The suite-level home: the thesis (crime spectrum, nature x nurture, policeable), the secured-context principle (prisoner/ward/slave/secure-area), all seven module slots, the full crime loop, build order, prior-art verdicts, and the standing rules -- self-complete and dependency-free, coexist-don't-duplicate judged by quality not sub count, extend by capability not list.
2.9 KiB
The Institution suite
A set of RimWorld 1.6 mods about what an institution does to the people inside it — and the crime, policing, and justice that put them there. Each mod stands alone and requires none of the others; together they form one system.
The thesis
Every pawn has a criminal propensity on a spectrum — nature (traits) × nurture (circumstance, mood, treatment) — and the colony can police it.
The suite is the two halves of that: colonists commit crimes and a policing layer catches them (pre-arrest), and prison / contraband / wards / secure areas hold and reform them (post-arrest). Arrest is the hinge. Nothing hard-codes "prisoner" — every held-person system keys off a secured context: prisoner, ward patient, slave, or secure-area occupant.
The mods
| Mod | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Foul Play | throw a container of something off a body; vessels + substances + the Piss Nuke flagship | shipping |
| Institution: Contraband | conceal / improvise / search / confiscate; intake, escape, secure areas | building |
| Institution: Ward | involuntary psychiatric commitment — the third pawn state, neither free nor guilty | shipping |
| Institution: Regime | daily schedule (vanilla Restrict) + modest needs + visitation | planned |
| Institution: Justice | the crime loop, the policing officer, parole / discharge / manumission | planned |
| Institution: Discipline | security classification, punishment-as-order, corruption | planned |
| Institution: Gangs | prisoner & colony gangs, rivalries, contraband networks | planned |
Principles
- Self-complete, dependency-free. Every mod works alone; none requires another suite mod or any
third-party mod. Integrations are always
MayRequire-soft — features light up if a mod is present and the loop still closes without it. - Coexist, don't duplicate. We test against the all-time most-subscribed Workshop mods and never rebuild what a genuinely good mod already does well — judged by quality, not sub count.
- Extend by capability, not by list. New content registers via
IsWeapon/IsDrug/ category, so modded items are covered without being named.
The plan
The full design, module scope, build order, and prior-art verdicts are in ROADMAP.md. Per-mod roadmaps live in each repo (e.g. Contraband's item build list).
Compatibility
The harness (Tools/run-compat-test.sh in the Ward repo) boots a real headless RimWorld with the
suite plus the popular psych/prison mods and the all-time most-subscribed mods loaded at once,
and fails on any error naming our code. Combat Extended gets its own dedicated pass.
AI disclosure
Designed and built with substantial assistance from Claude (Anthropic).