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Between the Stars

is a new mod that attempts to smoothly mix up and utilize more vanilla and DLC content. This mod was made in mind for people who play with more than just a handful of mods. When playing with groups of mods, its easy for vanilla content to become even harder to obtain or to be ignored entirely. Between The Stars adds new ways to play with Rimworld content. This mod also tries to add a bit of challenge when it comes to progressing to some of this content.

The main challenge from this mod comes in the form of the new faction: Starway Corporation. Starway Corporation is an ancient expedition and colony company that was considered defunct for decades. They still exist on fringe worlds and hiding in deep space, maintaining patents on odd, old technology that works wonders, but can have odd side effects. Gameplay wise, Starway is a spacer faction that is trying to keep the secrets to their tech under wraps. Their relation with you may vary just like any other faction, unless you try to uncover what they want forgotten.

Starway was founded from colonies of scientists who were forced with the hard truths that they would have to eventually protect their claims with force. Enter the Starborn, a xenotype of cultured genes to create perfectly loyal soldiers ready to die for another's cause. The chairmen of Starway do not care what happens to the people they employ, butchering genetics in order to create a beast of a killing machine. (Biotech needed for the xenotype)

Raids from Starway will be less varied, however they will more fully utilize vanilla equipment. Industrial age raids will have full sets of flak armor that will be eventually upgraded to Power as you reach high amounts of wealth. The endgame units utilize the arsenal of beam weapons at their disposal as well. These raiders are likely not immune to cheese but each group of raiders has incrementally higher chances of spawning with death acidifiers and biocoded weapons on top of possible bionic limbs. The head chairman of the faction himself may decide to defend a factional base or attack you. In the case you have royalty, he will even appear with a full set of prestige cataphract armor.


Below is a list of what this mod does, separated by extra, optional content enabled when using the other DLCs in the game in addition to Core and Odyssey.

-- Base content --
-Some of the structures found on asteroids/orbital platforms (Mainly the Mechanoid Processor building) will drop small amounts of metals when destroyed
-New research for acquiring previously hard to get items such as mechanoid healing serum. Please find the paragraph below this list to read into it more, I promise its more involved than just researching the tech
-The vanilla ship sensor now counts as a research station, providing a bonus to research speed when near a high-tech research table. It is also minifiable, and has a mass of 80.
-The vanometric power cell now produces as much power as a solar panel does
-A new, reinforced version of the heavy bridge has been added which will let you traverse most liquid terrains, most importantly letting you bridge over lava.
-A handful of new beam weapons have been added. This is primarily the beam pistol and the beam minigun
-The following items can be minified (These patches will not run if you already have Minify Everything): Sarcophagi, Autocannon Turrets


-- Biotech --
-Adds a new, faction-unique xenotype

-- Anomaly --
-An upgraded holding cell can be researched which provides an innate security boost
-Horaxian grunts will no longer spawn naked
-Some of the end-game recipes will now include anomaly resources such as bioferrite and shards

-- Royalty --
-Some researches will end up moved to a royalty research that felt more appropriate, focusing on the ones requiring techprints

-- Ideology --
-The faction in this mod will have a custom ideologon
-If you also have Anomaly installed, the factional ideologon has a boost to Void Study



I've been around the block for a bit, and I've seen and played with mods that enabled the crafting of these rarer items like serums and lances. I wanted to try and mix things up with this mod. It will take time, risk and possibly losing favor with other factions.

In order to craft these items, you will need to do more than just finish the research. There's a new, hidden material waiting to be found out there. And by out there, you will have to travel in order to find the items needed to craft this material. There is no chance for the item to spawn before you research fabrication. In addition to integrating the process with some of the endgame vanilla researches, this should provide a more balanced end-game environment to get these desired artifacts.

In order to hunt this down, you will have to raid faction bases. Pirates are totally fair game if you don't want to tick off the empire. Not every faction base will have this item, however, meaning you wont consistently be able to farm them. Without spoiling the fun too much, you can get the first item(s) needed by replicating what you need to do to start the mechlink quest in biotech.

If you need to, or don't mind spoilers much, hover the spoiler text below for a more detailed rundown of how this works
In order to get the first item needed, you will have to raid faction bases. Once you research fabrication, there is a 60-70% chance in each base for an ancient terminal to spawn. Destroying this structure will get you going

Once you have the item(s) needed, you can decrypt them to obtain the new resource. However, if you rush too quickly, and try to get this resource too early, Starway will take note of you poking around in their research, and they will send an Enforcement Raid to you.



Between the Stars is a spiritual successor to one of my earliest attempts at modding: Beyond the End of the World. I mainly made this mod as an apology letter for how bad my early mods were, in addition to wanting a vanilla-friendly challenge and somewhat balanced way of obtaining glitter/archotech

This mod has a more set focus rather than trying to add in a bunch of weird stuff from the original, and has been rewritten from the ground up. The mod is optimally designed for more modded environments, but can be a fun (and tough) challenge for vanilla play.

Original textures from vanilla content, all coding is done by me. Feel free to visit the Suggestions thread if you think you have an idea that fits.

There will be a loose list of mods with integrations to Beyond the Stars. You can view the full list here.


-Cherry Picker just generally nice to have, can disable specific recipes on the fly.
-Unlimited threat scale for the masochists out there.
-Launch Sites expire useful if you plan on farming the new resource by hopping around on your grav ship

Translations exist for the following languages:

- Chinese Translation