RimWorld AI Colonist Dialogue Mod: Talking Pawns and Voice Orders

RimWorld is moving to a new engine. Update 1.7, now on the unstable beta branch, runs on Ludeon's own Waylith engine and keeps C# modding, so it is a good moment to build a mod that lets colonists say what they feel. They already have rich inner lives: moods, grudges, addictions, a bonded dog they would die for. You just never hear them say any of it. A RimWorld AI colonist dialogue mod gives them a voice. Ask a colonist how they are doing, and they answer from their real thoughts and the raid that just happened. Neocortex adds the AI characters, storyteller commentary, quizzes and on-device voice commands for colony orders.

Screenshot: RimWorld © Ludeon Studios

Pawns, a narrator and a trader

Colonists who talk about their mood. Select a colonist and ask how they feel. Your mod sends their mood, active thoughts ("ate without a table", "slept in the cold"), traits, relationships and the last few events: a manhunter pack, a lost arm, a wedding. A Neocortex character speaks as that pawn through /v3/chat. A pyromaniac sounds different from an ascetic, and someone who just watched a friend die does not crack jokes.

The reply carries an emotion tag your mod can show as a mood icon, and actions it can run, such as { "name": "REQUEST_REST", "targetId": "pawn_engie" }. Lines appear as floating text over the pawn, in the social log or as a letter for the big moments.

Characters are built in a visual node editor with personality, emotion, knowledge, world and voice nodes. One shared colonist character can take each pawn's traits and backstory as context with every message, and up to six characters can share a conversation on Pro and Team plans, enough for a dinner-table argument in the rec room.

A storyteller with opinions. Give your colony a narrator. Each incident goes to a storyteller character as an event with a priority: a raid at dawn, a solar flare, a cargo pod full of silver. The narrator comments in a dry, ominous or cheerful voice you design, remembers what came before ("the third raid this season"), and speaks through streamed audio (/v3/audio/stream, with /v3/audio/generate as the alternative). A Conversation Flow can turn a long quest line into story beats, returning checkpoint keywords your mod uses to fire the next incident.

A trader with a trivia deal. An orbital trader calls in on the comms console and offers a deal: answer a round of trivia, get a discount. "What does a hydroponics basin need besides light?" "How many days are in a quadrum?" The quiz engine (Team plan) runs the questions and scoring through /v3/quiz, and your mod applies the price cut when the colony wins.

Voice orders when the wall falls

When the raiders breach the wall, nobody wants to click through twelve pawns. Design a command set with actors ("everyone", "shooters", "doctors", colonist names), actions ("draft", "take cover", "rescue", "hold fire") and objects ("the north wall", "the hospital").

"Everyone take cover" drafts the colony and your mod moves each pawn to the nearest cover it picks. "Draft the shooters" drafts every colonist with a ranged weapon. "Draft three shooters and send them to the north wall" arrives with the quantity attached. The Neocortex Voice Commands library matches on the player's PC, without a cloud round trip, so orders land before the next volley.

For the voice side in more depth, read on-device voice commands for game mods. Voice Commands is a licensed SDK: contact us for a Voice Commands license.

Screenshot: RimWorld © Ludeon Studios

What changes for modders in 1.7?

The main branch is on 1.6, and update 1.7 is on the unstable beta branch. It moves the game to the Waylith engine, keeps C# modding with the latest language features, and Ludeon expects most mods to work unchanged.

For a dialogue mod, the Neocortex side is a web API, so it does not depend on the engine. Test your game-side code on both branches before you publish.

Anatomy of a RimWorld code mod

RimWorld mods live in folders with an About.xml, XML defs for content and optional C# assemblies for code. Most code mods depend on the Harmony mod (GitHub), which ships the Harmony library for patching game methods at runtime. It loads at the top of the mod list, before Core.

Your C# code runs inside the game, so it can read pawns, needs and incidents directly and call a web API with HttpClient. Show replies with the game's own floating text, letters or a custom window, and play returned audio clips through an audio library you bundle with the mod. The RimWorld Wiki modding tutorials cover the folder layout, defs and your first assembly. Most mods are shared on the Steam Workshop.

RimWorld AI colonist dialogue mod setup checklist

1. Set up a C# mod with Harmony as a dependency, following the wiki tutorials.
2. Design the characters in the Neocortex dashboard: a colonist template, a storyteller narrator and a trader question set. Test them in the browser.
3. Design a command set for colony orders, with a few example phrases per action.
4. Connect from the mod. Call /v3/chat off the main thread, reuse the sessionId per pawn, and map returned actions to game code.
5. Keep the API key in mod settings or a config file the player fills in, never hard-coded in a shared mod.
6. Test in a fresh single-player colony with push-to-talk, on 1.6 and the 1.7 beta.

Ludeon's EULA and fair play

Ludeon's EULA says mods must be free, must not carry ads or calls to action, and must be presented as unofficial community work. Follow it, and ask players to bring their own Neocortex API key. RimWorld is single-player, so the main rule is simple: keep it free and credit it as a community mod.

Costs at a glance

What each part of the mod needs on the Neocortex side:

So the smallest version, one colonist template plus a narrator, stays within the free plan's two characters. Build it in Neocortex, hear your first pawn complain about eating without a table, and grow from there.

Building for a quieter colony? See our Stardew Valley AI villager mod guide or the full AI NPC and voice command mods index. For how Neocortex compares with other AI character platforms, see our comparison page.

Tool versions and links checked October 2026. Modding tools change often; check each project's page for the latest release.

Frequently Asked Questions