Patch 1.11
Today we are releasing the 1.11 patch codenamed: “Teach Me”. Alongside the usual bug fixes it introduces a collection of new features and improvements built to help all players experience the full depth of RimWorld.
With this release we are trying out a new video series not just showing what’s new in the patch but including some behind the scenes elements and introducing you to the members of the team. We plan to build on this format for future editions and are excited to share this.
What’s New
The Learning Helper
We are excited to be bringing you the Learning Helper! The biggest new feature, of the patch the Learning Helper is here to give first time and existing players a better grasp of the depth of the RimWorld’s deep simulation. The intelligent engine delivers lessons when you need it and is out the way when you don't while tracking your progress through them. If you’re playing RimWorld and something happens in the game relating to a concept you haven’t experienced before, a lesson will be activated and a new badge will shown in the alerts hud.
Don’t worry about repeating a lesson you’ve already done. Lessons will be automatically marked as learned when you complete them, and you also have the option to mark them off manually. Learning progress will be tracked between saved games too.
Of course you can access the learner helper at any time and explore any concept at your own pace. The friendly search filter allows you to quickly look for any lesson, built with controller in mind entering topic terms is really fast.
It took a lot of work to bring this feature to the game and the work doesn't stop here, we will review feedback and continue to improve this over time.
New Message and Alert Hubs
Story is key in RimWorld, and Alerts, messages and quests are the core of a good story so we are excited to reveal the brand new inbox, revamped from the ground up. Accessed anytime by pressing the RB/R1 button, you are first presented with a familiar sight of the pinned alerts, with fast access to key actions, which we know players love. Nothing has changed there but you will notice new button prompts and number badges at the top of the hud.
Since a lot can happen, fast, in RimWorld these badges will help you keep track of anything you may have missed, showing you the number of unread items. All of this is hidden until you press the RB/R1, that way we keep the hub clean while you are enjoying the story or in the middle of the action, but it super fast to access for quick glances and checks.
By pressing the view button or touch pad you can access the all new inbox. Split into three sections: alerts, unread messages and historical messages. Access is faster and more convenient, these are ordered by in-game date, with the details of the item on the right hand side, making the content easier to read and actions faster to perform. All actions are easy to perform and removing alerts / messages no longer closes the panel, so management is much faster and easier. The log of previous events and messages are also easy to access from here.
Quests are accessed by X / circle button, with quest manger panel showing you all your quests. Those that need to be accepted show in the available tab, unseen quests show as a number badge. Any quests you have in progress appear in the second tab, with full details and all complete or failed show in the history tab.
Colonist names and stack sizes
This much requested feature finally comes to console - while simple on the surface this was technically challenging and we are excited to have made it possible. You can access this feature from the overlays menu. Hold LT / L2 and press d-pad right to toggle them on. From then on whenever you want to see the labels just hold the button down, release to hide them again. Once again we have tried our best to make things fast and clean for console players.
Bug fixes and improvements
The new patch includes the most bugs fixes and improvements to date. The patch note page listed around 125 of the changes you are most likely to notice and in addition we have a lot of performance tweaks and work conducted to build foundations for future updates. Community reports across Twitter, Reddit and Discord really helped us find some of the more uncommon or hard to reproduce bugs in the game, and we have addressed a lot of them in this patch. Thank you for all the reports! Even with a large team of skilled QA an infinitely repayable game like RimWorld, with its deep complexity, and mechanics, throws so many unexpected events and scenarios at players, community reports are vital. To make the process faster and give you a direct route to the QA team we have a bug reporting form which can be found at rimworld.double11.com/bugs - which also has a suggestions and other report types.