Tip 1: Remember, if you don't know what something is or what it does, you can almost always click the 'i' button somewhere on its panel to get more information. This is also how you get detailed information.

Tip 2: If you click on a Colonist, you can get various bits of information about them by using the tabs above their panel, but the most useful ones are Character and Needs. Character gives their skills and unique traits. Needs will tell you their mental state. At first, you can't do much to alleviate needs like a personal bedroom (always at least 5 by 5 in size!) or a desire for robot limbs, but it's easy to make a Nudist happy by going to the Assign menu and giving them permission to never wear clothes.

Tip 3: Using the Power section in the Architect menu, build Wind Turbines and Solar Panels, then connect them to batteries to store up energy. Make sure to keep your batteries indoors—they get disastrous when wet. Once you've done that, Wall off or dig out a good size room near your common area and install Coolers, under Temperature with their blue side facing inwards. Make sure the red side points outdoors. Set their target temperature to 0 Celsius, make the inside of the room a Stockpile for raw food, to-be-butchered animal bodies, and prepared meals. Voila, you have a freezer. Now you won't starve when winter comes.

Tip 4: Prepare for your first winter by ensuring that you've made a tailoring bench and a few Parkas and Tuques—unless you're in the tropics or the desert, where you should be focusing on Dusters and Cowboy Hats to keep off the heat.

Tip 5: Wild and Tamed animals will eat your crops and food if you let them. Kill the wild animals and restrict your animals in a zone that only contains hay or kibble.

Tip 6: Visitors will get into your freezer and drink your beer regardless if you forbid doors.

Tip 7: The notification when a hungry predator attacks a colonist is easily missed, only manhunters trigger the red flashing envelope notification. Be wary if there's a wild predator hanging around your base.

Tip 8: If a person crash lands in an escape pod and you want to recruit them, you must capture them and then recruit them like any other prisoner, even if they're a colonist's family member. If you choose rescue, they will simply be released when they're healed.

Tip 9: RimWorld's character economy is driven entirely by beds. To take prisoners from those who crash nearby or only get disabled when attacking you, and thereby get new converts to your settlement, you'll need to put beds or sleeping spots in an enclosed room and mark them as prisoner beds along the bottom. Then, under each prisoner's unique tab, tell your Wardens to recruit them. Take care not to crowd too much or you'll end up with the same kinds of problems that crowding your Colonists gives! Oh, and, if their recruitment difficulty is too high go to the Health tab and harvest their organs for sale on the black market. Or let them go to gain goodwill with their tribe. Or just execute them if they're filthy pirates.

Tip 10: Got a good Animals skill among your crew? Tame some of the local beasts like alpaca or muffalo for a source of wool and milk that your Colonists will automatically harvest. If you're feeling particularly daring you can try to tame wolves or lions. Under the Animals tab you can set restrictions on where your creatures are allowed to go. (Keep them out of your food stores. They'll eat your food and drink your beer.) You can also set specific animals to be trained in specific ways-camels as hauling creatures and huskies as companion and rescue dogs, for example.

Tip 11: Don't forget to get creative! Some of the best moments in games like this are because you used something in a way it wasn't intended to be used. Make a death trap using steam vents! Build an empire based on raising and selling dogs to passing trade ships! Build stasis capsules and use them to keep prisoners in suspended animation until you can sell them off!

Tip 12: The best way to learn RimWorld is to play and find the fun in failure. Maybe your whole colony will burn to the ground, but something funny will probably happen in the process.