I consider these mods to be mandatory as they improve the game without affecting gameplay balance or introducing unwanted drawbacks. They are mostly UI improvements and QoL features, most of which can be heavily customized in the in-game mod settings menu.

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HugsLib https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818773962 This isn't actually a mod, but rather a resource library that is required for many other mods.
You'll need it.

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Smart Speed https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504723424
If I were only allowed 1 mod. It would be this. It allows you to remove (or change) the forced slowdown effect for 'dangerous' events, and allows you to do ultra fast speed without needing developer mode enabled.

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Allow Tool https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=761421485
And if I were only allowed 2 mods... this would be the second one. This mod is the ultimate quality of life package. Mine all minerals touching currently designated one. Unforbid everything on the entire map. Cut all blighted crops. And much more.

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Rimworld Search Agency https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=726479594
Adds a searchbox to the UI to search through stockpile filters and workbench bills. This mod is extremely annoying to live without because you'll spend so much time trying to manually look through menus to find what you're looking for.

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Colonist Bar KF https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729908976 Significantly improves the colonist bar UI with tons of options such as sorting, scaling, and positioning. See what weapon colonists are equipped with (with color coded for melee/ranged), get color-coded mood indicators, and so much more. I absolutely love this mod.

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Better Workbench Management https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935982361
You can set the default bill behavior to "drop on floor" instead of "take to best stockpile", and many other very important quality of life features. Overall this makes the workbench UI feel like it was designed by an actual human being. This will save you hundreds of tedious extra clicks that would be spent fidgeting with the vanilla workbench UI.

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Achtung! https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=730936602
The ultimate quality of life tool for controlling pawns - especially in combat. The most important aspect is that you can position multiple colonists at the same time without needing to click on each pawn and move them one by one. This mod does a lot of things, all of which are very nice.

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Simple Stockpile Presets https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1428628928
Allows you to quickly change stockpile filters to one of a few presets such as "Materials (Outdoors)" which is non-perishable goods like stone and steel, or "Meals" which is self-explanatory. There are 15 different presets, giving you a pretty good spread of basic filters.

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Numbers https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1414302321
Fully-customizable colonist-overview tab that allows you to add or remove parameters to display. See your pawns equipment, shooting accuracy, medicine allowance, etc. -- anything you want -- all in one convenient tab.

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Silent Doors https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933010556
A simple, but so very important mod.

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Pharmacist
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365242717
An easily overlooked but incredibly helpful mod, this mod ensures your precious blue medicine is not wasted patching up bruises and cuts, without having to constantly juggle the allowed medicine settings. It seperates health issues into 4 categories: minor (bruises/cuts), major (serious wounds), life-threatening (infections), and surgeries and allows you to designate the highest tier of medicine for each. This means you can set minor/major wounds to only use herbal medicine, while infections will always use blue medicine, or any way you want to set it up.

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Your choice of Extra Job mods: Complex Jobs OR Job Splitter
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157350972 https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1211661009
A really nice mod that creates more job categories. For instance: "Doctor" is split into surgeries and mending wounds. This allows you to designate important surgeries to pawns with high medicine skill, and basic wound-tending to anyone with decent medicine skill. Otherwise you have to tediously micromanage your colonists to ensure the guy with rank 4 medicine doesn't try to perform an organ-transplant surgery while your rank 13 doctor is busy tending to someone's bruises.

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Your choice of Resarch UI mods: ResearchPal OR Research Tree
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=946390822 https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1266570759
You should have at least one of these. They make the research UI much better, and allow you to queue up multiple consecutive researches so you don't have to keep selecting one every time a research is finished.

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Work Tab https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725219116
Medical Tab https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=715565817
Animals Tab https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=712141500
Essential UI improvements. As you probably already know, RimWorld's UI is really bad so anything that improves it is highly welcomed.

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Blueprints https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=708455313
Very convenient and self-explanatory mod. Even if you only want to do something as simple as adding a bed and two pieces of furniture to 10 different rooms, it can still save you a lot of time.

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Predator Hunt Alert https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1537786185
Another simple but very important mod that alerts you whenever a wild animal targets a colonist.

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Pawn Rules https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1499843448
Like the "Smarter Food Selection" mod, this allows you to restrict what types of food pawns will try to feed themselves with when the typical options are not available. Your pawns will wait for a meal to be cooked instead of gnawing into rotting corpses and stuffing uncooked meat in their mouths. It also allows you to specify a few other things, like disallowing certain pawns from constructing anything that has a quality level, and default food policy for prisoners.

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TD Enhancement Pack https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1339135272
Overlays for unbuildable terrain and terrain fertility, and a whole list of other nice little improvements.

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Force Do Job https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180719500
You no longer have to change assignments temporarily to make them do something.
Note: This mod is incompatible with "Pawns are Capable".

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Show Hair with Hats https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180826364
Does what it says. You can put on a hat without shaving yourself bald. I don't care much about cosmetic mods, but this mod is important because it helps with pawns' visual identity. If all your pawns are wearing the same clothes and shaved bald, it can be hard to tell them apart.

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Heat Map https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=947972722
Adds an overlay that shows indoor temperature. Useful.

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Damage Indicators https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=942369931
Numbers appear above pawns whenever they take damage. Useful.

I just don't want people to blindly install all of the following mods thinking they're all are vanilla-friendly UI improvements and quality of life features... so beyond this point requires your own judgement and personal preference! I recommend playing the game for at least 50 hours before installing some of these mods, to better ensure they are something you actually want.

When I first played RimWorld, I didn't install a single mod until I had played for well over 100 hours.

These mods make the game less obnoxious, but are still up to preference for the most part. Keep in mind that some of these mods can alter game balance quite a bit.

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Everyone Hauls https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933216311 Affects Balance: Much Easier

Pawns with disabled hauling is a pointless annoyance that adds nothing to gameplay. Cooker: "I'll walk 10 full round trips to pick up a little rice at a time to cook 1 meal at a time, but I won't just carry a full stack of it". This impacts the game balance quite a bit, since far less colonists will be useless idiots that you can't wait to get rid of or use as a meat shield in combat.

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Pick Up and Haulhttps://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1279012058 Affects Balance: Extremely Easier

In Vanilla, pawns can only haul a single item at a time. That could mean a stack of 75 stone bricks, or a single t-shirt. This mod makes it so pawns can pick up many objects, up to a maximum weight load. It won't change much for hauling stone bricks since they are heavy, but it'll allow you to pick up a dozen pieces of clothing at the same time. It also allows pawns to manually pick up items and drop them in specific spots, something the base game is sorely missing. This of course has a major impact on game-balance, since your pawns will be incredibly efficient at hauling and have more free time to do other things.

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Pawns are Capable https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1539312975 Affects Balance: Slightly Easier

Personally I'd consider this an essential mod, but since it does impact balance pretty significantly, you may not want to use it. Instead of completely disabling jobs that pawns dislike, it merely makes them angry when they are forced to do them. This is important for emergency situations where you NEED someone to do something, no matter how much they hate it, like putting out a fire or doctoring themselves.

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Smart Medicine https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1309994319 Affects Balance: Slightly Easier

Medicine can be held in inventory so doctors are not sprinting across the map to get one while their patient bleeds. It also allows you to heal people without a bed (you can already do that, it just takes out the extra annoying step of making a sleeping spot), and a few other nice quality of life features. Allowing pawns to carry medicine impacts balance somewhat.

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Prepare Carefully https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=735106432 Affects Balance: Neutral (Depends on usage)

You have more control over your starting colonists. Convenient.

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Prepare Landing https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1095331978 Affects Balance: Neutral (Depends on usage)

You have more control over the spot on the map you pick. Convenient.

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Trading Spot https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180719658 Affects Balance: Neutral (Depends on usage)

This allows you to control where trading caravans idle. Although you shouldn't: you can use this to move traders into dangerous places, even fight enemy raiders, then collect all of that precious caravan loot for yourself after they get killed. Great mod as long as you have the self-control to not abuse it.

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Incident Person Stat https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1414697588 Affects Balance: Slightly Easier

Sick of rescuing someone only to find out they have bad stats and hauling disabled? This gives you a simple description of the pawn's traits and job passions to help you decide if you should risk the safety of your base to save them or leave them to die. Personally I don't use this mod, since I always rescue everyone if I can handle a raid. Call me sentimental. :)

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Change Dresser https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1385697110 Affects Balance: Neutral (Depends on usage)

Not a very important mod, but a pretty nice one. It allows you to change the appearance of a pawn, which is useful if you recruit a new prisoner and don't like his appearance or find he looks too similar to one of your current pawns. This mod also comes with dressers that can store clothing and research to automatically repair them over time, which I don't personally use.

Not required. These mods minorly rebalance or change the game, generally for the better. Mostly preference. You should probably play the game for at least 100+ hours before trying these since they change core elements of gameplay, and in my opinion it's better to experience "vanilla rimworld" before drastically altering the game's balance. It's like pouring a bunch of sugar and butter onto your oatmeal before you've even tasted it (DUDE FOOD REFERENCE LMAO).

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Fluffy Breakdowns https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=726244033 Affects Balance: Neutral (Well balanced!)

Instead of things randomly breaking down and requiring a component to fix, you can spend time to keep them maintained so they don't randomly break. Considering the time investment it is a very fair tradeoff. Probably my top recommendation for a rebalance mod.

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Fuse https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=728314182 Affects Balance: Neutral (Well balanced!)

This mod gives you an answer to the short-circuit incident, allowing you to build fuses that mitigate a certain amount of electrical discharge. This means that, assuming you have enough fuses, short circuits will never cause explosions but they will still break your fuses. This mod is balanced by the fact that basic fuses will cost 1 component for each disaster they prevent, and proper circuit breakers (no component lost when firing) require many resources and research to get.

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Simple Sidearms https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=927155256 Affects Balance: Somewhat Easier

Allows you to hold more than one weapon and switch to them. One of my favorite mods. It's worth noting that if you don't want to use this mod, you should grab a mod called "Where is my weapon?" which makes pawn pick their gear back up after being downed and dropping it. This mod comes with that functionality, so you don't need both.

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Same Spot https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=834903021 Affects Balance: Neutral ~ Slightly Easier

Allows multiple colonists to stand in the same spot when drafted. It's very powerful when used correctly, but can also be dangerous since your colonists are much more likely to get hurt. You could theoretically put all your colonists on 1 square and get hit by an explosive weapon: oops. Technically it's possible to get colonists to stand in the same spot even without this mod, but it requires some extremely awkward micromanagement which is obnoxious.

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Death Rattle https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1552452572 Affects Balance: Extremely Easier

Like any mod that stops pawns from dying when downed, this mod massively imbalances the game, giving an astronomically huge advantage to the player. Your pawns are much more likely to survive combat, and capturing prisoners is much easier. However without this mod, pawns will randomly die when dropping even if their wound was far from fatal (like getting punched in the arm), which I feel is very 'artificial' difficulty. I recommend using this mod, but cranking up the difficulty in other ways to compensate.

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RimFridge https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180721235 Affects Balance: Somewhat Easier

Cost-wise fridges are objectively inferior to a walk-in freezer because it costs a component for every 2 tiles, but it can reduce walking time to get meals which is nice. Overall a pretty nice mod. It's easier since you can slap down some fridges early game for just a couple of components without having to worry about making a big ol' walk-in freezer. It also allows you to effectively chill things even while in extremely hot biomes, since the fridge seems to somewhat ignore local temperature.

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SF Materials Rebalanced https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1558034796 Affects Balance: Somewhat Easier

Steel, Jade, and Plasteel are no longer flammable. Steel is much stronger in general, making it suitable for building doors and walls. It rebalances various stone types, making slate the weakest, and giving a beauty bonus to granite. If you don't like these changes, you should stick with vanilla's balance.

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Starting Tech https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932251222 Affects Balance: Somewhat Easier

Colonist start with Brewing, Smithing, and Carpet Making already researched. Tribals are unaffected of course. You can already do this by creating a scenario, but it's a bit tedious to have to include these techs every time you make a new scenario.

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Minify Everything https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=872762753 Affects Balance: Somewhat Easier (Depends on usage)

Semi-cheaty mod that's really nice if you don't abuse it. This allows you to pick up and rebuild anything without destroying it first. If you raid a base as tribals, you can even steal their glorious technology and use it for yourself!

Just keep in mind this mod is extremely glitchy. Solar Panels and Wind Turbines remember their previous location for considering if they're blocked by something. Many objects will give lots of red errors in the console when minified. It can be used to pick up stone blocks/doors for some super cheesy AI-abuse. Ultimately if you don't use this for anything except moving workbenches, you'll be fine.

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These mods are overhauls that completely change and rebalance elements of the game. They are entirely preferential, not at all manditory, but I do suggest trying them out. Again, you should probably play the game for at least 100+ hours before trying these since they drastically alter game balance.

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Psychology https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1552507180 Affects Balance: Significantly Harder

Adds a huge amount of depth to the game and completely rethinks (no pun intended) the mood system. Colonists can develop permanent anxiety conditions which require frequent medical care. New mental breaks are added. Colonists make time for new social activities like dates and mayorships. Very interesting mod that can only be fully appreciated if you're a RimWorld veteran.

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Dubs Bad Hygiene https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=836308268 Affects Balance: Somewhat Harder

Pawns now need to clean themselves and take a dump once in awhile. This mod is surprisingly deep, adding a lot of interesting mechanics such as water and sewage. You can also use the water for things other than sinks and toilets, such as central heating systems. This mod is balanced pretty well, and in my opinion makes the game overall more difficult (which is ideal IMO). Your pawns will get mood bonuses from taking warm baths, but work efficiency drops to make time for bathroom breaks.

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Hospitality https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=753498552 Affects Balance: Extremely Easier

I both love and hate this mod. On the plus side, it adds a very cozy feeling to the game where you can get other colonies to come over and smoke weed and play poker with you. On the downside, it dramatically imbalances the game by giving you an extremely easy method of getting new colonists. This mod unlocks some serious cheese potential, so you gotta be really careful not to abuse it.

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Medieval Times https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=732569232 Affects Balance: Extremely Easier

This mod is fantastic for tribal runs, since it bridges the gap between tribal and colonist level research, and adds a lot of fun stuff to play with even for colonists. Just keep in mind that the mod is INCREDIBLY imbalanced and not vanilla friendly in the slightest. Embrasures that provide more cover than a solid wall, awkwardly-priced items, easily-made toolbelts that give everyone a colossal work-speed buff, weirdly-balanced weapons and armor. It's a cool mod but due to balance issues I never use it anymore.

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This list covers some of the best and most useful mods, but keep in mind that RimWorld has tons of great mods to choose from. So here are a few more mod suggestions to top you off.

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Progress Renderer https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1438693028
This mod will routinely take screenshots of your base as you play so you can see your progress later, or even turn it into an animated .gif. It's kinda like a makeshift-replay. Very cool.

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Camera+ https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=867467808
This mod allows you to alter how the game handles zooming and panning the camera. Unfortunately the pan-speed never feels quite right because the game has inherent panning-deceleration, but this mod makes it feel slightly better.

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Roppoi Hair https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1100547661
Most hair mods look pretty dumb or are way too over-the-top and don't match the base style at all. These hairs are detailed without being overly anime-ish, and are honestly just really well made. This is by far the best hair mod.

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Nackblad Hair https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727687246
There's a few stinkers in here, but most of the hairs are pretty good and match the base artstyle excellently. Most importantly: beards. BEARDS!

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Less Default Hairs https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1262733919
This removes several of the vanilla hairstyles from the list of styles that can randomly appear on pawns. Again, not a super important mod, but a lot of the base hairstyles are really bad looking.

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Hydroponics with Lamps https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=943373441
I rather dislike using sunlamps to power my hydroponics; it forces you to make really ugly-looking round rooms in order to be optimal, and placing them feels like a tedious chore. I really enjoy the flexibility of being able to place my hydronic basins however I like.

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Wall Lights https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1423699208
Not sure why this isn't just in the base game, truthfully. These are so much nicer than those weird-looking "floor lightbulbs".

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