If you, like me, have been consumed by the bug that is Rimworld and can’t stop putting it down this guide is for you. One of the items in the game, Cloth, is used not only for clothing, but many different other crafting recipes including poker tables and nicer furniture. We are going to share some of the ways to get cloth in Rimworld to help you gain a nice little stockpile.
In a nutshell, to get cloth in Rimworld you will have to do one of three things; grow cotton, trade cloth with other factions or break items made from cloth to reclaim some of the materials.
Contents:
How to Get Cloth in Rimworld
There are 3 different methods of obtaining cloth in Rimworld.
(You can click on each of the methods to automatically scroll to the method on this page.
Method 1: Grow and Harvest Cloth with Cotton Plants
This method is the most simple (almost) guaranteed way to get cloth in Rimworld. That is as long as you have the right growing season and the crops don’t die in the process. But we will talk about alternative methods later to get around growing seasons…
To start growing your own cotton, start by clicking the architect menu down the bottom of the screen and selecting Zone. Inside the zone menu, you should select Growing Zone. You can then place this zone anywhere outside in an area with soil. A great tip to help your crops grow faster is to put your growing zones over fertile soil. On the bottom right of the screen you can toggle the ‘fertility overlay’ to quickly see what parts of the map house fertile soil.
After you have marked out an appropriate area on your map to start you cotton farm, by default your colonists will attempt to grow potatoes in this area. You can change this, by selecting the grow zone by clicking anywhere within it. With the grow zone selected, go to the bottom of the screen and change the crop type to Cotton Plant as shown in the image below.
You can see from this overlay that the Cotton plant has no minimum growing skill level required to start planting it. After doing these steps all you should have to do is wait. If you find that no colonist is planting your cotton plants, ensure that you have at least one colonist assigned to growing plants. The cotton will take a few in-game days to weeks to grow, so make sure you plant them very early on in your playthrough.
Using hydroponics to get cotton plants
Through research, your colony may eventually unlock the ability to create hydroponics stations. These are growing zones that can be placed indoors and crops that are usually seasonal can be grown all year round in them. Hydroponics stations also have a boost to growth times but there are a few caveats.
Hydroponics stations must have power connected to them at all times otherwise crops will start to die. To grow, some crops will need a light source and a certain amount of heat so you will have to run a Sun lamp which draws a great deal of power. The correct temperature must also be maintained to grow the crops, as per their requirements listed in their information sheets.
Method 2: Trade with other factions to get Cloth
Getting cloth vie trading with other factions is the absolute easiest way to acquire cloth. Simply start a caravan from the World menu and travel to another factions base to start trading. Not all bases will have cloth to trade, so it is a bit of a gamble if you are sending your colonists on a journey of a few days. But if you pick one of the larger faction bases, chances are they will have cloth, as it is a fairly common resource. Be sure to take something of value to trade with, or best-case a large chunk of silver.
Later on in the technology tree, you will unlock something called the Comms console. Every now and then a trading ship will fly over your colony and you will be able to trade resources with them. Almost every ‘Bulk trade goods’ company that I have had fly over the colony has a great amount of cloth to purchase so watch often!
Method 3: Break down unused Furniture to get cloth
Sometimes when you are building your perfect rooms or defenses you just have to make do with what you have. At some point you may have used cloth to create a couple of bedrolls you don’t actually need, or perhaps a poker table that you find none of the colonists are actually using. You can break down these items that you’ve previously created and salvage some of the resources that you used to build them, including, you guessed it, cloth! Simply select the structure or item and select the Deconstruct button at the bottom to queue the job for you builder. (You can also use the hotkey ‘x’ by default).
Note that you will not be able to reclaim all the cloth that has been used in the creation of the object. Clothes cannot be destroyed to reclaim materials.
You can also use this method if you are raiding a bandit outpost, or faction. If you find they have a room full of cloth bedrolls or beds you can deconstruct these and take the cloth back home to your colony.
Why do I need cloth in Rimworld?
Cloth is used for so many things in Rimworld that you will absolute find yourself needing it at some point. As aforementioned it is a requirement for building the Billiard table and the poker table, some of the more luxurious recreation items. You can also use cloth to create all different types of clothing. Though it doesn’t offer the greatest amount of protection from the elements or enemies it is a great bulk item for outfitting your entire colony. Cloth is also used for carpet in Rimworld. Who doesn’t love a nice bedroom with carpet?
I hope this short guide has helped you to fulfill your cloth needs. For any other Rimworld related tips of guides, be sure to check back regularly on the page. I will throw a couple of links to some other items that are hard to get under this text if you find yourself looking for Plasteel or Components in Rimworld.
Related: How to get Plasteel – Rimworld
How to get Components – Rimworld