Understand Drugs in Rimworld – Steam Solo (2024)

Overview

Drugs can be useful to gain temporary benefits of various sorts, but can lead to harmful addictions, negative side effects, and even overdose resulting in permanent ailments or death. Updated for Rimworld Release 1.0

Introduction

Most drugs are crafted using either psychoid leaves or neutroamine. Beer, however requires hops and has an intermediate stage before fermenting called wort.

The effects of drugs are modulated by body size, so smaller creatures need less beer to be drunk than bigger animals such as the Thrumbo.

Drugs can be assigned for regular taking through the drug policy system. Similar to Outfits, drug policies are an assigned schedule for taking drugs. You can set any number of drugs, each with a frequency. For example, you can assign a colonist to drink 2 beers every day, and take one Penoxycyline every 5 days. You can also toggle to use the drug to feed an addiction, separately from joy usage.

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Teetotalers can’t take drugs (but can be adminstered to), chemical-interest/fascination minor/major breakdowns can result in social/hard drug binges (ambrosia is social here). Teetotalers hate interest(20) and fascination(30) pawns and additionaly hate addictive pawns. (this was also true for luci addiction, at least in a16. though they can take that themselves)
While beer is taking for joy, it is a food and can trigger the “ate in impressive dining room” buff which lasts 6h. Pawns usually only eat every 12h, so beer (and chocolate/jelly) can trigger the buff inbetween.

Originally posted by Sollok:

All drugs are *very* dangerous for animals, especially small animals (puppies, etc.) — I’ve lost more than one young pup because he stuck his nose into a pile of flake I’d left lying out. So make sure your animals are zone-restricted from access to wherever your drugs are kept.

The drugs in the game are split into the following categories:

Avoiding drugs

If you want to avoid drugs in your colony, you have the option of burning them at a campfire or crematorium, or forbidding them and selling them to a trader which is lucrative on the market. Binging pawns will take drugs even if they’re forbidden though.

Addiction and Tolerance

Addictions are a sad reality that most drug-using colonies must face. Without a continuous supply of drugs, withdrawal symptoms will kick in and your poor colonist will suffer. Luciferium has an instant addiction. Once taken, it will need to be taken regularly. Otherwise, the withdrawal from it will cause all sorts of mental breaks, eventually including death.

Tolerance is the value related to addiction upon consumption of any drugs. It has a fixed buildup amount for each drug, and decreases each day afterwards. Colonists will have a chance of getting addicted once they cross a certain tolerance threshold. Safe consumption of drugs can be set in the restriction tab for drug usage.

When tolerant, the severity given per dose of the drug will decrease by a fixed amount, meaning that they will last shorter, and colonists will need to consume more of them.
Addiction also has the same effect, in addition to requiring the pawn get a regular dose of the drug to prevent withdrawal.

Fighting Addictions

Colonists with either the Chemical Interest or Fascination traits as well as addicts may randomly have drug binges. Such colonists will ignore drug policies. This can cause a relapse from getting those colonists clean.

Remove access to drugs

Colonists can’t take drugs that they can’t reach. A drug binging colonist without access to that drug will only wander around until their senses are restored. Other withdrawal-based mental breaks are another story.

To destroy drugs, you can burn them at a campfire. You can also sell them to passing traders that are interested in buying, or have a non-binging colonist take them away on a caravan.

One alternative to keeping drugs out of the hands of binging addicts is to place the drugs in a room and board up the entrance. This could also be done to the addict by trapping them but will become counterproductive once they become hungry. Another alternative, which may be quicker depending on the case, is to load the drugs in a transport pod and keep them there until the binge is over.

‘Rehab center’

Instead of keeping the drugs from the addict, you can keep the addict from the drugs by imprisoning them and keeping them there until they’re clean. Imprisoning them also contains the impacts of their mental breaks. You can arrest an addicted colonist by drafting another colonist and right clicking on the addict. Using force can have a negative social influence on the patient and increased mood debuffs that will make recovery even harder, especially if such measure was performed with weapons (healing will take longer and could injure the body badly). It may be best to wait until the pawn collapses due to exhaustion or starvation, then arrest them without the possibility of a physical intervention. If it must be done while they can stand, then it’s wise to disarm this colonist before attempting to arrest them as they may resist and go berserk.

Chatting with the imprisoned while they’re getting clean will help train your warden’s Social skill. Still, arresting any colonist will give them the accompanying thoughts of being imprisoned both during and afterward.

This also works great for addicted prisoners as they’re already imprisoned. It is recommended to keep them in their own cell though. Otherwise, they can go berserk and attack other prisoners. If you want to recruit such an addict, it’s recommended to get them clean before recruiting. There’s no use in releasing an addicted new recruit, only to throw them right back in their cell very soon.

You can avoid the berserk state of a “drug rehab inmate” by removing his/her two legs, that way they will lay on their bed until the drug withdrawal completes. Just replace the pawn’s legs with peg legs and then remove the peg legs. Once recovered, you can install two bionic legs. Keep an eye on your technological level and make sure you have bionic legs at your disposal.

Recovery

Withdrawal will make the person feel a great mood drop and impair their stats, depending on the addicted drug. Once the withdrawal passes away, the colonist will feel good as new.

During this time, you may want to give your colonist more time to enjoy himself. Giving him social drugs may help depending on the situation, but remember never to feed his addiction as this resets the withdrawal countdown, unless he’s addicted to multiple drugs at the same time, in which it may be easier to deal with 1 drug addiction at a time.
On the other hand, if they become incapacitated when the withdrawal symptoms hit all at once, it may be better to leave them like that, as they are unable to have mental breaks or such during the withdrawal period.

The health overview tab which will display a counter with withdrawal percentage. The higher it gets, the closer to complete recovery (100%, though 99.5% is rounded to 100% in display).

Healer mech serum

Using the healer mech serum instantly treats addictions if there are no other serious health problems affecting the addict. This gives a convenient but somewhat costly way to bypass the lengthy withdrawal period.

Go-juice – Hard Drug

Go-Juice is a drug that can be purchased, found on raiders, or manufactured at a drug lab. It acts as a potent stimulant and pain-killer, reducing pain by 90% and boosting consciousness, movement, and sight. It has a somewhat significant impact on combat performance due to the mobility improvement, along with the enhancement to sight and consciousness which are vital for shooting accuracy. The high for go-juice lasts 1.875 days from 75% severity (one injection), but can last as long as 2.5 days from 100% severity (multiple injections). One can only get addicted to Go-Juice if they have at least a 3% severity tolerance to it, if they weren’t beforehand.

Go-Juice’s consciousness boost also improves the odds of a doctor successfully performing surgery.

Detailed Effects

• Improved movement (+30%)
• Improved sight (+25%)
• Heightened consciousness (+10%)
• Minimised pain (x10%)
• Satisfies rest need (+40%)
• Chemical joy (+40%)
• Improved mood (+5)
• Go-juice tolerance (+4.4%)

Side-Effects

If a pawn develops at least a large tolerance to Go-Juice (50% severity), they will get Chemical Damage in the brain in a mean time of 120 in-game days. This results in a maximum consciousness of 50% for that pawn (slightly less severe than an unarmoured machine pistol shot to the brain), and the only way to reverse the effects is to use Luciferium. The result is that the affected pawn will fare significantly worse in combat, and also work at half the speed of an average pawn.

Withdrawal Symptoms

The process of going through Go-Juice withdrawal is nasty, but also shorter than any other withdrawal, with a length of only 25 in-game days (compared to 30 for all other drugs in the game). The withdrawal symptoms for Go-Juice typically consist of significantly impaired movement, impaired consciousness, blood pumping, and sight, and slightly impaired manipulation. Other symptoms include increased hunger rate, fatigue, massively increased pain, binging, psychotic wandering, and very poor mood. The mood hit is so bad, that one would rather lose their spouse than their go-juice.

Detailed Symptoms

• Impaired movement (-50%)
• Impaired consciousness (-20%)
• Impaired blood pumping (-20%)
• Impaired sight (-20%)
• Increased hunger rate (x150%)
• Increased tiredness (x130%)
• Increased pain (x300%)
• Hard drug binges (mtb of 40 days)
• Psychotic wandering (mtb of 7 days)
• Awful mood (-35)

Flake – Hard Drug

A flaky substance that can be smoked to induce a short but powerful euphoric state. Flake provides an incredible +35 mood buff while it remains in the user’s system. It is a cheaper and less powerful version of Yayo but has a significantly higher addiction rate which makes using this drug somewhat impractical.

Crafting

Flake can be manufactured at a Drug Lab using 4 Psychoid Leaves.

Tolerance

If a pawn has a visible tolerance to psychite, they will develop chemical damage in the kidneys in a mean time of 120 days.

Trade

It`s better to sell than Yayo (because of the return per psychoid leaves) since Yayo has a market value of 23 silver for the cost of 8 psychoid leaves, whereas Flake has a market value of 14 silver for 4 psychoid leaves. This means that Flake offers a 28% better rate of return compared to Yayo.

However, with both Yayo and Flake having the same weight, Yayo offers significantly better return per weight, meaning you can carry more worth of drugs on your caravans.

Wake-up – Hard Drug

An addictive stimulant. Fills the need for rest, and allows users to work for extended periods without getting tired. Addiction causes reduced mental performance and, sometimes, psychotic breaks with reality. Can cause heart attacks rarely.

Wake-up is a highly addictive drug that can be purchased, found on raiders, or manufactured at a drug lab. It is a powerful stimulant that fully satisfies one’s need for rest, slows the tiredness progression rate, and boosts consciousness, movement, and global work speed. The high for wake-up typically lasts 12 in-game hours from 75% severity (one pill), but can last as long as 16 hours from 100% severity (multiple pills). One can only get addicted to Wake-up if they have at least an 8% tolerance to it.

While high on wake-up, there is a small chance the pawn will develop a heart attack. It occurs on average once every 120 days the colonist is high.

A surgeon can take Wake-up to improve their surgery success chance due to the consciousness enhancement, so it may not be the worst of ideas to have them take a pill beforehand. Taking a hit of Go-juice stacks with it as well for better buffs, though you risk a drug overdose this way, ruining the stat buffs.

Detailed Effects

• Increased global work speed (+50%)
• Improved movement (+10%)
• Heightened consciousness (+10%)
• Fully satisfies rest need (+100%)
• Chemical joy (+40%)
• Reduces tiredness rate (x80%)
• Wake-up tolerance (+4.5%)
• Heart attack (mtb of 120 days)

Side-Effects

If a pawn develops at least a large tolerance to Wake-up (50% severity), they will get Chemical Damage in the brain in a mean time of 120 in-game days. This results in a maximum consciousness of 50% for that pawn (slightly less severe than an unarmoured machine pistol shot to the brain), and there is no way to reverse the effects. The result is that the affected pawn will fare significantly worse in combat, and also work at half the speed of an average pawn.

Withdrawal Symptoms

The process of going through wake-up withdrawal, like any other withdrawal, is a painstaking process. As with most other withdrawals, it takes 30 days to struggle through the process of wake-up withdrawal. Typical withdrawal symptoms include severely impaired consciousness, impaired manipulation, and lethargy. Other symptoms include a very poor mood, increased chance of social fighting, binging, and psychotic wandering. The mood hit is so bad, that one would rather butcher and eat their recently-deceased close friend raw than go on wake-up withdrawal.

Detailed Symptoms

• Impaired consciousness (-50%)
• Impaired manipulation (-25%)
• Impaired movement (-20%)
• Increased tiredness (x130%)
• Increased likelihood of social fighting (x200%)
• Hard drug binges (mtb of 40 days)
• Psychotic wandering (mtb of 10 days)
• Awful mood (-35)

Originally posted by Moasseman:

You should note that while Wake-up is described as “highly addictive stimulant”, a pawn can take Wake-up every once every 72 hours without risking addiction at all, making it a very powerful tool when used correctly.

Yayo – Hard Drug

A fine white powder snorted to produce a euphoric high. Yayo reduces the user’s need for rest, and suppresses pain. It is, however, addictive.

Yayo is a drug that can be manufactured at a Drug Lab using 8 Psychoid Leaves. Yayo is the more expensive, more potent cousin of Flake. It has greater benefits than Flake, increasing rest twice as much and joy by 10%, as well as increasing move speed by 15%. It also has lower addictiveness, with 10% vs. Flake’s 20%. These stats make Yayo much more appealing to use than Flake, as it’s simply a straight upgrade.

Despite this, Flake does shine through in one regard over Yayo: profitability. Flake has a market value of 14 silver for the cost of 4 psychoid leaves, whereas Yayo has a market value of 23 silver for 8 psychoid leaves. This means that Flake offers a much better rate of return than Yayo.

Yayo on the other hand has a higher value per weight, meaning your colonists can carry more value worth of drugs in a caravan.

In addition to the altered stats, Yayo provides an incredible +35 mood buff while the drug remains in the user’s system.

Tolerance

If a pawn has a visible tolerance to psychite, they will develop chemical damage in the kidneys in a mean time of 120 days.

Beer – Social Drug

When a colonists drinks beer often, he/she will most likely develop an Alcohol addiction. A colonist with an alcohol addiction will have a new bar called “Alcohol” in their needs overview, the colonist will consume beer when the bar is low enough. If the bar hits 0% for a long period of time, the colonist will go through an Alcohol withdrawal, which adds a negative thought called Alcohol withdrawal, with a -35 mood effect. If the Alcohol withdrawal percentage bar in their health overview hits 100%, the withdrawal will stop and so will the alcohol addiction.

Beer is consumed by colonists who are addicted, stressed, on an alcohol binge or are in need of some food and joy (it actually replenishes both by quite a bit). Beer is useful for mood management as it provides a positive mood modifier to offset stress. Overuse, including for stress relief, may lead to alcohol addiction.

Production

Beer is produced in three steps:

• Plant hops, which is an easy task.
• Construction of a brewery (research required), to process 25 hops for 5 units of wort, a task that requires a cook to perform the action, another relatively easy task assuming the colony has enough meals to divert the cook to other purposes.
• Place 25 units of wort into a fermenting barrel for 10 days. The difficulty of this depends greatly on your biome and its current weather conditions, as the room hosting the barrels must be kept between -1 °C (30.2 °F) and 32 °C (89.6 °F). Temperatures below this value will only halt the process, but any above it will waste the whole product and all the previous work.

Inebriation

Consuming beer raises a colonist’s alcohol level by 15% per beer. Alcohol level, not displayed precisely in-game, determines inebriation level and falls automatically over time. Once a colonist becomes drunk the game records it so it may be used later in an art description.

Hangover

Once a colonist reaches a drunk state they will go through the hangover stages after their inebriation wears off. If a colonist drinks beer while hungover they will be both hungover and inebriated.

Long-term Effects

When one has a visible tolerance to Alcohol, they may develop Cirrhosis of the liver in a mean time of 60 in-game days (or 1 year), which permanently hinders their consciousness, blood filtration, and blood pumping – and the only way to cure Cirrhosis is to perform a liver transplant. Additionally, a Major or worse Carcinoma (with a minimum severity of 0.5) may develop in the liver in a mean time of 180 in-game days (3 years), again being fixable either via transplant, or removed by a skilled doctor.

Chemical damage in the brain which has a massive effect on consciousness (limits it to 50%) can occur while one is unconscious from too much alcohol, in a mean time of 10 days’ time spent blacked out. There is no way to perform brain surgery in the base game as of Alpha 17, so affected pawns will permanently have significantly reduced performance, and effectively rendered useless in firefights with the exception of being put on rocket or grenade duty (or any other weapon which has a forced miss radius).

The possible damage can be mitigated once the colonist exits the state of being tolerant to or blacked out due to alcohol; however, any damage caused is not easily reversible.

Psychite tea – Social Drug

A fragrant tea infused with leaves of the psychoid plant. Drinking it induces a subtle psychite euphoria. this tea is easy to produce at cooking facilities, but can produce psychite addiction if consumed too often. many tribes use psychite yea, both as a daily energizer and part of social and religious rituals

Psychite tea is a tea made at a fueled stove or electric stove using 4 psychoid leaves with requirement of minimum 2 Cooking skill. It provides a simple +12 mood buff as well as slightly reduces pain (10% reduction) and tiredness (20% reduction). It raises Recreation by 40. Production of this drug gives skill points in Intellectual. To produce it, a player should research Psychoid Brewing first.

Comparison

It less cost-efficient than the other psychoid drugs, flake and yayo, as it is worth the least and takes the longest to make. However, its minor research requirement makes it good in the early game, especially for tribes, and it does not require a drug lab. Additionally, it is significantly less addictive than flake or yayo, with only 2% chance to be addicted per drink. A colonist can drink one every 2 days with no chance of becoming addicted.

Smokeleaf joint – Social Drug

Since Smokeleaf can be crafted in early game, in mass without any research need (like the other drugs), and its relatively low addiction rate, it is good for either sale or domestic use.

The default drug policy allows colonists to smoke a toke whenever they feel like it. This can burden a colony with reduced productivity, so it may be worth changing the default policy immediately upon starting a new colony.

In the current game version, taking one smokeleaf joint every two days will not cause dependency. Pawns with the chemical interest or related traits will however override regulations to smoke, giving it an addiction risk. In addition to the stat changes, colonists gain a mellow +15 mood buff while stoned.

High from 1 joint with no tolerance lasts 12 hours.

The game actually recognizes the character binge as alcoholic mental break (major drug binge).

If a colonist has a low enough consciousness (<30%) then smoking a joint can be fatal to them.

Tolerance

If a pawn develops a visible tolerance to smokeleaf, they will develop asthma or carcinoma in the lungs in a mean time of 180 days.

LuciferiumLast – Medical Drug

A concoction of advanced glitterworld mechanites that dramatically improve the body’s functioning in all respects. Unfortunately, without the moderating effects of regular doses every five or six days, the mechanites lose cohesion, causing continuous berserk rages and, eventually, death.

After the first dose, there is no way to get the mechanites out, ever.

On the urbworlds, they call Luciferium the ‘Devil’s Bargain’. Many have been forced to kill friends when no more of the seductive red pills could be found.

Luciferium is a drug that can either be purchased, or found on raiders – there is no way to produce Luciferium. The main purpose of Luciferium is to save one’s life with the dramatic blood filtration improvement it provides, but it also affects most of the pawn’s other capacities. As it is a rare yet powerful drug, Luciferium is expensive to purchase and is found in scant amounts in ancient dangers.

Luciferium has to be taken every 6.667 days, otherwise the mechanites in Luciferium will lose cohesion, and a violent and possible fatal withdrawal will begin. In order to safely prevent this, create a Luciferium drug policy which is set not to satisfy addiction, but instead to take it every 6 days, and pocket 1 extra so that it can be taken as soon as possible.

Luciferium can be administered to animals via the operations menu, substantially improving their combat effectiveness.

Detailed Effects

• Improved blood filtration (+70%)
• Improved metabolism (+20%)
• Improved blood pumping (+15%)
• Improved sight (+15%)
• Improved consciousness (+10%)
• Improved breathing (+10%)
• Reduced pain (x80%)
• 1 Scar/permanent injury removed every 900,000 to 1,800,000 ticks (15,000 – 30,000 seconds)

Side Effects

Luciferium has no side-effects other than the withdrawal symptoms that ensue if Luciferium demand isn’t met.

Withdrawal Symptoms

Luciferium withdrawal is the worst out of any drug, as it’s the only drug that will eventually kill if not taken regularly. Although it doesn’t have as sizable of an impact in terms of capacities compared to drugs such as psychite, wake-up or go-juice, luciferium is deadly. Typical withdrawal symptoms include very frequent berserk mental breaks, acute pain, and impaired consciousness. Advanced withdrawal symptoms include death in an average time of 10 days after withdrawal starts. Unlike other withdrawals, Luciferium withdrawal doesn’t directly affect mood. Instead it indirectly affects mood with the ‘Acute Pain’ thought.

Detailed Symptoms

• Acute pain (+40%)
• Impaired consciousness (80% max)
• Berserk mental breaks (mtb of 0.4 days)
• Death (mtb of 10 days)

Penoxycyline – Medical Drug

Fully blocks various infections such as malaria, sleeping sickness and plague. Take every five days.

Penoxycyline can either be crafted at a drug lab or purchased from traders.

Penoxycyline can contribute to overdose, increasing severity by 0.08-0.14; this is uncommon, however, and you will either have to take a few other drugs beforehand, or binge on Penoxycyline.

Crafting

• You need to have penoxycyline production researched.
• Each pill requires 2 Neutroamine, which is only obtained from traders or found in cargo pods.

Administering Penoxycyline provides true immunity against diseases over its duration, preventing the protected pawn from catching the protected diseases. It will boost the immunity during a disease to a certain point.

Ambrosia – Other Drug

Ambrosia is a foodstuff that is only obtainable through the ambrosia sprout event or by trading.

It provides a +5 mood buff when eaten, as well as a hefty +50% to joy, but is slightly addictive.
It is classified as a drug in-game.

Addiction

Addiction to ambrosia is trivial compared to other drugs; it takes only 10 days before full recovery, and does not impair functioning; it only causes a -10 mood debuff as that pawn craves more ambrosia.

It is also somewhat rare to get an ambrosia addiction, as each fruit only has a 1% chance to give one.

Notes

Special thanks goes to the following people for sharing tips and information:

• glass zebra
• Moasseman

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