Building a shelter for your RimWorld colony is one of the most important things to do first. So if you find yourself asking why is my room outdoors, this guide is for you. It’s easy to not understand the many confusing mechanics of this game when you’re first starting out. So don’t worry, you’re definitely not the only one with this question.
Why is My Room Outdoors in RimWorld
It doesn’t matter where the walls come from so long as the room is closed in by them.
Before a room is officially complete, you’re more likely to have a tougher time. This is because it’s still vulnerable to the elements such as weather or temperature change. The last thing you want is a Toxic Fallout event poisoning your people hiding inside.
There are only a couple of conditions you need to meet for a room to no longer be considered outdoors. Fortunately, they’re easy to meet as well. First, make sure your room is surrounded by walls and/or doors. There just can’t be a gap to the outside or to another room if you’re keeping them separate.
Once the walls are in place, you’ll want to cover it with a nice roof.
It’s important to mention that the walls surrounding your room don’t need to be created by your colonists. For example, they can be made out of rock or from ruins here before you. With that said, you’ll still want to claim the walls of any ruins you’re taking over.
Once you have a room surrounded by walls/doors, you’ll need to put a roof over it. You can do this by opening the Architect tab and then the Zone tab afterward. There’s a button with a yellow house and a roof on it that says, “Build Roof Area”. Drag this zone over an area you want your people to build a roof over. Make sure you use walls or Columns to provide stability to prevent it from collapsing.
The roof overlay button is great to see where your roof is covering and where gaps may be.
Afterward, you can take advantage of an overlay to see where roofs are. This is the tiny little house icon at the bottom right without windows or a door. Hovering over it pops up a tooltip that says, “Toggle visibility of roofs”.
Building a Room Into a Mountain
Columns are huge for supporting roofs so they don’t collapse on your colony.
The conditions are still the same for when you’re building a room into a mountain or hill. But, they work slightly differently both for and against you. Mountains have a thick roof that can’t be removed aside from collapsing. And if that roof collapses, it has the potential to one-hit any colonist beneath it. That’s one of a couple of reasons that building a base into a mountain is dangerous.
You need to worry about the same thing happening if you build into a hill as well. So be careful of any potential stability issues. This is why it’s useful to take advantage of Columns under the Structure tab. When placing a Column, it shows the range that it provides stability for. Therefore, while you don’t need to build a roof for a mountain base, you still need stability.
If you have any other RimWorld questions for me, feel free to ask below. I hope this guide answers your question on why your room is outdoors. I’m currently working on more guides for common questions like What is Considered Tattered for clothing.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.