RimWorld: 8 Tips For Gaining More Colonists

Summary

• Growing your colony size involves capturing raiders, attacking caravans, and accepting quests for new colonists.
• If you're willing to stray from moral boundaries, purchase slaves from Pirate Merchant Ships to expand your colony with skilled individuals.

Your colony is the most essential part of your RimWorld journey. A prosperous colony is filled with fighters, farmers, scientists, and doctors, but you need enough people to fill all those roles. Gaining colonists can be tricky and won’t be your main priority when starting.

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When you’ve finally got your bearings and have sorted out all the initial necessities, you can start looking at expanding. There’s never a certain way of increasing your colony size. You’ll need to seize the moment when it appears. You can gain colonists in various ways, some more morally acceptable than others.

8 Take Raiders Prisoner And Recruit Them

It won’t take long for nosy raiders to take note that you’ve settled your colony down. Soon enough, they’ll come running in to steal or pillage whatever valuables you’ve managed to collect. You’ll need to defend your base; setting up traps or making an effective killbox is an effective way of dealing with enemies.

Sometimes, when raiders are injured enough, they’ll become incapacitated rather than die. These raiders can then be captured and taken to a prison room. You can slowly recruit the prisoners and bring them into your colony.

7 Attack Visitors Or Caravans

You might notice trading caravans arriving at your colony with items to trade. Caravans are from non-hostile factions in large groups or small clusters, sometimes as one person.

Trading with caravans is an effective source of materials that you might struggle to collect naturally. They’re also a good source of colonists, but this method works better when you’ve settled in some more. Attacking large, armed groups can spell disaster for your colony. You’ll also lose the respect of the faction, meaning they won’t travel to trade with you anymore. Only attack visitors or caravans if you’re sure you could live without their supplies.

6 Rescue Or Capture Transport Pod Crashes And Recruit Them

Transport pod crashes are a common occurrence in your RimWorld playthrough. A straggler from a different faction, or no faction at all, has crashed into your area after escaping from somewhere else.

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If they’re from an enemy faction or not from any faction, you can capture them and recruit them as prisoners. If they’re from a friendly faction, you can rescue them and hope your hospitality is acceptable to make them stay. Make sure to grab the transport pod crash as soon as possible; their occupants are usually injured and will die if left untreated for too long.

If you capture a colonist from a friendly faction, you’ll lose the respect of that faction, and they may become hostile.

5 Have Children (Biotech DLC)

The Biotech DLC brought lots of new experiences to RimWorld. With lots of new xenotypes and new technologies to play with, there are many things to do. One new mechanic was the ability for your colonists to have children. Your colonists can have children naturally, or you can partake in IVF treatment if you don’t have a perfect pair.

Having children is a lot of responsibility. You’ll need to make sure you have a safe space for your pregnant colonist to give birth. After that, you’ll need appropriate beds and baby food to help the child grow. When they become children, they’ll begin learning and gaining skills. This process can take a while, but it’s a safe and less gruesome way of expanding the colony.

4 Raid Other Factions

You might be bored with waiting for raiders to show up at your doorstep, so why not take the fight to them? Raiding other factions can be time-consuming, and you may feel like your colony is slowing down when no one’s working. It is, however, a good way to clear out hostile factions and expand your own while you’re at it.

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Building and sending away caravans is simple, but it’s important to give them the right supplies. The caravan will need enough food to last the trip and enough medicine to fix whatever injuries they’ll gain along the way.

If you’re sending all your fighters away, make sure to have enough defences at home. Attacks could still happen, so the remaining colonists must still be protected without their warriors.

3 Accept Quests To Rescue Colonists

Quests can vary in their difficulty. Whether you're rescuing from a prison camp or crafting hundreds of leather caps to deliver to a faction of four people. Some of these quests can have great rewards, maybe even a colonist to bring home.

Colonists can be gained through quests in a lot of ways. They may be listed as one of the rewards, or they might be someone who needs rescuing from a hostile camp. You might also get a call that they’re being chased by enemies and promise to join you if you protect them. There are some interesting ways to accept strangers into your colony, so don’t dismiss quests when they pop up.

2 Tame Wild People That Wander In

A rare occurrence, but an occurrence all the same, is when wild people wander in. Wild people are those who prefer to spend their lives in the company of nature and aren’t a part of a colony. You can tame these people the same way you tame animals. Delegating the task to someone with a high animal skill will give you the best chance of success.

It's not often that wild people wander in, but they’ll slowly make their way over to your food supply. If you’re already struggling to grow and provide food, watch out for these people, as they’ll eat your crops.

1 Purchase Slaves From Other Factions (Ideology DLC)

If your moral compass is pointing in an entirely different direction, you can always purchase slaves to build your colony. Slaves act like colonists, but they’ll need a warden to keep them in check. You can always imprison the slaves and recruit them as normal colonists if you don’t want prisoners.

Slaves can be expensive if they’re healthy and have high skills, so save up some silver. They can also only be bought from Pirate Merchant Ships that pass by. For this, you’ll need a comms console set up with silver near an orbital trade beacon. The trade ships don’t pass by often, but you can call them directly if you need to.

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