Shelter, Sparks and Old Bones: Defenses, EMP Protection and Remains
OCTOBER 12-26, 2026 / DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
Some colony systems exist for the day a routine plan fails: a fire reaches the stores, a solar flare cuts the grid, or an invader leaves more than a memory at the gate. October's defensive and remains work combines those practical systems with visual corrections and explicit optional settings.
Roofing remains a testing choice
The material-roof system is optional, defaults OFF and is labelled in testing in the relevant build notes. Roof-view and job-search updates improve inspection and reduce unnecessary search work, but the system should not be described as a completed cure for every performance issue. Check the setting and the roof tools before adding it to an established colony.
Hay-covered plain and spiked pit traps offer another construction choice. Adjacent traps can form a trench-like line. The later placement fix uses the correct concrete trap class. Placement, triggering and the behavior of friendly or disoriented pawns still warrant a live test; a blueprint that can be placed is only the beginning of that behavior.
Protect a working grid
The EMP and solar-flare protector requires Electromagnetic protection after Microelectronics. It has a two-by-two footprint, a twelve-tile circular radius and a 400 W draw. Its six-hour internal backup starts empty, charges from external power and is saved with the building.
The backup runs the protective field, not every machine inside it. Covered devices still need a functioning electrical grid, sufficient generation or stored energy, connected wires and working components. Protection does not cancel the map-wide solar flare or ordinary breakdowns. Same-faction protection also does not grant hostile units the player's benefit merely because they stand inside the field.
The .76 correction targets RimWorld 1.6's actual solar-outage path. Exposed devices on a shared network remain disabled, while covered components use normal power calculations. Later configuration work fixes the protector's building definition. A useful test compares protected and exposed devices on the same grid, then checks what happens when generation or field backup is lost.
Give remains the right appearance
Impaled-invader display work adds directional art and later corrections to placement, selection and persistence. The displays connect to the mod's terror and suppression systems. Their visual history belongs alongside the colony's defenses, while explicit build notes remain the authority for their exact current behavior.
The .137 Vulpite remains update uses compact native skeleton heads and bodies without drawn arms or legs, hides the furry ears and tail on dried remains, and adds a bone tail that follows corpse orientation and body scale. Anomaly-reanimated Vulpites retain fleshy fox features until native decay selects the skeleton appearance. Reanimation itself remains Anomaly's system.
The optional shambler-feeding feature remains OFF by default. The remains artwork does not imply a new undead faction or a separate reanimation campaign. These distinctions help players choose the systems they want while testing the relevant visuals, power transitions and save behavior in game.