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Getting Started
The changes this mod makes to the game aren't that many, but being to some key game mechanics they might take some getting used to. I'm writing this guide to lay out some fundamentals so you don't get too frustrated trying to figure this out. So here are eight steps to a technologically advanced colony using Human Resources. I hope it helps you!
This mod's goal is to give you more challenge, and it does that by making everyday tasks on RimWorld a little harder. Every time your colonists try to build, repair, craft or sow something, or even use a weapon, the game will verify if their knowledge allows them to do that. (This only applies to your human colonists, all enemies, visitors and robots should behave normally.) Obviously that will require you to pay close attention to your pawns' capabilities and to who does what. But that also means access to a technology is going to play a huge role. Many trivial tasks on a RimWorld game are actually locked behind research projects, and usually we don't pay too much attention to that because it comes embedded with the starting scenario or it's easy to research. Passive Cooler, Complex Furniture, Complex Clothing, Smiting and Stonecutting are good examples of fundamental techs you'll suffer without. Just imagine going without early game coolers, beds, tables, clothes, bladed weapons and stone walls and you'll get the picture! Normally, once they are discovered, the capability of producing those things is automatically unlocked for all pawns. If its a starting tech, it's a no-brainer. Well, not anymore! Now it's going to be your job to distribute those capabilities around, and there will be extra steps. Also, since researching is going to be harder, the techs you start with can be the difference between life and death! So...
2. Don't rely on their starting knowledge, build a Study Desk as soon as you can.
For every human-like pawn spawned, the game will generate a starting knowledge consisting of some technology expertise and some weapon proficiencies. This is based on a number of factors and you can tweak the starting technology pool for your own colonists on the settings panel (Options > Mod Settings > Human Resources), but the procedure is largely randomized and most importantly, based on the pawns' faction tech level. This means tribals have a higher chance of getting basic techs and the default crashlanded scenario New Arrivals might be good with electronics and geothermal power, but they will suck when it comes to building a chair! How to get around this? Well, pay attention to what are the techs you started with, because your faction's starting techs are always available on the study desk, even if you don't have the books yet. Therefore, the first order of business is to build one and put them to study and fill the gaps in their knowledge. The starting techs for the vanilla factions should be enough to get you going, but if you fell the need for some other tech right from the start (say, for some modded thing you can't do without), you can edit the scenario you choose before starting the game (Scenario Editor > Edit Mode > Add part > Start with research).
You can check what each pawn knows on their Tech tab or on the Research Tree itself, by rolling the mouse over the pawn's portrait on the upper right.
Once you build your first study desk, your pawns will be able to start learning and exchanging their particular knowledge. This is done by setting up the appropriate bills, just like with any other workstation, assigning your pawns to Study on the work tab and selecting what you want them to study or write down. You can select technologies and assign tasks to individual pawns directly on the Research Tree, selecting on the pop-up menu for each project, or on their Tech tab, by clicking on them with the show techs available to learn toggle on. Notice when you click on a tech on the tab the game figures out by itself what to do with it - study if is something unknown to them, document if it's something only they know - but you still need to set up the appropriate bill on the study desk so they actually do it.
In order to learn a new technology, it must either be a starting tech for your faction OR have its correspondent book available at your library. Also, if the tech you want your pawn to learn has one or more pre-requisites, your colonist must learn all of those beforehand, so the game will queue those automatically when you select the tech. Let's say, for example, you need your builder to learn how to build solar panels, which requires prior knowledge of Electricity. Even if electricity is a given starting tech for your faction, he won't be able to learn Solar Panel if he personally doesn't already know electricity fully. Good news is the pawn learns a technology twice as fast if he already knows one of its branches, so someone who already knows all about solar panels can easily grasp the details of electricity.
In order for your pawn to share something he or she already knows, the task would be document technology. The pawn must, obviously, know the desired tech already. This is a much longer undertaking and the result will be a technical book. That book will require a bookshelf to be properly stored, so you'll also need one of those before the pawn sits down to work (more on bookshelves later). Since it takes a long time - according to the tech being documented - your pawn might decide to take some breaks in the process. Don't worry, the book will remain in an unfinished state until his author gets back to finish it, just like when building other difficult items. When its done, you'll finally have the solid form of a technology, and your colonist will immediately bring it to your library and archive it. When they do, you'll have officially discovered a new tech! Only then other pawns will be able to study that particular technology.
You can check what tasks are assigned to each colonist on their Tech tab by activating the Show Assignment toggle at the bottom.
The main purpose for storing books on alphabetically-ordered neatly organized bookshelves is to provide a repository of knowledge where everyone can learn new things easily, just like in real-world libraries. Your bookshelves connect to the study desk and research benches, and they provide a speed boost to the tasks performed on those stations. The boost is proportional to the number of stored books on the connected bookshelves, so the more well stocked your library is, the faster your pawns will learn and research. But there's a catch: if a bookshelf is destroyed, for whatever reason, all its books are dropped and the corresponding techs are removed from your library. Be careful, as books are highly flammable! When they burn, that's literally lost knowledge.
By that time, if you faced your first raid or tried to assign hunting weapons, its likely you stumbled on the restriction for pawns to only equip weapons they're proficient in. The weapons list your colonists are given when they're created varies according to their skill, your faction tech level and the settings. If they happen to know how to craft a specific weapon, that weapon will also be included. But from that point on, the lists are separated, and even the uneducated will be able to learn how to use any weapon. Just remember that when you put your hands on a shiny new gun or blade, you need to put your pawns to learn that weapon before they can use it. For melee weapons, this is done at the Training Dummy, and for ranged ones, at the Target Stand. The tasks avaliable on each of them are the same: learn a new weapon, experiment with unknown weapon and practice a weapon. They all require the pawn to be assigned to the Study work type.
In order to learn how to use a weapon your pawn needs more than access to the weapon itself, he needs access to the corresponding technology. This means either you already have it on your library or your pawn knows it personally. The corresponding technology for each weapon is listed on it's info panel, along with it's status (if discovered already or not). Notice some simpler weapons and artillery don't need to be learned, even if they're still locked behind research. If that's the case, the weapon will be available to every one of your pawns as soon as their tech is archived.
If you can't wait for the appropriate research, you can use experiment with unknown weapon to make your pawns try to figure out how to use some advanced weapon. It's a long shot, the chances are slim (increasing with the intellectual skill). And if they fail, there's a chance they damage the weapon or even themselves in the process. Do it at your own risk!
The other training task is to practice a weapon. It only applies to weapons your pawn already knows how to use, of course, but exactly what weapon isn't that important. That's because this task's goal is simply to increase your pawn's skill in that type of weapon. The target stand increases shooting skills and the training dummy increases melee skills.
You'll be able to acquire many technologies from the people you recruit, but that might not be fast enough. So you might still want to build a research bench and assign a researcher. The research benches have been modified to be more compact, so you can easily fit them into your library. You want to do that because they benefit from the speed boost the bookshelves provide! Other than that, they keep their base characteristics, including the ability to connect with a multi-analyser. You also still need a Hi-Tech Research Bench and the multi-analyser in order to pursue certain technologies.
You can select what to research on the same pop-up menu from the projects at the Research Tree, by assigning a pawn to the task. The assignment will be displayed at their Tech tab along with the study and document tasks, and it can be cancelled from there. And just like the study assignment, if there are any pre-requisites the pawn should study or research in advance, those will be queued as well. Notice they still need to be assigned to Research at the work tab. Also, note that when your colonists perform this task, the knowledge they create isn't added to the general colony pool like in vanilla, but to their own personal expertise. In order for them to share what they learned, they need to document it into a book at the study desk.
As you can see, technology improvement for your colony will become it's own production chain:
| research tech > | document it into a book > | add book to library > | study tech > | do stuff with it. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (research bench) | (study bench) | (book shelf) | (study bench) | (build/repair/grow/craft) |
Some traders sell books you can buy to stock your library. There are specialized caravans and orbital traders who will arrive from time to time and the exotic goods traders will also carry a few books in their inventory. When you visit other settlements, keep an eye for books they might be selling too. There isn't much of a case for selling books in a Rimworld, however. People are too much concerned with their own survival.
Beyond the industrial-era technologies, mere books are no longer enough to contain the produced knowledge. Even if you manage to find that kind of knowledge around, it won't come in book form, but as hard drives. To cope with that, you're going to need proper information-age infrastructure: a network server and corresponding network terminals. You can check the details later, but basically they replace the bookshelves and study desks, respectively.