Today we are covering Uranium, in the widely popular colony simulator game Rimworld. Rimworld features a resource system fairly similar to Dwarf Fortress, where there are many different types of ores with different uses and properties. One of these ores is Uranium. We will cover what Uranium can be used for in Rimworld, how to get more Uranium and how to make the best use of it. You can get Uranium by mining Uranium Ore, through trading with other factions or through Quests.
What is Uranium?
Uranium, in Rimworld is based on the real life metal of the same name. It is commonly used as an ingredient in weaponry due to its radioactive properties. Although it can function the same way in Rimworld it is actually used for a large variety of different things. Not only can it be used for making advanced weaponry, it can also be used in most constructions as a wall material, in artworks and for many of the production workshops. It is a pretty rare ore resource along with Plasteel.
This guide will go into some of the main uses of Uranium in Rimworld and some of the things that you should and should not use it for.
Contents:
- Uranium Ore
- What can Uranium be used for?
Construction uses
Production
Weapons and Armor
Ship parts - How to get Uranium
Mining
Deep Drill
Trading
Quests and Events
Uranium Ore
Uranium Ore is Uranium that is packed into a mountain or rock. This is a block that is mineable for your colony and is the best source of Uranium in the game. Once you have mined the ore, unlike other mountain resources you do not have to do any kind of processing to get Uranium, it is simply there after mining the ore. As you can see in the resource above, Uranium Ore has 4000 hit points or health. This makes it one of the slowest ores to mine in Rimworld as your colonists will have to break through all of the hit points to get that sweet radioactive material. You will collect 40 units of Uranium from each tile of Uranium Ore that is mined, although that figure can be better or worse based on your colonists mining skill and the sandbox settings defined at the start of the game.
Uranium Ore will spawn inside mountains. There is also a rare chance that a meteorite will drop on your colony that is composed of Uranium Ore. This event can happen randomly and some type of ore will drop anywhere on the map, including inside your base or on a colonist. The meteorite will be around 9-12 tiles worth of ore.
What is Uranium used for?
Uranium is generally considered a late-game resource as it is fairly hard to come by and only used in advanced recipes. Although it is considered a late-game resource it can absolutely be used early games in a great deal of recipes. For example the club is one of the earliest Melee Weapons you will be able to make in the game. Uranium can be used as a resource to create the club and in fact can produce the strongest club DPS-wise when compared to other resources in the game. When used to create a Mace it can create the strongest blunt weapon in the game. We will talk about some of the practical uses with images below.
Uranium in construction
Uranium can be used just like the different stone types, to build walls for your colony. This isn’t exactly recommended as other resources are more readily available and as Uranium is a rather rare resource it is seen as kind of a waste to use it for walls. The hit points for the wall are 750 which makes is a very solid wall. The value is well beyond any of the stone blocks but nowhere near as readily available as stone blocks.
Production
Uranium can be used to build most of the production items or ‘crafting stations’ in the game. Using Uranium for any of these items will not give a boost to the quality of the created items and will not provide any speed benefit to the station. The only advantage that using Uranium for these facilities is that the hit points will be higher as opposed to using steel for example. Whilst this isn’t the greatest use of Uranium, if you find yourself in an abundance of uranium and no other items such as steel and wood to use, this may be your only bet.
Weapons and Armor
Uranium can be used to create some fairly strong melee weaponry in the game. As aforementioned using Uranium to create a mace will result in the highest damage blunt melee weapon in the vanilla Rimworld. (The Royalty expansion brings newer, stronger blunt weapons however).
You can also create armor for your colonists by using Uranium. This includes large plate armor which covers the entire body in armor and also smaller armor pieces such as the helmet, or plate shoulders and gauntlets. To create an armor piece from Uranium, go into the Bill for the armor piece and click on the button marked Details. You can then choose which materials you’d like to use for the construction of said item. Uranium is a fantastic choice for armor as it provides a create amount of protection around the whole body. It is as heavy as any stone block but provides better protection than wood or steel. Uranium can also be used in the construction of some of the advanced armor types found in the Royalty DLC.
Ship parts
The goal of Rimworld is to build a ship and try to escape the planet. When you go to the far end of the research tree, (all the way to the right), you will see the last pieces of research are related to the construction of a spaceship. One of the items you will need to build your spaceship is the Ship Reactor. To construct this item you will need 70 units of Uranium. Seeing as this is the goal of the game, to actually finish a game in Rimworld and escape the planet you will need to acquire Uranium at some point.
In the next section of this article we will talk about some of the ways you can get Uranium in Rimworld.
How to get Uranium
Uranium is a very rare resource in Rimworld. You might find that, although Uranium can be found within mountains or on its own on the map, it is not guaranteed. You won’t always have any resource of Uranium and depending where on the planet you have landed it might not even be anywhere close to your starting settlement. Below we will discuss some of the way that you can get Uranium in Rimworld.
Mining
The easiest and most basic way to obtain Uranium is by mining it straight out of a mountain. You will have to find a block called Uranium Ore and either select it and order it to be mined by pressing the appropriate button at the bottom of the UI or by using the ‘L’ hotkey by default. (see the image above)
Once you have searched your map for Uranium Ore and believe there is no more to be found that is not the end of your mining journey! I have a tactic that I like to call Nomadic Mining. In Rimworld you are not restricted to just having one settlement. You can have as many settlements as you would like to set up as per your options. If you press the ‘ESC’ key on your keyboard and select options there is a slider pertaining to the maximum amount of colonies. If you select more than one you can send caravans out to settle new colonies on the map. You can use this method to send out a mining caravan to a new mountain are and find more Uranium. Once you have stripped this new map of all of its Uranium simply abandon the colony, rinse and repeat.
Deep Drilling for Uranium
One of the mid-late game methods of mining is using the deep drill to find resources in the ground. To use the deep drill to find Uranium, you will first need to build a ground-Penetrating Scanner. Assign a colonist to use this scanner and after an amount of time specified in the Ground Penetrating Scanner’s menu you will find a new ore underground. Once something has been found using the scanner a menu will pop up on screen informing you.
Once you have found a resource underground you have to build a Deep Drill and make sure a colonist is assigned to mining. Colonists will have to manually use the Deep Drill to find minerals underground, nothing is automated. Miners, by default, will use the drill whenever they don’t have any job listed as a higher priority.
Trading
You can also obtain Uranium through trading with other factions. Occasionally you will have factions send trade caravans to your settlement. Building a settlement along a road will bring trade caravans more often. You should then select your colonists with the highest social skill to begin trading with the other factions’ head of the caravan, indicated by the large ‘?’ symbol above their head. Not all trade caravans will have Uranium. It is not only a rare resource to find on your own, but also a rare resource for everyone else as well.
You can also trade by sending a caravan to another settlement, or by using the Comms console to trade with ships flying overhead in space. I won’t go into too much detail about trading in this article but if you would like to know more about all the trading methods in Rimworld check out this article I have written about how to trade in Rimworld. and this article about forming caravans.
Getting Uranium through Quests and Events
There are many quests and events in Rimworld where one might obtain Uranium. All of these events are randomly triggered and depend solely on the storyteller you chose in the beginning of the game. From time to time you will get quests where other factions may want you to deliver a large amount of some item to them, or destroy an enemy base in exchange for some type of reward. Occasionally there will be Uranium as a quest reward to these so keep your eyes peeled! Not only can base Uranium be a reward, but also items made out of Uranium such as Art objects and furniture. These can be deconstructed to reclaim valuable resources.
Random events can also be a good source of Uranium such as the meteorite event. Maybe you will get lucky and have a meteorite fall on your colony. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.
Thus ends our coverage on Uranium in Rimworld. Did this guide help you to get more Uranium? Is there something you think we missed and need to include in this informative article? Send a comment down below and let your fellow Rimworlders know!
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