A Taller, Wilder Colony: Seasonal Trees, Bio-Arbor and Beekeeping
OCTOBER 12-26, 2026 / DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
The colony landscape now has more seasonal character, more useful plant distinctions and trees that feel like trees beside a pawn. Bio-Arbor's cultivation work and the native-tree art pass share a practical goal: make the living world readable without changing an orchard's identity every time its artwork changes.
Four seasons, more height
The .131 art update introduces detailed artwork for 26 native tree types, seven dormant sprites and four seasonal palettes shared with 21 GMO trees. Snow handling considers local warmth, shelter, snow biomes and vacuum. Fruit states, existing plant identities and the associated powers are retained.
Later sizing changes first enlarge rare and GMO trees, then .142 makes trees using native plant drawing 40% taller than .141 while retaining their current width and ground anchor. That is a visual height adjustment relative to the preceding build, not a universal promise that every tree is exactly 40% taller than unmodded RimWorld. Native, DLC, seasonal and GMO trees using the supported drawing path are included.
The .133 performance pass replaces recurring whole-map visual scans with a transient registry spread across 250 ticks. It also reduces repeated graphics work. The release does not claim a measured frame-rate gain on every machine, and the art resolution, yields and gameplay settings were not reduced for that pass.
Plant the seed, keep the harvest
The plant descriptions now distinguish orchard food, seeds and saplings. Harvested fruit is food; it is not a plantable seed. Seed labels provide readable research instructions. The .78 balance sets ripe-harvest seed chances by category: ordinary orchard and grape cultivars 10%, base GMO plants 5%, mutant cultivars 2.5%, and Amberheart or Glassleaf 1%. Ripe cutting stays at 1%; immature plants give no seeds.
The .79 expansion adds DLC-gated Bio-Arbor plants, mineral-fed space vines, a mineral feeder, ceremonial decorations, hemogen processing, whisperroot medicine and Odyssey debris salvage. Each addition follows its own DLC and research conditions. A sparse Bio-Arbor seed vault is a separate exploration feature; it is not the still-proposed dedicated Bio-Arbor story questline.
Give the hives room to live
The earlier GMO-hive expansion allows full, active, non-toxic colonies a daily 5% chance to establish a nearby nest when suitable healthy forage is available. The new nest begins with three workers taken from the source colony. Harvesting is a bare-handed Animals task, with direct-order and station-interaction fixes in the period's build history.
Harvest grass with an order
The .146 grass revision extends hay harvesting to gray, yellow, tall yellow and night grass while retaining ordinary grass, tall grass and haygrass. Use Orders > Harvest above 65% growth. Harvest leaves 20% growth for regrowth; Cut plants clears the plant instead. Work priorities alone do not create a harvest designation. Optional DLC grass definitions are skipped when absent. As with the tree and hive work, definition and fixture checks still need a live seasonal and harvesting test in the intended colony.