How to: make and raise children with rimworld Biotech

This is a guide based around the Biotech DLC, which allows the birth of children from a male and female colonist. This guide is currently up-to-date with the 1.4 version of Rimworld. (Not that the process of getting babies would change much.)

WARNING: This guide ONLY COVERS THE BABY CREATION IN THE RIMWORLD DLC. I don't know how you do it in other mods, nor will I cover such mods. The steps in this guide REQUIRE you to have the Biotech DLC.

Part one: Obtaining the basics.

So. You wish to populate your thriving colony with Organ Donors Infant children. Well, if you gave Ludeon Studios $25 for the Biotech DLC congrats! you met the first requirement. (Do keep in mind, if you had a save opened before you bought and enabled the DLC, you can no longer use that save). But how do you go about obtaining babies anyway? The simplest way to do it, is to complete this checklist of materials. Do keep in mind, this step is to just birth the baby.

1. Two, able-bodied adults. One must be male, and the other female and both must be under the chronological age of 50 (In my experience).

2. A "stable" colony able to withstand the sudden new mouth to feed.

3. Baby food. (Unnecessary if the mother is still alive, I would still stock at least 20 units of it)

4. a hospital containing medicine (duh), a bed, and a capable doctor. (I would recommend sterile flooring, as this increases the outcome of the birth, but its entirely not required).

5. A baby room with toys, a crib, and a chair to feed the baby on.

6. Penoxycyline is always a nice thing to have for your colony, and I suggest to give it to your new baby to ensure illness doesn't reach your child. (This step can be ignored, but its better safe than sorry)

Once you obtain the items listed above, you can move to the next step.

Part two: Giving birth

Congrats! you made it through step one. Now step two.
This step requires the two pawns you collected earlier to be in a "loving" relationship, and for them to share a bed. They do not need to be married, unless your Ideology requires it. However, if your Ideology forbids ALL sorts of intimacy, you messed up and have to restart with a ideology that allows it.

Anyway, so your two pawns are in bed. They get a lil freaky, then pop. You get a notification. "[Insert female colonist name] is pregnant!". Congrats! your pawn is now pregnant. Now, you can increase the probability for fertilization in the "social" tab by clicking on the heart next to either pawn's lover.

So your pawn is pregnant. what now? well, be sure to take your female pawn off of ALL drugs. I mean serious cold-turkey. Penoxycyline is the only safe vanilla drug. Even one dose of beer could seriously alter the baby. Then, you treat the female pawn like a queen. Make sure any dangerous labor is removed from her schedule, and if there is a raid, make sure she is properly locked up and protected inside a room, and that she has access to a weapon to protect herself. Then, its just the waiting game. Over time, she will go through the 3 trimesters, and eventually give birth. And once her water breaks, you will get a notification, and she will be downed.

Now you rescue your pawn (preferably with her husband to keep that social up), and put her in the hospital I told you to build. You will see a button when clicking on your colonist called "give birth" (or something like that I dont remember lolz). Your husband and the doctor will approach the mother waiting for the birth. You will know if it was a safe birth, by the notification you get next. If its stillborn, bad luck try again. if its not, get ready for 14 years of parenthood and eventual organ donation!

Part three: Raising the baby.

Nice job! That wasn't so bad was it? Not that I would know, I don't see your screen. Except for you Larry. yeah I know what you look at on google you weirdo.

Now the more important part. Raising the baby. Now, the baby cannot walk nor can it get food unlike your other colonists. This wouldn't usually be a problem, if you created that baby room I told you about. The baby room should be at a safe temperature of below 25 degrees Celsius and above 5 degrees. You will see that every now and again, the mother (or caretaker) will walk in and feed and play with the baby. This step, in my experience, requires little intervention. the only time you should be worried, is if the baby is bored or starving.

The baby will have its first growth moment, and be able to walk, at the age of 3. The baby will be nude, so you will have to make kid clothes for it. The child no longer needs to be breast fed, and your mother colonist will eventually stop lactating. Now, its very important to make sure that you always keep an eye on your child. I have had so many close calls with raiders, mad animals and bug hives. be sure the child has access to the outdoors, however also make sure that the child stays close to home in case of a raid. also be sure to deconstruct the crib for an actual bed at this stage.

At first, your child will be pretty useless. 0 passions, traits, skills, basically a robot. That doesn't mean you assign it work, however. As your kid grows, they will raise a bar called "learning". learning requires certain things to be filled. To know exactly what will fill the kid's learning bar, check its "needs" tab. (one thing I had forgot to mention, is to construct a blackboard, student desk and two chairs for said desk). The kid will go as far as stargazing, to following your colonist while he/she is working, etc. As time passes, and your pawn grows, they will gain traits, passions and skill all chosen by... you! The higher the learning tier, more passions will be available to chose from along with traits. Once they reach the age of 13, they are considered adults and will no longer gain passions or traits or learning level. however, they will not be able to romance until the age of 18. A deal breaker for those redditors out there. Children will be incapable of violence until the age of 13 as well, so raiders typically wont go for them first.

once your kid reaches adulthood, you did it! you can assign them work, steal their organs, or whatever you would normally do to an adult colonist! its purely up to you!

Honorable mentions

You may have spotted that earlier in the guide I said "The simplest way to do it, is to complete this checklist of materials." that wasn't quite on accident. There are other ways to do it.

One method you could try, is with embryos. They function a lot like normal lovin', however almost every time pregnancy is guaranteed. (you can also force a prisoner to be a surrogate.)

Another thing you can do if you don't want to wait for your colonist to grow fully, is to toss them in a growth vat. This speeds up growth at the cost of no learning being done. So sure, they will grow faster and it will be a safer birth if an embryo is inserted, but they will gain terrible traits and almost no passions. whichever is best for you.


Thank you for reading my guide. This guide didn't follow my usual goofy nature so if you laughed, you may want to see a therapist. If you had seen my guide on Ark, you would have seen someone named "TheCommander" suggest this. This is purely their idea, but i'm not sure they expected it to happen.
(NOTE: I could not add them as a contributor, as they don't have me friended lol)

Happy Organ farming!

[Kyo]

Once a child is born I like to put them into a growth vat until they are like three that way I can skip the whole baby phase.

[Dr Jimothy]

babies are anti-mental break factories with their mood buff when giggling. Just make sure they're fed and played with.

[Mr Atipiquencio]

babies are mental breaks factory with they mood debuff when crying