temperatures. Here I have a location that gets almost to 0F in the winter and almost to 80F in the summer; with heat and cold waves, I see temperatures above 100F and in the negative respectively. Luckily with proper apparel like dusters and ponchos, you can survive that, but not much more. If you get into temperatures below -10F or above 110F, your pawns will start to struggle. I also can raise camels without any shelter required; they can handle this range temperatures fairly easily. If I had picked tundra, I'd have to use muffalos, but again, they'd probably be fine. Just be cognizant of the biome you pick and what animals you try to raise.

Obstacle 2: Selecting Your Base Location

Now that you have selected a location on the world map, you need to select a promising spot on your colony [rimworldwiki.com]location. For me I look for 3 things: Large Limestone/Granite Mountain in somewhat of a C shape, fertile soil inside that C, and good location at the tips of that C to be my future killbox. Why do I try to find something as odd sounding as this?


As crazy as it sounds, I like to set up my kill box similar to how you set up a parabolic trough[en.wikipedia.org] that is used to collect solar energy. Except in my case, I'm not concentrating solar energy, I'm concentrating fire on incoming raiders.

Let me show you two examples of what I mean and how I set up bases:

Base 1 (Temperate Forest)
This base is in what I am calling the "Late Game". I have all my amenities. My devilstrand greenhouse is up and running. I'm at no risk from raiders, starvation, cold, lack of power, etc. My pawns are all well equipped with good apparel, armor when needed, and great firearms. My base, for all intents and purposes, is "finished". But you can see that I found a granite mountain in more or less the shape of a C, there is fertile ground to grow crops on the inside of the C, and there is a great place to make my very specific type of kill box.

Base 2 (Desert)
This is base is more "Mid Game". I'm almost finished building exterior walls, but most of the necessary parts for my base are there such as food storage (in this case, I placed the food storage so it can actually freeze during the winter), rooms, hospital, production, power station, etc. You can also see in this case, I found basically the same thing as Base 1, but a limestone mountain. I have 3 places that I can place greenhouses, but I have less overall fertile soil to grow on. But there still is a large area to build inside of the mountain, fertile areas to grow crops, and a great location to build a parabolic kill box.

Obstacle 3: Building Your Base Defenses

Planning Your Kill Zone

Let's compare and contrast my two different base kill zones and look at what makes each one better in different ways.

Base 1 has 2 Gatlings, 1 Cannon, 2 Mortars, plus better traps to Base 2's just 2 Gatlings. Also Base 1 has a second layer (or 3 in some locations) if raiders somehow breach the first wall of the kill box. Base 1 also has emergency stores of pemmican in nearby locations.

In contrast, even though Base 2's defenses are not quite finished, it has a larger kill box that really takes full advantage of the entire range of the Gatling Gun.

For reference, let's call each buildable square on your colony map a unit. The Gatling Gun can fire 31 units, the Cannon has a range of ~138 units, and the mortar has a range of ~238 units (basically the entire map). The range of the cannon and mortar are just insane. Granted their accuracy at maximum range is probably not great, but boy can they reach out to touch someone.

Either way, Base 1's kill box just does not take advantage of the range of these units very well while Base 2's does a better job. The only major downside of Base 2 is that, because I was trying to encompase the grow areas north of the mountain, the walls protecting those areas are constructed, not natural. Why does this matter? Raiders tend to target constructed walls and leave natural mountain walls alone. Base 1's natural walls rarely ever got damaged while Base 2's built walls all do, limiting how effective the kill box is because less raiders run into it at a time.

How to Set Up Your Walls Properly
One fact I didn't realize when I first was playing through the game with embrasures is that you can set up a wall section right next to an embrasure section and if the pawn takes cover behind the wall, they gain cover bonuses from both. Because of that, you want to make sure you alternate embrasures and full wall sections whenever possible.


Here's an example. You can see quite a few spots where I alternate wall, embrasure, wall, embrasure. Though I make it 3 units wide embrasures for the Gatling Gun just to make sure it maintains line of sight during an attack.


If you do it correctly (both the construction and putting the pawns in the right position during a fight), here's what it will look like in practice.

Not working out well for the attacking bad guys, a Frontier Town.

Setting Up Crucial Parts of Your Base

Planning Location of the Food Storage

Looking at these two Food Storage areas and their locations can you see what main issue the first one has the second does not?

It does not directly connect to the outside which means I cannot open the doors and turn it into a freezer during the winter, extending the shelf-life of all food by at least one quadrum. Something that can really help with all foods, but meat and animal products especially.

Another minor issue is that the way the kitchens are set up. In Base 1, the stoves face the food storage. It works better if they face the dining room so you can set up "critical" food storage inside the kitchen nearest the stove like in Base 2. This creates a more linear flow for your raw food > cook > cooked meals > dining room.

Planning the Set Up and Location of the Crafting Center

Here is my second base's production center.

For your Wild West base, you will want the following:

• Stonecutter's Table
  
• Electric Tailor Bench
  
• Electric Smithy
  
• Fueled Smithy*
  
• Machining Table
  
• Drug Lab
  
• Sculptor's Table
  
• Raw Material Storage
  
• Tool Cabinet x 2 (Each provides a 6% bonus, a workbench at most can connect to two cabinets.)

Why have a Fueled Smithy in addition to a Electric Smithy? Whether by mistake or on purpose, you can only produce helmets and cuirass at a Fueled Smithy, which are the only armors available. All firearms and other weapons can be made at either Smithy. I also lock my Fueled Smithy up so my pawns do not keep refueling it and wasting wood.

In this particular playthrough I also built 2 sculptor's tables because I have 3 artists in my first set of 8 pawns and one, my researcher, is almost out of researchable projects. You can double up on any workbench if you have the room and/or need. I also have a temporary storage area that needs to have real storage built so there is less clutter.

Note, because I put my two tool cabinets in the middle of the room, they affect each work bench, providing 12% increase in work speed for all production.


Planning Set Up and Location of the Power Station

One of the most important parts of your base is your power station. Even if you have watermill generators, you will probably need at least a few "Steam Engine Dynamos". These Steam Engines create 2400 W of power versus a watermill generator's 1100W. They're large like watermills, but you can place them anywhere as long as you mine coal, which is why you see that I placed mine right next to my Coal Quarry (Stone Quarry set to mine only coal). By the way, quarries are affected by tool cabinets so be sure to add those. If you get 3+ Steam Engines, they will consume quite a bit of coal to keep running.

Now you'll note that I have 4 Steam Engines for Base 1, but 6 for Base 2. Why? Well Base 1 is in a temperate forest and only needs one greenhouse so my power use is lower. But Base 2, being in the desert, will eventually have 3 greenhouses. Greenhouses, due to their use of Sun Lamps, which consume 2900 W and possibly a heater (175W), require a LOT of electricity (up to 3075W). Each Steam Engine provides 2400W so each greenhouse needs ~1.28 Steam Engines to function.

If you don't have enough electricity during winter months when your base heating and greenhouse heating will be turned to full, your greenhouse may lose power and you might lose the crops there. So make sure to plan ahead and give ample space for an extra Steam Engine or two in case your power needs keep growing.

Rare Commodities and Trade

Now trading for rare and precious commodities like those above is both a mid game and late game issue, but I bring it up now because you always want to keep an eye out for these and buy them whenever possible. Why?

Medicine - You cannot make this because I believe Steamworld removes Neutroamine from the game. In my mind, it makes sense that real, manufactured medicine would be a rare commodity in frontier town, but you cannot produce Hospital Beds without it in B18 (this changes to components) and there is no such thing as glitterworld medicine. This is the best medicine that you can buy.

Components - Depending on your map you may have fairly easy access to components. My first Wild West playthrough had plenty of compacted machinery, but my second desert playthrough had very, very little. And you use this for just about everything from firearms, steam engine dynamos, cannons, mortars, gatling guns, electrical production benches, and anything else electrical related. If you're short on supply, you can very quickly find yourself short on components.

Hyperweave - Now hyperweave is perhaps one commodity that got missed by the mod Steamworld, but because it's rare enough, it shouldn't be too much of a balance/immersion issue. With that said, very few textiles can match it. It offers the best blunt and almost the best sharp protection, only slightly beaten by thrumbofur. You'll probably be setting up a Devilstrand growing operation at some point, but Hyperweave beats Devilstrand in almost every category except for heat protection. Buy it when you can and use it for your most valuable pawns.

Plasteel - Similar to components, jade, and gold in that some locations will have a few decent veins and some will have none. Plasteel is the strongest material in the game. You will probably never get enough to make entire walls out of it (840 hp), but it is far and away the best material for defensive doors with the highest hitpoints (448 hp) and best door speed besides wood (100%). As far as its use for armor and weapons, it's slightly higher than uranium for both blunt and heat armor (0.55 vs 0.54, 0.65 vs 0.65), but much higher for sharp armor (1.14 vs 1.08). Interestingly enough, uranium is actually slightly better for blunt melee weapons with 1.5 blunt damage multiplier vs 0.9 of plasteels. Uranium and Plasteel are equals in sharp weapon damage. Buy it for defensive doors first and armor second in my opinion.

Jade - The best material if you're trying to maximize beauty of sculptures, beds, furniture, doors, or walls while trying to keep wealth down to avoid larger and larger raids. Even through trade, it's a difficult material to come by so I would focus its use on sculptures and beds first. Ironically, it's actually just as good as uranium for making blunt melee weapons, though I'd recommend against it. Uranium does not have many uses beyond blunt melee weapons, armor, or walls so use it instead of jade on blunt melee weapons.

Steel - Typically you will not run out of steel any time soon if you pick a mountainous area to settle, but because so many buildings, firearms, melee weapons, siege weapons, electrical devices, and power generating devices use steel and usually a lot of it, you could be running out if you are not careful, especially in a non-mountainous area. Keep an eye on your steel supply and stock some if you are running low.

Gold - Curiously not a big requirement for the 19th century Frontier Town. That is...unless you are trying to construct royal beds, sheriff badges, or pocket watches. Those you cannot construct without gold. And all three of those items are very useful to have.

Surviving the Wild West - Late Game

At this point, you are pretty set. You have food, power, weapons, apparel, and solid defenses. But I do have a few pointers for future endeavors, mainly further exploration of the world.

Caravans and Exploring Your Vast Unknown

One of the more exciting parts of a Wild West playthrough is finally going out to take out Bandit Gang bases and Bandit Gang Outposts or sending out Trade Expeditions to nearby Frontier Towns and Tribal Villages. But we need to make sure we do it in style. What do I mean?

Well siege weapons of course.

We can't bring civilization to Bandit Gangs without being able to reach out and say hello, now can we?


Now, if you're using Combat Extended, this may be a bit easier since bring siege weapon ammunition will be more user friendly. For non CE users, cannons and mortars use ammunition while gatling guns do not.

As I mentioned earlier, each siege weapon has different ranges. Gatling gun is ~31 units, cannon is ~138 units, and mortar is ~238. Now a couple big differences in how cannons work versus mortars. First the cannon shot is horizontal and very fast moving. In other words, it'll get to its target FAST, but it cannot be lobbed over obstacles. Plus you'll want a clear line of sight in a straight line to take full advantage of a cannon. In contrast, the mortar shot is vertical and fairly slow so it can be lobbed over walls, but it will take awhile to get to its target. Also mortar shots tend to be pretty inaccurate.


Here's my caravan just arriving at the enemy Bandit Gang outpost. I need to make fortifications as soon as possible so I take apart a nearby limestone ruin and cut down what cacti that I can.


Ready as I can get. Herbal medicine ready. Check. Defensive positions. Check.


Aftermath. Time to claim the structures and pillage.

Closing Thoughts

I hope this, in part or in whole, has been helpful with getting you setup for a Wild West version of Rimworld. I am glad to see Rimworld do well and I really have enjoyed my Wild West Rimworld playthroughs that I have had the priviledge of playing thanks to the creator of Rimworld and the very talented mod creators for mods like RWP, Steamworld, and Westerado.

I hope you enjoy your Wild West Rimworld as well.

And don't ferget...


My boys are the roughest, toughest, he-man-stuffest hombres that's ever crossed the Rio Grande - and they ain't no namby-pambies! Now all you skunks clear outta here!

Appendix A - Western Apparel and Their Bonuses

The following is not a complete list of all the apparel added by Rimworld Westernization Project (RWP) or Westerado, but I have listed all the apparel that I am aware of and their ability modifiers. I won't list armor or damage multipliers due to the difference between the core game in B18 and 1.3.

For reference:
Diplomacy power [rimworldwiki.com]- How effective the pawn is at diplomacy with other factions. (According to the Rimworld wiki "...Removed at some point - potentially replaced with Negotiation Ability" so may only apply to B18.)
Negotiation Ability[rimworldwiki.com] - This affects the speed of prisoner recruitment, impact on faction relations when giving gifts, and the outcome of peace talks. Impacted by Social skill 40% to 190% (40% plus 7.5% per skill level).
Social chat impact[rimworldwiki.com] - affects the opinion bonuses and maluses pawn interactions can create. Impacted by Social skill 82% to 137% (82% plus 2.75% per skill level).

Why does this matter? Some of the apparel below give bonuses to Diplomatic Power and thus, if using version 1.3, it will have no impact. But that same gear will have meaningful bonuses for B18 version players, most likely during peace talks. This may have never been updated by the original mod authors or the folks that ultimately took over RWP or Westerado.

Gear by alphabetical order:

Bandit scarf
-15% Toxic sensitivity
-15% Diplomacy power
-15% Social chat impact
-15% Trade price improvement

Bandolier
-3.00 seconds Ranged cooldown

Bandolier (there are two different bandoliers, probably one from RWP and one from Westerado)
-7% Aiming time

Bison war bonnet
?

Bowie knife
+15% Butchery efficiency
+15% Butchery speed
+10% Cooking speed

Cigarillo
?

Cloth apron
+5% Brewing speed
+10% Butchery efficiency
+10% Butchery speed
+5% Cooking speed
-5% Food poison chance
+10% Tailoring speed

Cowboy Hat
+15% Social chat impact (this is higher than vanilla Rimworld which is 10%)

Cuirass
-0.08 c/s Move speed

Deputy Sheriff's Badge
-5% Mental break threshold
-2% Aiming time
+5% Social chat impact

Desperado hat
+25% Diplomacy power

Feathered top hat
+3% Diplomacy power
+3% Social chat impact
+20% Trade price improvement

Fringe pants
-0.03 c/s Move speed
-4% Mental break threshold

Gentleman's pants
+0.05 c/s Move speed
+3% Social chat impact

Holster belt with chaps
-2% Aiming time

Jeans
-0.03 c/s Move speed
+5% Mining Speed
+5% Plant harvest yield

Kepi
-3% Mental break threshold

Leather Apron
+5% Sculpting speed
+20% Smelting speed
+10% Smithing speed
+5% Smoothing speed

Longcoat
+4% Recruit prisoner chance

Overalls
+5% Global work speed
+5% Construction speed
-15% Diplomacy speed
-15% Trade price improvement
+5% Work speed factor

Paddy hat
+10% Plant work speed
+20% Trade price improvement

Pocketwatch
+5% Global work speed
-10% Mental break threshold
+20% Social chat impact

Prairie skirt
?

Sheriff's badge
?

Single feather bonnet
+5% Melee dodge chance
+10% Social chat impact

Spectacles
-0.04 c/s move speed
+10% Research speed

Sombrero
-5% Mental break threshold

Sombrero hat
+10% Social chat impact

Steel helmet
-0.04 c/s move speed
-10% Pyschic sensitivity

Stablehand trousers
-2% Mental break threshold
+3% Plant work speed
+6% Tame animal chance

Surgeon's Apron
+5% Medical surgery success chance
+10% Medical tend quality

Ten gallon Cowboy Hat
+10% Social chat impact

Tomahawk
+15% Melee dodge chance

Top hat *
+15% Diplomacy power
+15% Social chat impact
+15% Trade price improvement
*Note probably not the Royalty DLC version, fairly sure this was a mod addition as it gives different bonuses.

Top hat**
+5% Diplomacy power
+5% Social chat impact
+30% Trade price improvement
**This is another top hat from a different mod than the one listed above. Again, not the top hat provided in the Royalty DLC.

Trapper hat
?

Waistcoat
+13% Social chat impact

War bonnet
?

[cptnoname]

try this with CAI-5000, More Injuries and CE... that would be perfect

[Nikos Phobodeimos]

If you want to dress pawns as Old West-era American soldiers, the mod Steamworld Uniforms (1.4 only) adds fitting clothes (including a hat). It is Combat Extended compatible, too.

[Lightningcrush]

If you have vanilla expanded classical, opium is an expensive crop and grows in 6 or 7 days. Makes a good money crop.

[Mr.Sandman]

Awesome write up feller. That'll do.

[Vampiresbane]

I never used giddy-up, but I'm sure some folks love that mod.

You're all welcome and I hope the links help you get to the mods faster.

[Lordlynel]

no giddy-up for 1.3?

[heart eater]

Wow. This was and awesome read. Maybe in the future I will implement some of these.

[Montepogey]

Thanks for all the work you put into this guide. It helps quite a bit and gives me some ideas on future play throughs.