I wanted to make RimWorld a bit more deep without making it complicated so I found these mods, though still looking for more suggestions
I've been enjoying playing RimWorld since its beta. But lately I've been looking to make the game harder without making changing the combat difficulty itself. So fighting the nature and surviving, rather than managing wealth in preparation for the next raid. There are several mods that I wanted to share since some of them are not discussed as much in this subreddit, I believe. I share my colony so far with these new mods, and I am looking forward to more suggestions from you folks. Firstly, to mention some common (but still great!) mods: Dubs bads hygiene, Vanilla expanded mods series, Geological landforms, Power Poles, number of furniture and apparel mods. All great mods that expand and deepen the game in different directions. These are the ones that I don't see as often but I think are absolutely fantastic:
- Real fog of war. Now everything that is outside of the line of sight of your colonists is literally hidden. Raiders are attacking? Now you have no idea how many or what weapons they have. Cargo pods dropped something? A colonist actually has to walk to the drop side to take a look. Infestation in the outskirts of the base? Be careful not to miss them. There is even an option to suppress red letters (I don't do that though). And there is additional research to add vision back around the base using cameras. Honestly, this made the game much more strategic and more in-depth for me. Combined with Hide raid strategy, this is an absolutely cherry on top. The peak interaction of this mod for me was when I had 2 raids in a row. While I was fighting the first raid, the second raid apparently decided to siege my base. I didn't know that due to combination of these mods. So suddenly my base started getting artillery barraged out of nowhere. Peak gameplay. Also with addition of Hidden enemy bio, enemies becomes even harder to "cheese".
- Research reinvented (and stepping stones). I have honestly always wanted to make research much more complicated, and this mod does it in a good way. This mod is mentioned quite a bit here, but I would like to still highlight its depth. Life lessons is also another great mod in a similar direction. I love the idea of the mod, but I found it a bit too tedious and micro-managy in an unfun way sadly, so I didn't keep using it.
- Research papers. Each completed research project drops a corresponding research paper (a book item). Lose that item - completely lose the associated research. While for 99% of the time this mod does nothing, during the 1% when it matters, it matters a lot. Remember my story about being artillery barraged out of nowhere? Well, my research room caught on fire from the artillery. Now I needed to fight both the raid and beat out the fire, because losing half of research is literally catastrophic! Peak interaction of the 3 mods.
- Zoology: Realistic Animal Overhaul. No idea how popular it is, but I honestly adore this mod and it has significantly improved my interactions with the wild life.
- Combat Update. I consider it a lighter version of CE. I don't want to use CE because it feels too much for me, and there are too many mod conflicts. I enjoy having more accurate weapons without having to think which bullets to load in into guns.
- Open the windows. Forces me to build windows because colonists suddenly want to see outside much more. Simple mod, yet adds so much new complexity to the base design. Peak mod design.
- Rimscent. Now I have to also make sure everything smells good. Simple, but I like it.
- Mods to complicate agriculture and food. Progression: Agriculture. Now you cannot grow all plants as soon as you start playing a new colony, but need to find (buy/craft) new seeds. It is not tedious, as unlocking each plant is permanent. Each new colony starts with 3 seeds only - cotton, healroot and a random food plant. This means that early game is not about planting rice and then corn anymore, but having to actually deal with whatever food plant you get (in combination with other mods that add more plants it works fantastic). Vanilla food variety forces to grow several plants at once. While Thermodynamics - Hot meals means that food has to microwaved (or warmed up on a stove) before eaten. I wish there were more mods like this to deepen agriculture mechanics.
- A bunch of mods that improve graphics and sound, such as Show me your hands, Soundscape Enhanced, Better Trees, Architecture on Rim (yet to actually use it tbh), Ambient Rim, Music on the rim, Realistic human sounds, P-music, Graphics settings, Rebuild: doors and corners,
- Layered wall destruction. Cool mod that deepens the fighting part by making walls partially destructible.
- Weapon proficiency. Now the colonists actually get better at weapons with time (seems a bit too OP though?).
- Diseases overhauled. I wanted to make diseases more deep. I haven't had much interactions with this mod and it seems a bit too complex for me, but I haven't found anything else that does the same thing.
I have really enjoyed the idea behind the Tilt the planet mod before it became whatever it became sadly. Happy to hear more suggestions if you have to deepen the game and its mechanics. Cheers.