Battle Rattle

Battle Rattle adds infantry gear to RimWorld to allow colonists to haul heavy loads, carry multiple weapons, and emergency medical gear. It's in early development and shouldn't be used in serious RimWorld sessions (aren't they all serious?)

New Things

Holsters, Slings, Sheaths, Scabbards, and Belts

• Drop-leg holsters for side-arms and personal defense weapons.
• Shoulder holsters for side-arms.
• Weapon slings for long and medium arms and a heavy sling for light machine guns.
• Sheaths and scabbards for knifes and swords (and machetes from the Thingamajigs mod if you have it.)
• If you have Skullywag's Non-Lethals mod, you'll also get holsters for stun guns and tasers.
• If you have Thingamajigs or Right Tool for the Job, you'll also get the engineer's equipment research project and then an engineer's belt for carrying up to three tools, hands-free.

Rucksacks (Backpacks)

• Basic rucks available with a little research, rudimentary skills, and few materials.
• Assault rucks for carrying a small amount of stuff faster and without impeding aiming too much.
• Long-range rucks for carrying the whole enchilada, can't shoot worth a damn, but you can drop it fast and fight on.
• Medic's ruck for carrying a lot of medical supplies.

Pouches

• Individual First-Aid Kit (IFAK) for battlefield self-treatment and others by colonists.
• Trauma kits, which are repackaged medicine for use in IFAKs or for treating down colonists in situ.
• Grenade pouch for … grenades!

Crating

• Medic's table for repackaging regular and glitterworld medicine into trauma kits.

Weapon Carriers

You can holster (or sling) a colonist's equipped weapon and then equip another weapon. Equipping a holstered weapon if one is already equipped will drop the equipped weapon, so you can drop the sniper rifle and charge that alphalo with your combat knife without losing precious seconds. A weapon carrier will keep a holstered weapon even when it's dropped, so colonists can quickly grab a their gear.

Using Weapon Carriers

1. Wear the weapon carrier of your choice.
2. Equip a matching weapon, e.g., an assault rifle for a combat sling.
3. Make sure the colonist doing steps 1 and 2 is selected.
4. Click the button ("gizmo") to holster or sling the colonist's weapon.
5. The weapon is now saved in the colonists weapon carrier and other items can be carried and equipped without losing the slung or holstered weapon.
6. To re-equip the weapon, select the colonist again and click the draw or ready weapon button.
7. If the colonist had something else equipped when you clicked draw or ready, it will be dropped next to them.

Note: at the moment you have to move the mouse cursor over the various Battle Rattle buttons to see which is which, since they're all just big, red question marks.

Rucksacks

You can load a ruck much like you'd load a storage zone or container, i.e., pick what to load. You can close a ruck to stop colonists from loading it and of course wear it to haul it and its contents where ever. Once "there", drop it and pick which of the various kinds of things you'd like to unload from it.

Using Rucksacks

1. Drop the rucksack on the ground.
2. Select the rucksack.
3. Click the Pack tab over the rucksack's information window.
4. Choose what you'd like colonists to pack this rucksack with and how far from the rucksack you'd like them to get items to pack.
5. Make sure the rucksack isn't forbidden (a red x) and that at least a colonist or two has the Pack work type in the Overview.
6. Click the Pack button to the right of the rucksack's information window.
7. Select a colonist and right-click the rucksack and select Wear.
8. Go somewhere else and drop the rucksack again.
9. Select the rucksack and click the Unpack buttons for the types of things you'd like to unpack, e.g., maybe you packed it with food, logs, and medicine and just want to unpack food and logs to make a campsite.
10. The unpacked items will immediately appear next to the ruck!

Note: at the moment you have to move the mouse cursor over the various Battle Rattle buttons to see which is which, since they're all just big, red question marks.

Pouches

The two pouches in the first release are the frag grenade pouch and the individual first-aid kit (IFAK.) The IFAK loaded with a trauma kit allows colonists to:

1. Treat themselves with their own (worn) IFAK when injured and significantly bleeding.
2. Treat a downed colonist with that colonists IFAK or the responder's IFAK or any nearby.
3. And, the player can force a colonist to treat themselves with an IFAK even when the colonist doesn't feel it necessary (click on the colonist, then the Use IFAK gizmo/button.)

The frag grenade pouch works exactly like weapon carriers, e.g., shoulder-holsters, but accepts fragmentation grenades.

Using IFAKs

1. Ensure you've both an empty IFAK, a trauma kit, and someone with the Doctor work type in the Overview.
2. If both the IFAK and trauma kit are available, the doctor will pack the latter into the former.
3. Select a colonist and then right-click the loaded IFAK to tell the colonist to wear it.
4. Once worn, you may force a colonist to use the IFAK on themselves by selecting the colonist and clicking the Use button to the right of the colonist's description window.
5. However, colonists will treat themselves with their own IFAK if they're bleeding badly and will treat other colonists who are down (but not dead, yet.)

Medicine

A new type of medicine, the trauma kit, allows doctors to treat downed colonists in situ, i.e., without hauling them to a medical bed first. It is also used to load IFAKs.

Making Trauma Kits

A medic's table will be available once Battlefield Medicine is researched. Have an experience doctor use the table to repackage regular and glitterworld medicine packs as trauma kits. Once repackaged, these trauma kits can be packed into IFAKs or carried by hand to downed colonists anywhere for treatment.

Crafting

All crafting is done at the tailor's worktable, except for the trauma kits and the buckles; make those at the medic's and smithing tables respectively. Most rucks and carriers require a few buckles, so it can be handy to make a good few of those and keep them near a tailor's worktable.

The Tech Tree

First Tier:

• Basic Rucks - Unlocks crafting a simple, smallish, uncomfortable pack and leads to Advanced Rucks.
• Combat Pouches - Unlocks the grenade pouch and leads to Battlefield Medicine.
• Sidearm Holsters - Unlocks drop-leg, shoulder, and PDW holsters and leads to Tactical Weapon Slings and Engineer's Equipment.

Second Tier:

• Advanced Rucks - Unlocks crafting assault and long-range rucks and leads to Battlefield Medicine. Requires Basic Rucks.
• Engineer's Equipment - Unlocks the engineer's belt, which can carry three different tools, e.g., hammers, wrenches, from other mods. Requires Sidearm Holsters.
• Tactical Weapon Slings - Unlocks the light and heavy weapon slings. Requires Sidearm Holsters.

Third Tier:

• Battlefield Medicine - Unlocks the IFAK, the medic's ruck, the trauma kit, and the medic's worktable. Requires Advanced Rucks and Combat Pouches.

Compatibility

Simple compatibility is achieved by using regular expressions in the XML definitions of the carriers, e.g., an anti-material rifle added by a mod can be used with the light sling because the light sling allows any weapon with "rifle" in the name.

Other mods require a little more effort and are listed below. I haven't played all these extensively, so my attempts and integrated them with Battle Rattle may well be missing something important. Please, let me know if that's the case or there's any other mods you'd like to see integrated.

• Better Than Sentry Guns

  All the first tier research projects are placed after Better Than Sentry Guns' new Tailoring research project and all research efforts are doubled.

• Extended Woodworking

  Extended Woodworking's new wood types are added to the allowed ingredients for sheathes, scabbards, and the medic's table.

• Glassworks

  Glassworks' glass types are added to the allowed ingredients for the medic's table.

• Right Tool for the Job

  The Engineer's Equipment research project the resulting tool belt are added when Right Tool for the Job is present.

• RimEffect

  The slings and holsters accept weapons added by RimEffect.

• RimFire

  The slings and holsters accept weapons added by RimFire.

• Rimsearch

  All research times are tripled.

• Skullywag's Non-Lethals

  Special holsters for Non-Lethals' stun gun and taser are added.

• Skullywag's Weapons, Tools, and Trinkets

  The slings accept Skullywag's weapons and a special flare gun holster is added if that item is detected.

• Thingamajigs

  The Engineer's Equipment research project the resulting tool belt are added added when Right Tool for the Job is present.

• Winter is Here

  Winter is Here's kit-based tables for tailoring and smithing have the same recipes added to them as Core RimWorld's tailoring and smithing tables.

Credit Is Due

Icons for the sheath, scabbard, and drop-leg and PDW holsters are by Shinzy.

Before a pre-release was even ready, several intrepid RimWorld modders where patiently pointing out where to bang on the keyboard or giving me inspiration! Thanks and kudos to (in alphabetical order):

• Bucketsmith
• mipen
• mrofa
• Rikki
• skullywag

But, any/all mistakes are down to @Famous-Shoes; a problem with the brain being missing.

Help

Even if you're not into modding, you can help by just expressing your interest or sharing your ideas and suggestions here in the issues or the Ludeon Forums. If you'd like to pitch in, areas in need are:

1. Textures. Any. All.
2. Refactoring ideas or bugs. Or if you just want share a few pointers. Or even: fork and pull request!
3. Or, anything you'd like to work on. You'll be most welcome.