Time

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Revision as of 04:19, 26 January 2022 by Albedo (talk | contribs) (A+ for the word (seriously, Respect! o7), but we should aim for very young players and their equiv, as well as non-native speakers. Shame, but it is what it is. Also note re "time zones" on World map.)
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Time in RimWorld passes as a series of ticks. On normal game speed, there are 60 such ticks to a real second; there are always 2,500 ticks to one in-game hour.

The game starts in the year 5500. The in-game clock is in 24-hour format with the hours displayed in military time from 0h to 23h.

Time on the calendar proceeds as one would expect except that the four months are termed "quadrums", and they last only 15 game days each. They are named to suggest our own "real world" months: "Decembary," "Aprimay," "Jugust," and "Septober." Each individual quadrum is always 15 days, after which you proceed into the next quadrum. Note that while "Jugust" is "summer" north of the equator, it's "winter" south of it, so there is no default association of "quadrum : season".

Also note that, on the World map, the hour of the day is relative to the location clicked. So if it's noon (1200) at your home base, it will still be late morning (1100/11 AM) a bit to the west, and already early afternoon (1300/1 PM) a bit to the east, same as "time zones" in our world.

Time of day is modeled on the planet view; local time of day corresponds to how the sunlight hits the planet.

In-Game Time Ticks Real Time
1.44 Min 60 1s
1 Hour 60 Min 2,500 ~42s
1 Day 24 Hours 60,000 16m 40s
1 Quadrum 15 Days 900,000 4h 10m
1 Year 4 Quadrums 3,600,000 16h 40m
Technical details for modders
Ticks Game Time
1 tick 1 tick 1/60th second
1 rare tick 250 ticks 4.16 seconds
1 long tick 2000 ticks 33.33 seconds

Version History

  • 0.0.254B - Abolished cycles - dates are measured in days only.
  • 0.10.785 - Day length extended from 24,000 to 30,000 ticks. Days per month reduced from 12 to 10.
  • 0.13.1135 - Days are now twice as long as before, with years being half as many days i.e. years are exactly as long as before in actual play time, just divided into a smaller number of longer days. The year is now split into seasons instead of months.
  • 0.17.1546 - As season names could no longer be consistently applied to the entire globe, necessitating that they be named as month-like "quadrums."