There is only one way to learn new technology and get to build incredible mechanical machines in RimWorld: by doing research.
However, most often than not, you can end up with your colonists doing anything but research, as they are too preoccupied with cutting trees.
Recommended Read: What do Chickens Eat in RimWorld?
Well, you will need your pawns to start learning some new things. Otherwise, you will be stuck in medieval times while your raiders will have rocket launchers.
So, here is how you can do research in RimWorld, even if your colonists want to or not.
Table of contents
- How to Do Research in RimWorld
- How to Set Job Priority of Research in RimWorld
- What Should You Research in RimWorld
How to Do Research in RimWorld
To do research in RimWorld, you will first need to build a research bench. There should be only one type at the start of the game, the simple research bench.
You will also need a pawn to have the Research task checked in in the Work tab. That pawn will start researching when they are done doing some of their other tasks around the colony.
Since all the tasks are ordered in terms of priority, and Research is listed as the last one on the priority chart, pawns will almost never start researching.
So, to make sure that you actually do research, stop your pawn from doing most of the other jobs besides research.
How to Set Job Priority of Research in RimWorld
If you still want them to do more jobs but set research as a higher priority job, you can do that by setting Manual priorities.
You can start setting Manual priorities by going into the Work tab and clicking the red X in the top left corner of the menu.
Now, all the jobs will have numbers that will represent their priority:
- 4 – Low priority
- 3 – Normal priority
- 2 – High priority
- 1 – Top priority
Set the Research of your intelligent pawn to 1, and they will only research every chance they get. One problem is that research is supposed to be a long-term investment. So, unfortunately, the pawn won’t be able to do anything else besides sleep and recreate.
This is why it would be better to use the normal work priority system. Just make the researcher do simple jobs that don’t take all of their time.
You should avoid giving them jobs such as Haul and Clean. These can take a much longer time than it should be normal.
What Should You Research in RimWorld
Now that you have someone that spends all of their time researching, you should also consider what they should be researching.
Depending on your circumstances, it is most likely that you will have to research everything that will allow you to discover how to make the ship faster.
Usually, there are some specific things players need to research at the start of a RimWorld playthrough, but on harder difficulties, you will also need to prioritize learning how to make better weapons and turrets for your colony.
That’s everything you need to know about how to do research in RimWorld!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
