What it shows
- Game speed: pause, normal, fast and superfast, lit when it is the game's speed. When danger holds the game at normal speed, the key says so.
- Colonists, in the colonist bar's order: a mood bar with each colonist's own mental break thresholds marked, health, and the one thing worth knowing (a mental break, downed, drafted, bleeding, needs tending, in a caravan, asleep, break risk), with their job at the foot.
- Alerts, worst first: a count with the worst one named, or a key for each. Critical alerts are red.
- Letters, newest first, with their kind and how long ago they came.
- Readouts: the time, date, season, weather, outdoor temperature in your game's unit, conditions such as a cold snap, colony wealth, colonists, average mood, threats, research, silver, food in days, medicine, components, steel and wood.
- Gauges: research progress, mood, health and days of food, on one key or across a row.
The keys update about once a second, and work in any game language: names of colonists, alerts, letters and research are the game's own words.
What you need
- Windows 10 or 11 with Stream Deck software 7.1 or newer.
- A Stream Deck, Stream Deck XL, Stream Deck +, Stream Deck Mini, Stream Deck Neo or a Corsair Galleon 100 SD.
- RimWorld 1.5 or 1.6. The mod also carries a build for the 1.7 beta, not yet marked as supported there.
- Our Colony Deck Bridge mod, enabled in the game (below). It needs no other mod.
1. Install the plugin
In testing. Colony Deck and its mod are built, against the current game, and are going through their first run in the game. This page will link to the plugin, and the mod will be posted, once that run has checked them against the game itself.
2. The Colony Deck Bridge mod
RimWorld does not share its state with other programs, so Colony Deck comes with a small companion mod,
Colony Deck Bridge. About once a second, paused too, it writes the colony's state to a small
file on your PC, %APPDATA%\, and it takes the key presses the plugin
leaves beside it.
Coming to the Steam Workshop and GitHub. Colony Deck Bridge is built and will be posted there, as its own download, once it has had its first run in the game. It is open source (MIT).
Install the mod
- Subscribe to Colony Deck Bridge on the Steam Workshop, or unzip it into the game's
Modsfolder so thatMods\exists.ColonyDeckBridge\ About\ About.xml - Tick it in the game's Mods list. It can go anywhere in the load order.
- Load a colony. The keys come alive within a second.
- It is safe to add to an existing save, and it keeps no data in your save. If you remove it later, the game logs one harmless "could not find class" line the next time it loads that save.
- It patches nothing in the game (it does not need Harmony), opens no network connection and writes nowhere else.
- It has no settings of its own.
Every Colony Deck key's settings have a Setup section that says whether the mod's file is there and which version wrote it. Without it the keys say what is missing instead of going blank: add the mod to RimWorld before the mod has ever written its file, game not running, at the menu or loading.
3. The Colony Deck key and its pages
Drag the Colony Deck key onto any profile and press it: your deck opens a ready-made layout with five pages, with Back at the bottom left of every page.
- Colony: the time, weather, threats, colonists and alerts, the speed keys and research, and on the larger decks the date, season, your first colonists, silver, food and letters.
- Colonists: a key for each colonist, up to 24 on the XL, with Pause and the threats.
- Alerts: the alerts worst first and the letters newest first, with the threats and Pause.
- Research: the project and a research bar, and keys for the game's tabs.
- Resources: silver, food, medicine, components, steel and wood, a food bar, wealth, and the weather.
There is a layout for the Stream Deck, XL, +, Mini, Neo and Corsair Galleon 100 SD. Stream Deck offers them when the plugin is installed. On the Stream Deck + and the Galleon 100 SD every page fills all four dial screens: turn through colonists to select or draft them, through alerts and letters, through resources and the weather, or turn the game slower and faster. On the Galleon 100 SD the two dials and their second layer (hold a dial for about 3 seconds) carry the four screens.
Follow
With the Follow key on, the deck turns to Colonists when raiders arrive or a colonist goes down or breaks, and to Alerts for a critical alert. It can also turn to Research when no project is chosen (off unless you tick it). A page you choose by hand stays put until something new happens, and nothing turns at the menu or with the game closed.
4. The keys and dials
| Key | Shows | A press |
|---|---|---|
| Game Speed | Pause, Normal, Fast, Superfast, or the speed now | Pauses or resumes, sets that speed, or steps the speed up |
| Colonist | The 1st to 24th colonist in the bar: mood, health, the worst thing about them, their job | Selects them and jumps to them; hold to draft or undraft (or the other way round, as you choose) |
| Alert | How many and the worst, or the 1st to 16th worst | Shows what the alert points at; again for the next |
| Letter | The newest to the 8th newest letter, its kind and how long ago | Opens it |
| Readout | Time, date, season, weather, outdoors, conditions, colony, wealth, colonists, mood, threats, letters, research, researched, silver, food, medicine, components, steel or wood | Opens what it is about, where there is something: the research tab, the newest letter, the colonist with the lowest mood or the hungriest |
| Gauge | Research, mood, health or food as a bar, on one key or up to four across | The research tab, or the colonist lowest in it |
| Open Tab | Work, Schedule, Assign, Animals, Wildlife, Research, Quests, World, History, Factions, Architect or Ideoligion (with the Ideology expansion) | Opens the tab; again to close it |
| Follow | On or off, and what it follows | Turns Follow on or off |
On a Stream Deck + or a Galleon 100 SD, Game Speed, Colonist, Alert, Letter, Readout and Gauge also go on the dials, drawn across the whole dial screen. Turn the speed dial for slower or faster (all the way down pauses); turn a colonist, alert or letter dial to step through them; turn a readout dial through its group. A push pauses, selects, drafts, shows or opens; on the Stream Deck + a touch on the strip does the same.
5. What a press does in the game
Every press is one click in the game and nothing more: the same as the game's own pause button, speed buttons, Draft button, colonist portrait, alert, letter or tab button. The mod refuses what the game would not offer at that moment: a downed colonist cannot be drafted, for example. No cheats, no items, no time skipped beyond the game's own speeds (ultrafast stays a developer-mode speed).
- The plugin sends no key presses: it leaves each press in a second small file,
command.json, in the same folder, and the mod carries it out once and deletes it. A press the game has not picked up in 4 seconds is withdrawn, and the key says no answer.
Also on the XENEON EDGE
Colony Dashboard, our iCUE widget for the Corsair XENEON EDGE, reads the same file the mod writes: your colony, colonists, alerts, letters, resources and research on the touchscreen under your monitor. It needs the mod, not the Stream Deck plugin.
6. What it can and cannot do
- The plugin and the mod talk only through two small files in
%APPDATA%\. Neither opens a network connection. No account. Nothing leaves your PC.ColonyDeck - A press does one thing the game itself offers, as above. Nothing is pressed on a timer.
- The mod writes only that folder and patches nothing in the game.
- The plugin's log holds states, command names and page numbers only, never your colony's or colonists' names.
Frequently asked
The keys say add the mod to RimWorld.
Colony Deck Bridge has never written its file. Check that it is ticked in the game's Mods list, then load a colony. The Setup section in any key's settings says what it sees.
A key says no answer.
The game did not pick up the press within 4 seconds, usually because it is loading or not running. Try again once the colony is up.
Can I remove the mod from a save?
Yes. It keeps no data in your save; the game logs one harmless "could not find class" line the next time it loads that save, and carries on.
Does it work with other mods and DLC?
It patches nothing, so it should sit alongside other mods, anywhere in the load order. The Ideoligion tab key needs the Ideology expansion. Research counts the main research tree.
Is this made by Ludeon Studios?
No. Colony Deck and Colony Deck Bridge are unofficial projects made by TeaTime, not affiliated with or endorsed by Ludeon Studios. RimWorld is a trademark of Ludeon Studios. No game logo, artwork, font or screenshot is used: every key is drawn in code.
Something is still wrong.
Email support@teatimeservers.ca and tell us what the keys say.