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Onimods - Column Light

Onimods - Column Light adds new columns with integrated light sources, the standard “lamp column”, a mix of the basic column and lamp, the “sunlamp column”, a basic column with an integrated standard sunlamp, and the "torch column" and "darktorch column" for the situations when electricity is not available.

RimWorld Version 1.5 is still a recent release, the mod has been updated to the new version, but if you run into any error, please report it on the comments.


Lamp Column: for the same cost of a vanilla column and a vanilla lamp, you get both on the same building. Light color can be customized after advanced lights is researched, just like the normal lamp, and they are also paintable, as many other vanilla building now are.

Sunlamp Column: as with the lamp column, it is built with the same materials as a normal column and sunlamp. Has the same area and power consumption of the vanilla sunlamp, but also has a toggle to change the light color between the vanilla ‘sunlike’ light, and the “Wall Light” mod default UV-purple color of artificial plant growing lights (that I just find interesting). The color toggle is just a cosmetic effect.

Torch/Darktorch Column: for the situations where electricity is not readily available, from tribal starts to sun flare precautions, it is a normal column with the illumination and heating proprieties of a torch or darktorch (from Ideology). It requires manual refueling just as a typical torch, but can be lit or unlit as needed.

Ideology styles: the new columns have adjusted textures for the styles that change column textures in vanilla, and the mods listed below.
Adding support for more mods with styles that affect normal columns is always possible (if the mod author agrees), and suggestions are welcome!

Ideology and Royalty rooms compatibility: they are also considered ‘columns’ to fulfill the demands for Ideology ritual rooms, and Royalty royals throne rooms.

Experimental "Light Pulse Mode" for Lamp Columns: Available for the normal Lamp columns, the "Pulse Mode" makes the colored light visible on the column oscillate between the standard color brightness and a dimmer half-brightness. The duration and offset of the pulse cycle can be customized on the column via UI buttons.
This is an experimental feature for now, so it's disabled by default on the mod settings, as it may have some impact on the game performance.

“Experimental” RGB lamp column: the third column type added by this mod, what started as a testing joke, ended up getting way more time dedicated to it then it should. It has quite a few customization options available on the column itself, settings the color loop cycle order, duration and time offset, and also the game tick update rate, the frequency in which the game updates its surrounding color.
It is by default disabled on mod setting, because it will cause some very heavy performance impact, that can be somewhat mitigated by increasing the column tick update rate. As a result, unlock and use at your own risk. It most likely won’t break your game, but will drop your FPS and TPS considerably.


Replace Stuff (requires Replace Stuff Mod Compatibility): Partial support, columns can have their material replaced without problems, but changing between column ‘types’ (like replacing a vanilla column with a lamp column) will cause roof collapse if that column is the one holding the roof. Build extra scaffolding during structural reforms, safety first!

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Empire: Lamp columns fulfill the demands for the added royal titles throne rooms.

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Memes and Structures: Column textures for styles: Corporate, Hedonist.

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Sophian Style: Column textures for style: Sophian.

Alpha Memes: Column textures for styles: Hindu, Kemetic, Neolithic, Scavenger, Steampunk, Cubic*, Flesh, Horaxian*.

ATH's style Draconic: Column textures for style: Draconic.

ATH's style Gothic and Bloody Gothic: Column textures for style: Gothic, Bloody Gothic.

ATH's styles Norse: Column textures for style: Norse.

Rimsenal Style Pack - Sophian: Column textures for style: Sophian.

Gerrymon's Nautian Style: Column textures for style: Ocean.

ↁ House Sanguin: Column textures for style: Sanguin.

*columns of these styles don’t display texture color changes based on the light picked color, due to the nature of the style visuals (mostly cause I couldn’t think of a good way to add it).


In theory, it shouldn’t have any hard incompatibilities, but drop a message if you find any odd behavior, along with the Hugslib exported error log link (Ctrl + F12), use the "Standalone Log Tool" version if the original one is not working.


Due to the v1.5 patch update changing the columns texture draw sizes (probably to fix their old 'squished' looks), some styled textures may look odd, if you hit such a case, please report on the comments!


All text content is properly keyed to the language file, or marked with comments on the XML, should anyone want to do a translation mod.
Currently supported: English.


v1.5: Current version under support, may be updated with new content, check the change notes for more info.

v1.4: Supported, but it's now locked, so no further updates or new features are planned.


Q: Why?
A: I wanted to make vanilla columns more useful, as some styles, specially modded ones, have some really nice art. Also keeping large rooms properly illuminated could be a nuisance. There are the Ideology and Royalty rooms columns demands too, and the mood bonus from having the proper 'styled surroundings'. So, 'reasons', I guess?

Q: Is this somehow related to the old "Wall Light" mod?
A: No, but I couldn't resist making the reference on the mod name at the time (and calling it "Light Columns" would sound even more ambiguous).

Q: Those "Experimental" features sound very bad for performance!
A: That's why they are warped in warning signs, yellow and black stripes, and behind a reinforced safety glass on the mod settings!
Jokes aside, the "Pulse Mode", from my limited testing, does have a small performance cost when used right now, but it has room for improvement once I get a better hold on the graphics part of the game code! So, I'm leaving it on the "experimental" state until I get around applying those potential code improvements.
Now, for the RGB columns, yeah..., they are really heavy on performance, due to the constant changing of the ambient light colors. There isn't much I can do about that, so those are there more for the eventual joke and gif/video making potential really.
(But I believe some of the "performance enhancement" mods might help with them, but I haven't tested that)


To the artists at Ludeon, and the modders from the various supported mods: Vanilla Expanded series, Alpha Memes, ATH's styles various mods, ↁ House Sanguin, Rimsenal Style Pack - Sophian, Gerrymon's Nautian Style, for their original columns textures, that are the bases for the masks and slightly edited textures of their lamp column versions.

And a grateful thanks and shoutout to the very helpful folks on the Rimworld Discord modding channel for allowing this silly idea to end up here! \o/