OCTOBER 12-26, 2026 / DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
Tool Progression has spent the past two weeks expanding what a colony can make, how its people live, and what happens beyond its walls. The workshop now reaches through wrought iron into new electric tools. Vulpite families have received balance and appearance work. Factions can develop their own fortunes, while ground radio and travelling traders give the world map more reasons to matter.
This retrospective covers October 12-26, 2026. The newest package reviewed for this update is 0.1.190.146 FULL FIXED R4. It is a beta built against RimWorld 1.6.4871. References to 1.7 testing elsewhere on the site do not establish that this package supports the 1.7 beta. Feature availability also depends on the installed DLC and the options selected in the mod.
Early survival has received attention alongside late-game equipment. Stone and bone recipes at the Crafting Spot help a new settlement get moving. Cotton looms, raw-hide tanning, finished Bio-Arbor cloth and bench-side research aids give that settlement a production chain. Eight wrought-iron tools bridge the gap before steel, while the battery cultivator, cordless vacuum and electric knife expand powered work.
Smelting and lumber are independent optional systems. Their defaults changed during development: the current package follows the OFF-by-default behavior introduced in .118. Players can enable either system in Mod options. Older notes that describe the initial .114 defaults are historical records.
Vulpite updates cover inherited hair colors, additional hairstyles, family growth, clothing fit, alcohol policies and a global hunger multiplier. Vulpite V2 arrives as a selectable alternative with its own balance. It does not convert existing foxes or replace the original faction genome.
The Embroidered Envoy Robe now spans tribal crafting and noble clothing requirements. Eligible fox crafters need Crafting 5 and can choose fabric, leather or raw hides. Eleven bone furniture pieces bring thrones, dining furniture, beds, a crib and a research skeleton to the bonecarver's bench. Dyeable bedding keeps its bone frame untouched.
Merchant Tradition and the Caravanner role connect a colony's identity to trade. Visiting traders can have incoming and returning world-map markers. Living Factions tracks settlement resources, conflict and succession. Ground Radio introduces contact and discovery after Microelectronics, while unknown factions stay hidden by default until contact or exploration reveals them.
These features have boundaries. Trader markers represent itineraries, not interceptable caravans. Ground radio does not call orbital traders. The show-all-factions option changes visibility without granting Radio research. The detailed posts explain those distinctions before players build their plans around them.
Seasonal tree artwork now covers 26 native tree types, with seasonal palettes shared across 21 GMO trees. Later changes give trees more height and spread visual work across ticks. Job-selection fixes address fishing and salvage wait loops. The new-game setup fix targets a Learning Helper failure that could hide scenario setup windows.
The latest R4 work tackles a different frustration: colonists cleaning stains around Food Rot instead of taking the rot to a composter. Its native tests reproduce the work-priority conflict and exercise the corrected selection and delivery path. A live colony retest remains necessary.
The linked articles below explain the additions, practical setup, important limits and testing status. The build-history page preserves individual update notes so small fixes remain findable alongside the headline features. These articles document packaged beta work; they do not turn every passed fixture into a claim of complete in-game validation.
Created by Robert "Bob" Burke / Westgate WEBS, with co-creators Kristy Regalmann and DeathWishGamer. Kristy contributes as Graphic Artist, Developer, Coder, and WordPress and Social Media Specialist. DeathWishGamer collaborates on testing and the creation of the Vulpite and its ideology. The community's difficult colonies keep giving the project useful problems to solve.
October update index · System guides · Report a problem
A colony's first upgrade is often a tool that lets someone finish the job already waiting in front of them. October's early-workshop changes strengthen that first stretch: primitive recipes, usable production benches, cotton processing, tanning and research aids all contribute before a settlement reaches its electric ambitions.
Stone to electric should feel like a journey with useful stops. The iron and lumber updates add two optional production chains, then give early metalworking a reason to exist through eight wrought-iron tools. They offer a new route through colony industry without requiring every player to switch on both systems.
The powered workshop now reaches beyond mining and construction. The battery cultivator, cordless vacuum and electric knife bring electric-tool progression into planting, cleaning, cooking and butchering. They are carried work tools with batteries and wear, so the upgrade still depends on a colony's ordinary work assignments and supplies.
Fishing and trapping have grown into distinct activities with their own placement rules, equipment and collection work. The latest notes matter because some early instructions have changed: fishing baskets belong in suitable shallow water, while animal traps belong on dry land.
Food processing is most useful when it preserves a harvest without occupying a colonist for the entire wait. October's rack updates separate loading from processing, clarify yields and give brewing more room than a single beer barrel. The result is a pantry with more choices and a few rules worth learning before the first batch.
The original Vulpite has received more than a coat of paint. October's work reaches into gene overlap, family growth, clothing, food policies and the way fox features fit a pawn at different ages. The aim is a distinct colony identity with rules that players can understand and test.
Vulpite V2 gives players another way to begin a fox colony without rewriting the foxes already living in an existing save. Paired with the new hunger slider, it offers two distinct controls: choose the newer genome for a starting pawn, or adjust food drain for the Vulpite family already in play.
For a trading colony, the road is part of home. Merchant Tradition gives trade an ideological role, and the Caravanner expansion adds practical travel choices. The same stretch of updates also addresses the less glamorous details that make transport usable: sleeping animals, cropped wagon artwork, shared tether posts and saved travel injuries.
The world outside the colony has gained a longer memory and more activity. Living Factions tracks distant settlements, ground radio introduces discovery through contact, and visiting-trader journeys show where eligible trading groups are coming from and where surviving members return. These systems interact, but their settings and limits remain distinct.
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.
The Embroidered Envoy Robe now has a wider role in colony life. Its latest revision improves fit, adds beauty, broadens materials and lets a skilled fox crafter make it without a research gate. The same garment can remain useful as a settlement grows from a tribal camp toward a noble household.
Bonecarving now reaches into the rooms where a colony sleeps, eats, studies and holds court. The .144 furniture set brings eleven pieces to one crafting chain, with four directional views and a careful separation between natural bone frames and cloth that players can recolor.
A rare item is more memorable when it carries the name of its former owner and a reason to keep it. October's heirloom work builds on boss and ancient-creature rewards with connected histories, saved skill talents and a small chance of an item-bound daily power.
Food Rot should be something a colony can move and use, not a permanent source of fresh stains while cleaners circle it. The latest R4 revision tackles a work-priority conflict found in a supplied save, while the preceding updates protect rot from failed placement and add selected bones as compost inputs.
A large mod needs controls that can be found without reading the entire settings window. The new search field, grouped options and hunger shortcuts address that problem, while recipe search, saved bill presets and work-selection fixes reduce other points of friction around the colony.
Tool Progression's streamer tools are designed around an ordinary broadcast moment: the player steps away, but the colony remains worth watching. October's BRB changes add clearer controls and readable timing, while the reporting tools keep a bug report local until the player chooses to share it.
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.
New features attract attention, but a colony also needs to load, save, find its work and display the item the player selected. Much of October's development addresses those fundamentals. The fixes are specific to reproduced problems; they should be read as targeted repairs rather than a promise that every mod combination is now error-free.