Combat Extended - Realistic Combat Overhaul for RimWorld

Combat Extended is a major combat overhaul for RimWorld that replaces the vanilla shooting and armor systems with ballistic mechanics. It also reworks melee combat, introduces ammunition management, expands the inventory system and makes injuries more dangerous.

Instead of relying on percentage-based hit calculations, combat now depends on projectile trajectories, weapon characteristics, armor penetration and positioning.

Realistic Shooting and Ballistics

The original shooting system is replaced with a ballistic model where projectiles travel through the world and collide with hitboxes.

Key changes include:

• Projectile trajectories - Bullets travel along calculated paths, including their height.
• Weapon specialization - Rifles excel at medium and long distances, machine guns provide suppression, while shotguns and submachine guns are effective at close range.
• Aiming and firing modes - Weapons support different targeting and firing options.
• Combat stances - Pawns crouch when stationary during combat, making them harder to hit.
• Suppression - Nearby gunfire reduces accuracy, forces pawns to seek cover and can cause panic.
• Ammunition types - Weapons can use different ammunition, including armor-piercing and high-explosive rounds.

The ammunition requirement can be disabled in the mod settings.

Projectile height also affects which body parts can be hit. For example, a colonist crouching behind sandbags may leave only their head exposed.

Improved Melee Combat

Combat Extended introduces additional mechanics for close-range fighting:

• Critical hit and parry chances.
• Ripostes following successful parries.
• Rebalanced dodging.
• Weapon-specific bonuses to critical hits, parries and evasion.
• Different critical effects depending on the attack type.

Blunt weapons can stun enemies, sharp weapons can bypass armor, and animal attacks may knock targets down.

Melee skill and attack speed influence defensive capabilities, making experienced fighters significantly more effective.

Armor and Ballistic Shields

The vanilla percentage-based armor system is replaced with a penetration and deflection model.

Projectiles have armor penetration values that determine whether they pass through protection and how much damage they deal.

The modification also introduces shields:

• Basic melee shields can block arrows.
• Modern ballistic shields offer protection against gunfire.
• Shields improve parrying in melee combat.

However, shields reduce melee accuracy and shooting effectiveness and prevent the use of two-handed weapons.

Inventory and Automatic Loadouts

Colonists can carry ammunition, weapons, food and other supplies in their personal inventories.

Carrying capacity is limited by weight and bulk:

• Excessive weight reduces movement speed.
• Bulky equipment can reduce work speed.
• Clothing and equipment affect available carrying capacity.

The loadout system allows players to assign equipment lists to individual colonists. Pawns automatically collect required ammunition, grenades, meals and sidearms while removing unnecessary items.

Medical System and Injuries

Combat Extended changes how wounds, bleeding and medical treatment work.

• Torso hits are more likely to damage vital organs.
• Internal injuries cause significantly increased bleeding.
• Destroyed internal organs can continue bleeding.
• Limbs are generally more durable.
• The vanilla random death-on-downed mechanic is disabled.

Colonists can use medicine to stabilize bleeding, temporarily reducing blood loss until proper treatment becomes available.

Stabilization consumes one medicine per patient, and its effectiveness depends on the doctor's skill, medicine quality and injury severity.

Compatibility and Installation

Important: Combat Extended requires a new save and cannot be safely removed from an existing save.

Because it extensively changes combat mechanics, mods that add weapons, animals, turrets, new races or factions may require compatibility patches.

Check the official supported mods list before installing additional content.

The Steam release supports only the latest RimWorld version. Older releases are available on the Combat Extended GitHub repository.

Additional Combat Extended Content

Several optional expansions are available:

• Combat Extended Armors
• Combat Extended Armory
• Combat Extended Attachments
• Combat Extended Guns
• Combat Extended Melee