There are 12 main skills in RimWorld that your colonists may learn and improve upon with your help.
All of these skills are extremely useful and can save your life, depending on the circumstances.
Recommended Read: RimWorld – Money Making Guide
So, since there are no bad skills in RimWorld, you would think that there are no skills that you could deem more important. However, that would be wrong.
Here are the most important skills you will want your colonists to have in RimWorld during the early, mid, and late game, and also which ones are vital in solo runs (Naked Brutality).
Table of contents
5 Most Important Skills in RimWorld Early Game
At the start of the game, even if you chose the 3 pawns Crashlanded scenario, or the 5 pawns Lost Tribe scenario, the skills that are the most important in RimWorld’s early game don’t change.
Here is a list of the 5 most important skills that your colonists will need in RimWorld during the early game:
1. Construction
When you just start the game, you will have a lot to build. Since you have to start working on your mega structure and also prepare furniture for most of the place, Construction easily takes the number one place.
No matter what scenario you choose, Construction is a must-have skill in the early game of RimWorld.
Once you start having a bit more colonists and the base already has a proper structure and killbox (if that is what you prefer), usually Construction loses its importance a bit.
2. Plants
There are three things you have to think about when starting your RimWorld playthrough: shelter, food, and medicine.
Luckily, the Plants skill provides all three of these things. As some of your pawns start working on building the necessary structures to survive, someone will have to cut trees for wood, plant rice to eat, and grow healroot for medicine.
The Plants skill will provide you with the most important resources in the game during all of your RimWorld playthroughs.
This is why you will need to make sure that you have at least two pawns that can properly work on the fields.
3. Medical
Now that you have shelter and food, you will need to make sure that your pawns won’t die the second that Randy Random decides to give them the plague.
You will have to face a lot of raids, and what specialization you choose for fighting (Melee or Shooting) won’t cover the fact that your colonists will get hurt.
So, you will need at least two pawns that have a passion for Medical if you don’t want to instantly die the second one of your doctors gets sick.
4. Intellectual
So the necessary skills to survive are there. Now you have to start thinking about the future. The Intellectual skill will allow you to research faster than normal.
If you want to thrive in RimWorld, you have to start thinking about research from the start. Get a pawn with a burning passion in Intellectual and make sure that they spend some time researching.
5. Mining
To make sure that your colony gets the necessary resources to survive raids in RimWorld, you will need to make sure you have proper rock blocks.
Either to build sturdy walls, beautiful floors, or stronger melee weapons, you will need to start mining rocks, and, usually, compacted steel.
If you want to advance technologically faster, you will need steel and electricity. This is why you will need someone that won’t spend a whole day mining a tile of compacted steel.
Most Important Skills in RimWorld Mid to Late Game
Even though you mostly need those 5 skills from earlier to survive and prepare for the long run in RimWorld, you will also need to pay attention to some other skills while you are at it.
Just because some of the skills from above don’t appear here, it doesn’t mean they aren’t important anymore, it just means they aren’t vital. These aren’t necessarily in any order, since they are equally important for your survival:
Shooting
We are sorry to tell all Melee fans this news but Shooting is the better skill in RimWorld, by far.
Melee risks the life of your pawns all the time, even if they have incredible armor. Also, if you really wanted to fight enemies in close combat, you would be better off using animals, since they are incredibly good at Melee and can easily be replaced.
Shooting is the most important skill for your pawns in the mid to late game, as it keeps your base safe from most dangers when combined with proper security structures.
Medical
The Medical skill will always be important in RimWorld, as you face dangerous threats every second on this planet.
Since operations will become relatively normal later in the game, a good doctor will save you a lot of time and resources.
Crafting
Though Crafting is relatively irrelevant in the early game, as it will only help you with clothes and some lower-level weapons, it becomes very important in the mid-game.
Crafting is necessary to get excellent clothes and weapons, which will allow you to keep your pawns happy and ready to fight.
Mining
Remember when we said that you will need steel? Well, in the late game, you will only need steel. However, steel will be nowhere to be found around your settlement.
You will have to venture far and mine at random locations to get steel, jade, plasteel, and other important rock resources.
Since you will have to go on caravans and fight to get these amazing materials, you will need good miners that can get the resources fast.
Otherwise, you will be stuck in faraway locations fighting raiders left and right.
Most Important Skills in RimWorld for Naked Brutality Start
If you want to challenge the hardest scenario in RimWorld, you will need to carefully choose your skills.
The Naked Brutality start challenges your resourcefulness skill and your ability to think outside the box.
This is why the best skills for a Naked Brutality start are, in order of priority:
- Social
- Construction
- Medical
- Plants
Social is probably the most important skill in the Naked Brutality start, as you will need to recruit a lot of people into your colony,
By having a really good skill in Social, you can recruit people faster than ever.
You will also need Construction to build a base and the necessary security structures to survive raids in the early game.
Medical will also be a must if you want raiders to survive, for you to recruit them, and also to tend your own wounds if something unexpected happened.
Plants will be a must since you will either die of hunger pretty fast. However, if you’ve chosen a decent map, you will most likely survive for a while only harvesting berries.
That’s everything you need to know about what skills are the most important in RimWorld!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.