Rimworld How To Bury Colonist

In RimWorld, managing the deceased colonists is an important aspect of maintaining your colony’s morale and overall functionality. When a colonist dies, whether due to combat, disease, or accidents, their body needs to be dealt with properly to avoid negative mood impacts on your surviving settlers. Learning how to bury a colonist efficiently and respectfully can make a big difference in your gameplay experience, especially as your colony grows and more deaths inevitably occur.

Why Burying Colonists Matters in RimWorld

Burying colonists in RimWorld isn’t just a matter of aesthetics. Leaving dead bodies out in the open can lead to a variety of problems, such as the spread of disease, increased negative mood effects among other colonists, and the attraction of scavengers or wild animals. Properly disposing of bodies helps maintain colony hygiene and improves the mental health of your settlers by showing respect for the fallen.

Impact on Colony Morale

Colonists who witness dead bodies or remain close to unburied corpses often suffer mood penalties. These penalties can lead to mental breaks, which disrupt your colony’s efficiency and can cause chaos. Building graves and organizing proper burials helps mitigate these mood penalties and keeps your colonists in better spirits.

Methods of Burying Colonists in RimWorld

RimWorld offers several ways to handle deceased colonists. Choosing the right method depends on your colony’s resources, technology level, and personal preference for managing death.

Building Graves

The most straightforward and commonly used method is constructing graves. Graves are simple to build, require minimal resources, and provide a designated place to bury bodies.

• Materials Needed: Graves typically require wood, stone, or steel depending on your biome and available materials.
• Construction: Select the ‘Grave’ option from the furniture menu and place it in a cemetery or designated burial area.
• Assigning Corpses: Once built, designate the grave as a dumping spot for corpses in the zone settings. Colonists will automatically haul dead bodies to the graves.

Graves provide a small positive mood boost for colonists visiting the cemetery and show respect for the dead, which helps maintain colony morale.

Using Cryptosleep Caskets

For players with more advanced technology, cryptosleep caskets offer an alternative way to preserve bodies. While traditionally used to place incapacitated colonists or guests in stasis, they can also be used to store dead bodies indefinitely, preventing decomposition and negative effects.

• Requires Research: Unlocking cryptosleep caskets demands technological progression and significant resource investment.
• Preservation: Bodies inside cryptosleep caskets do not rot or cause negative mood effects, making them ideal for long-term storage.
• Limitations: Limited number of caskets and high resource costs mean this method is usually reserved for special cases.

Cremation

Another method to handle dead colonists is cremation. This process involves burning bodies to ashes, eliminating the corpse but not allowing for traditional burial honors.

• Building a Crematorium: Requires advanced technology and resources to construct specialized crematorium facilities.
• Speed: Cremation is faster than burial and reduces space used in your colony.
• Emotional Impact: Some colonists may react negatively to cremation, so consider colony mood and culture before choosing this method.

Step-by-Step Guide to Burying Colonists

For new players or those unfamiliar with RimWorld’s corpse management, here is a detailed guide on how to bury your colonists effectively.

Step 1: Build Graves

Start by gathering basic materials such as wood or stone. Open the furniture menu and select ‘Grave.’ Place the graves in a suitable location, preferably away from food storage or living areas to prevent mood penalties related to proximity.

Step 2: Set Up a Dumping Zone

Create a dumping zone specifically for corpses near the cemetery area. In the zone settings, mark the area as ‘Allow Dumping.’ This will help your colonists know where to haul the bodies.

Step 3: Enable Hauling of Corpses

Ensure your colonists have the hauling job enabled in their work priorities. The colonist assigned to hauling will automatically collect the bodies from where they fall and transport them to the graves.

Step 4: Manage Burial Orders

If necessary, manually prioritize hauling jobs or restrict colonists to specific areas to optimize corpse collection. You can also temporarily pause other tasks to expedite burials during emergencies.

Step 5: Monitor Colonist Moods

After burial, check colonist mood icons to confirm that negative thoughts about dead bodies have been alleviated. You may also consider building memorials or tombstones for additional morale benefits.

Tips for Efficient Burial Management

• Designate a Cemetery Zone: Having a dedicated cemetery makes corpse management organized and visually clear.
• Use Tombstones: Placing tombstones on graves improves colonist morale more than graves alone.
• Keep Burial Areas Clean: Regularly clear debris and dead animals near graves to avoid additional mood penalties.
• Use Prisoner or Guest Beds for Dying Colonists: Placing seriously injured colonists in beds can delay death and provide time for medical care or last rites.
• Consider Colonist Traits: Some colonists may have traits that affect their reactions to death and corpses, such as ‘Psychopath’ or ‘Compassionate.’

Common Challenges When Burying Colonists

While burying colonists seems straightforward, there are challenges players often encounter.

Insufficient Haulers

If your colony lacks enough colonists assigned to hauling, corpse removal can be slow, leading to negative mood effects. Increasing hauling priorities or recruiting more colonists can solve this.

Resource Shortages

Limited building materials can delay grave construction. Prioritize gathering wood, stone, or steel early to prepare for inevitable deaths.

Hostile Environment

In some biomes, scavengers or wild animals may interfere with unburied corpses, causing further problems. Quick burials or defenses near cemeteries can mitigate these issues.

Understanding how to bury colonists in RimWorld is a crucial part of successful colony management. Proper corpse disposal prevents disease, reduces mood penalties, and honors the memory of fallen settlers. Whether you choose to build graves, use cryptosleep caskets, or opt for cremation, planning ahead and organizing your burial processes will keep your colony running smoothly. Keeping your colonists’ mental health in check by respecting the dead is one of the many intricate layers that make RimWorld a deeply immersive and rewarding experience.