A core part ofRimWorld: Odysseyis developing your own gravship. This is a new option for colonies that allows you to build out from a Grav Engine and, with the right structures attached, start flying your entire colony around to different hexes.
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The issue you’re likely to run into is that space on these ships can be limited, especially without upgrades. This guide will help explain both how to expand your ship’s size limit and also give tips on using whatever space you do have more efficiently.
Gravcores and Gravlite Panels
Gravships are expanded by attaching Substructure to your Grav Engine, with any Substructures needing to be placed in your ship’s gravity field (it’s pretty obvious where you can build once you click on your Grav Engine). Once Substructure is built, anything put on top of it will fly as part of your ship as long as the Substructure remains properly attached.
This means an immediate limiting factor is the new Gravlite Panel material.This item, added by Odyssey, is used to build Substructure and some other ship parts. Substructure also requires a small amount of steel per tile, but that’smuchmore common. Gravlite Panels are sometimes sold by merchants, usually in small amounts, but you will find them in much greater quantities at the various types of Gravcore sites you will periodically learn about (usually automatically).
These sites are special hexes containing Gravcores, another item critical to expanding your ship.Gravcores are required to build Grav Field Extenders, which extend the gravity field of a gravship they’re attached to and also increase its Substructure limit by 250 (with the initial, unupgraded limit set at 500).Examples of these sites include:
All of these sites tend to contain a decent number of Gravlite Panels and at least one Gravcore. However, verify you’re ready for a fight when exploring them.These sites can contain a variety of dangers, including wandering robotic sentries, ancient turrets, tiny poisonous drones, and the especially nasty suicide bombing Hunter Drones.
A major milestone for those interested in making a gravship-centric colony is the Advanced Gravtechresearch project. Among other things, this allows you to create your own Gravlite Panels at a Fabrication Bench. The recipe requires 5 Vacstone Blocks, meaning you must figure out a way to safely visit the vacuum of space, but it’s a more consistent source of panels once you figure out the logistics.
Deciding on Your Design Priorities
Due to RimWorld’s complexity, especially withall its earlier DLCs, there isn’t a singular best way to build a gravship. Odyssey definitely expects you tohavea ship, but structures like Grav Anchors (which you can learn to make early in the Gravtech research tree, but which require a hefty 300 Plasteel, 80 Gravlite panels, and 5 Advanced components to build) allow you to have a static location act as your primary base or just a hex to store bigger structures and excess items without losing everything the moment your ship leaves the hex.
Alternatively, you’re able to try to make your colony completely mobile, making your gravship your only permanent home and only occasionally build around it when you land to perhaps get some supplemental power generation or defensive walls up, only to eventually leave those smaller investments behind when it’s time to go (maybe desconstructing them for a partial resource refund before you leave).
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Whatever the case, you’ll still want to collect Gravcores and Gravlite Panels to get a decently big building space for your ship.The real question is what structures you think your ship will benefit from. For example, a fully autonomous gravship will almost certainly need several Hydroponics Basins (probably at least four, likely more as you gain more colonists), but that also means you’ll need at least one Sun Lamp, which are fairly serious power drains. That then means you need decent power generation, with Solar Generators a fairly good consistent source of energy and Wood and Chemfuel Generators alright for a more controlled boost of powerifyou can routinely get the fuel they need.
At least initially, you may literally not have enough space on your gravship to contain everything you want to build. The good news is that defenses and many larger structures, like Wind Turbines and Solar Generators, can often be easily built with the resources available on a new map.
While you can eventually carry everything or almost everything you need with you, there’s nothing wrong with amostlyautonomous ship that requires you to quickly build some structures around it when it lands to get it fully operational. This isn’ttotallywithout risk, but most biomes generate maps that should have enough Components and Steel to at least make what you need to power your food generators and HVAC systems long enough to jump somewhere better if the map is a bit barren.
The Importance of Efficient Design
Building somewhat big in RimWorld is often a good habit when you have the resources. Long thick walls can keep you safe and big rooms can fit many buildings inside while also tending to boost the mood of your colonists. There is also a work speed bonus when you allow rooms to be specialized, such as with Laboratories and Workshops.
Gravships require rethinking how you build, as you only have so much space to work with. Initially, that space is pretty limited; 500 tiles isn’tthatmuch, and you’re unlikely to get enough Gravlite Panels to even hit that Substructure limit for at least a few Quadrums.
In testing, one early challenge was learning to accept that a ship, at least to start, is inherently less defensible than a typical colony base.You just won’t have the space to dedicate to things like double-thick walls and trapsonyour ship. It makes sense to build these defenses soon after you land your ship, but it will be a while (if ever) before you can justify using Substructure space to make something like even a modest kill box and other go-to raid defenses.
Whenever possible, consider how big roomsneedto be to fit what you want inside them. Additionally, consider what rooms are actually necessary. Individual bedrooms are nice, but a Barracks ismucheasier to fit.Some production structures, like a Butcher Table, don’t suffer much from a work penalty in terms of actual time loss, and can thus be placed in less than ideal places.A hyperefficient player might even have some structures they keep uninstalled, stored away in a single tile of space, and then only place them down when needed. Once you’re done, you can then pick them up again.
Final Advice
While Gravlite Panels and Gravcores are going to be a critical part of expanding a gravship so it can eventually support everything you need, be careful jumping to the relatively dangerous sites that hide these materials too quickly. Expect those hexes to have fewer normal resources like Steel, Components, Wood, and more (with the specifics varying by the site’s type) than you typically might expect. Additionally, while the difficulty can vary, therewillbe enemies guarding around gravtech materials, so make sure your colonists are ready for a fight. Both the dormant stinging and explosive drones can be hard to spot if you’re not careful, so make sure to keep your eyes peeled for enemy spawners, or you could get a nasty surprise.
Once you have some gravtech materials, it’s often a good idea to hop to a more standard hex and then expand your ship with what you have before jumping again. Aneasy trap to fall intois jumping every time the option is available; allow yourself a window when you land somewhere with decent amounts of resources to chop, mine, and harvest to actually build up your gravship and its essentials (like Chemfuel) before moving on.
