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The Architect menu

The Architect menu is where you issue every build, mine, chop, haul, and zone order on the map. RimWorld calls each orderable action a "designator." Walls, doors, stockpile zones, "chop this tree," and "expand the home area" are all designators, and they all live here.

Opening the Architect menu

Press Tab to open the Architect menu.

It is a tree view organized by category: Structure, Zone, Production, Temperature, and so on. Right arrow expands a category, Left arrow collapses it, and Up and Down move between items.

You almost never need to crawl the whole tree. Type-ahead works here, so start typing what you want and the menu jumps to it. Type "wall" for walls, "stock" for stockpile zones, "chop" for the chop-wood order, "expand" for expand-home-area. Find the designator you want, then press Enter to start placing it.

Designators are shape-based

Once you pick a designator, you place it using a shape. Most designators support more than one shape and start on a sensible default. For something physical like a wall or door, you choose the material first (see "Choosing a material" below), and then you pick the shape. Press Tab to move to the shape menu, then Up and Down to change shape, or type the shape name (for example "empty" for an empty rectangle) and press Enter.

Three shapes cover most work:

  • Filled rectangle. You set two corners and it fills the whole interior. Use this for zones, like a stockpile covering a 12-by-12 area.
  • Empty rectangle. Same two corners, but only the perimeter is placed. Use this for walls, since you want the outline of a room, not a solid block.
  • Manual. Place one object at a time. Use this for single items like a door.

Placing a shape

The placement flow is the same every time: pick a starting point, pick an ending point, confirm.

  1. Move your cursor to where the shape should begin and press Space to set the first point.
  2. Move the cursor to the opposite corner. Use the arrow keys for one tile at a time, or jump modes (below) for precise distances.
  3. Press Space again to set the second point.
  4. Press Enter to confirm and place. The mod announces what was created, for example "12 by 12 stockpile zone created."

For a manual designator like a door, the flow is shorter: position the cursor, Space to place, Enter to confirm.

Shift+Space removes the last point you placed, or removes a blueprint when the cursor is over one.

Jump modes for precise distances

Two jump modes are available during building:

Preset distance (the default) moves the cursor by a fixed number of tiles per Ctrl+arrow press.

  • Shift+Left and Shift+Right decrease or increase the preset distance by 1.
  • Shift+Ctrl+Left and Shift+Ctrl+Right decrease or increase it by 10.

So to lay out a 12-tile wall: set the preset distance to 12 with Shift+Right (pressing it until the mod announces 12), press Space to set the first point, then Ctrl+Right to jump 12 tiles east, Space again, and Enter to place.

The jump distance counts the starting tile, so a distance of 13 moves the cursor 14 tiles including the start. To enclose a 12-by-12 interior, set the jump distance to 13: the walls form a 14-by-14 exterior, and the two wall tiles on each side leave 12 by 12 of open floor inside.

Adjacent to wall jumps the cursor to the next wall-adjacent tile in that direction, which is handy when you want to pick up exactly where an existing structure ends.

Shift+Up and Shift+Down cycle through all available jump modes. These keys change the mode; they do not move the cursor.

For jump modes in other contexts (navigating the map outside of building), see the map.

Building more than one shape at once

  • Press = (equals) to add another shape to the current order. Already-placed shapes stay put, and you start positioning a new one. Repeat as needed, then Enter to confirm them all.
  • Press - (minus) to remove the last shape you placed. If a rock or other obstacle blocks part of your placement, minus removes a shape, but you then press = (equals) to add one back. With zero shapes there is nothing left to confirm.

Select all

Some designators, like Chop Wood or Mine, can apply to many targets at once. Press Ctrl+A to select all: the first press grabs everything in the current enclosure, a second press extends to the whole map. Ctrl+Shift+A steps back out one level if you went too far. Press Enter to confirm.

Inside a room, Ctrl+A selects its interior, which is useful when you want to zone or order everything inside a building without painting tiles one by one.

Choosing a material

When you build something physical like a wall or door, the game presents a material list. You choose the material first, then the shape. Type to filter the list or arrow through it, then Enter to choose. Stone blocks and wood are good choices for walls and doors. Avoid steel for walls and doors: it is wasteful, and steel is better saved for machines and other components.

If the list says None available, you have no stored stock of that material. Selecting it is still valid: place the blueprint, and pawns will deliver the material once they gather or haul it. This lets you stage large projects: lay out the whole structure now, and construction proceeds as materials arrive. You can also pick a material you have on hand to start immediately.