📢 Version v0.2.9 - A native engine for RimWorld 1.6, mods sorting, button icons built-in

[udarmolota]

RimDroid 0.2.9

⚠️ RimDroid is still in beta. Device compatibility and performance vary, especially with large colonies, DLC, and heavy mod lists.

RimDroid is made by one person in evenings and weekends. There are no ads and no paywall. If the launcher gave you a colony in your pocket, a coffee on Ko-Fi helps me keep going, so your phone gets fixed faster. Thank you!

🆕 What's new

✅ A native engine for RimWorld 1.6 (experimental)

RimWorld 1.6 can now run on the game's own engine built for Android, with nothing emulated. It is the fastest way to play and the lightest on memory. A new instance starts on it; an instance that played before keeps its engine until you switch in the instance settings (the launcher tells you once that the new engine exists). Vulkan only. Saves are the same for all engines, so switching back is one tap — still, back up your saves before the first try.

Everything that worked before works on the native engine: on-screen controls, the editor and icon packs, mouse, keyboard and gamepad, the in-game display, texture compression, the resolution presets. A few things are specific to it:

• Textures are prepared once. The first start (and the first start after a mod list change) shows "Preparing textures": the mods' textures are converted into the phone's own format, so later loads are faster and lighter. Seconds for most mod lists; Skip is always there. On phones whose GPU cannot use the game's PC texture formats, the game's own textures are converted the same way — that is where the memory saving is biggest. Icons and buttons up to 64 px stay pixel-exact.
• Vulkan compatibility in the instance settings: Auto turns it on for the GPUs known to need it (Mali-G615). Turn it on by hand if the picture freezes on the logo or in the menu while the game keeps running.
• Known limitations: typing works with Latin letters only; a "Steam could not be initialized" message may appear at the start — tap Ignore.

✅ Mods screen

Mods in the side menu lists an instance's mods: Active in load order on top, Inactive below, with search. A switch turns a mod on or off, the bin deletes a downloaded mod, a tap shows its details. Mods that don't list this game version, and mods in the list whose folder is gone, are marked.

• Sort puts the active mods in the order their authors ask for (what a mod needs loads before it): Harmony first, then Core and the DLC. Before anything changes, it shows how many mods move, which needed mods are missing (with their Workshop number) or switched off, and which incompatible mods are both on.
• Drag a mod by ≡ to move it by hand; a long press offers Move to the top / Move to the bottom.
• Close the game first: while it runs, the list is read-only (the game saves its own list when it exits).

✅ Workshop collections

Paste a Steam Workshop collection link (or its ID) into the Workshop mod downloader and every mod in it is fetched. Downloads run several at a time and failed mods get a second try; the log lists the collection's mods by number and name.

✅ New

• Home-screen shortcuts. The instance's ⋮ menu → Add to home screen: the shortcut starts that instance straight away (or brings the running game to the front).
• Import / export, tidied up. Two items in the side menu instead of four: Import / export saves and Import / export settings, each one screen with the instance, Import… and Export…. Importing asks first. Older export zips still import.
• Square buttons in the controls editor: Rectangle / Circle / Square.
• Simplified Chinese: the launcher and the in-app wiki.
• RimWorld 1.5 is legacy. 1.6 is the default download; 1.5 stays available for old saves and runs on the emulated engines only.

✅ Fixes

• No more crash before the main menu on vivo phones (and others with the same Android 16 build) with Native ARM64 Mono on.
• Typing on the native engine works with keyboards that suggest words (Gboard), not only with per-letter ones.

Before you update

Back up your saves: side menu → Import/Export saves → Export. The faster mode is new, and a backup costs nothing.

Sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ If you want to stay up to date with changes, tips, and useful tweaks, feel free to join our RimDroid X - or Reddit.

TG: udarmolota

⚠️ Reminder
Rimdroid is only a launcher.
To run the game, you still need the actual game files (Linux version), which you must obtain yourself - for example, by purchasing the game on Steam/GOG.

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This discussion was created from the release 📢 Version v0.2.9 - A native engine for RimWorld 1.6, mods sorting, button icons built-in.

[MushussuBabylon]

Can you add Arabic support for keyboard using my RimWorld mod? It's working for line wrapping because Arabic is right to left. But typing is not working. My mod repository: https://github.com/MushussuBabylon/ArabicSupport

[udarmolota]

Can you add Arabic support for keyboard using my RimWorld mod? It's working for line wrapping because Arabic is right to left. But typing is not working. My mod repository: https://github.com/MushussuBabylon/ArabicSupport

Currently 1.6 support only English letters. Working on multi language support.

[MushussuBabylon]

Ok, take your time. thank you for your hard work 👍

[udarmolota]

Ok, take your time. thank you for your hard work 👍

There is a good chance in the new 1.7 will be multi language support (faster).

And thank you.

[MushussuBabylon]

I hope so, I have been waiting for ages to see them finally changing their engine. Now RimWorld will unleash its full potential 💪