Now, I know Rimworld gets pegged as a war crime simulator, and a lot of people play it that way, but well, when push comes to shove, wanton destruction usually isn't very productive. Sure, it can be fun to orbital strike a bandit camp, but those things aren't cheap - and to get all that high tech gear for your cyborg army, you're going to need to fund it. That's where this guide comes in.

Below is a guide comparing the profits of raising a tortoise compared to other common methods of making money in Rimworld:



Now, I know what you're thinking: "Turtles are worth 400 silver? That can't be right!" - And you'd be right: they sell for 200 silver. HOWEVER, unlike chickens, muffalo, and almost all animals in the game that only generate a single offspring per gestation, tortoises can lay anywhere from 1 to 3 eggs at a time. This means that sometimes you'll be getting 200 silver worth of tortoises per birth, while other times you'll get 600 silver - but in the end the averages come down to the aforementioned 400. To put things in a less number heavy way, if you wanted to match a humble farm of 5 female and 1 male tortoise, you would need eight hydroponics bays constantly making yayo. Ten tortoises are as profitable as a mating pair of thrumbos. Below is the profit from me selling 140 tortoises to the fallen empire. Easiest four suits of cataphract armor in my life.

Some other bonuses to tortoises are:

• They eat literally anything edible, from grass to bodies (hide the luciferium, they WILL eat it)
  
• Their bite, while not as good as a weapon, can still do good damage via bleed and hurts like hell
  
• Their shell gives them a defense bonus roughly as protective as steel plate armor
  
• Lower animal filth generated than bigger animals
  
• Easy to tame, and keeping them tame is an easy way to get exp for the animals skill.
  
• and well, as much as it hurts to type this, there will come a point where you'll have to eat them to keep them from causing a lagfest and/or megaraids due to wealth, and the 70 meat is enough for seven simple meals.

However, I'm not going to lie and say that Tortoise ranching has no downsides at all. In the grand scope of things they aren't too big of deal, but forewarned is forearmed.

Potential difficulties to keep in mind:

• It goes without saying tortoises are slow. Very slow, in fact. As such, if a raider or other baddie decides to attack them, they likely won't be able to flee without dying.
  
• Them eating everything (that can be eaten in the first place) can be a pain in the neck at times. They'll even eat their own eggs if they get hungry.
  
• Their wildness value is on the high end of rimworld animals, so they de-tame faster than you'd expect. As said above though, this is great for training animal handlers.
  
• They can't survive in below freezing temperatures. If you're in a map that drops below 0C / 32F, make sure to dig into a mountain and add a heater so your tortoises can hibernate for the winter, and have spare food for them.
  
• Given how large amounts of tortoises can mature all at the same time, this can cause a nasty colony wealth spike, and if you get raided before you sell them off, you may be facing foes better equipped than you are!

So you've decided to become a tortoise rancher? Good on you. The first (and most important) step for ranching tortoises is, as with many things in rimworld, where your colony starts in the first place.

BIOME CHOICE
Tortoises can be found wild in Temperate forests, Temperate Swamps, Tropical Rainforests, and Tropical Swamps. Of the four, I personally prefer Tropical Rainforests due to them often having year-round growing seasons, and wild animals like elephants to help haul your gear (which sadly tortoises cannot do). Rainforests are more prone to disease outbreaks than temperate biomes (though not quite as bad as the Tropical Swamps), so be aware of this.

(from top to bottom: Temperate forest, Temperate Swamp, Tropical Swamp, Tropical Rainforest)

I also reccomend starting as near to as many friendly faction bases as possible, as generally you'll be making lots of caravans to sell your tortoises. A road nearby is essential due to the high number of caravans you'll be sending, and if you have the royalty DLC make sure to be very close to an empire settlement, as it's an easy way to get endgame tech with minimal effort. A potential site is shown below.


Starting Colonists
When choosing colonists, (assuming you're doing a crashlanded or tribal start), it's a good idea to at least have your dedicated tortoise handler have a passion for animals. You can also have them do double duty and also enjoy growing, but isn't AS needed. Having a pawn who is good at social is also obviously a good idea, because besides the obvious recruitment bonus, them being good at trading is a huge boon due to all the tortoises you'll be selling.

Once you've got your basic colony set up, with a few houses for people to live and work in, its time to get started on your income! The first thing I reccomend is digging a small area out of a mountain for the tortoises to live in. The mountain should help keep them cool, and laying a straw floor will keep the filth down. Don't bother with beds, there will be far too many of them to keep up with. An example is shown below.


The area to the left is egg storage. As you dont want the tortoises eating their own eggs, it's a good idea to designate an area for them to stay in, and will also stop them from wandering outside the colony walls and getting eaten or shot by raiders. Make sure to keep them out of your crop fields and on grass, because as stated before, they eat anything.


Also, an important reminder: Make sure to blacklist tortoise eggs from your food storage and ESPECIALLY freezers. If you want to eat tortoise, you should at least let them grow up first.

Speaking of which, there will come a point where you just have TOO many of them. To avoid them starving, PC Lag, and massive raids, you should put a limit on the amount of tortoises you can sustain. I reccomend something like the below, though you can change the capped number of males/females as you wish - though keep in mind when selling/limiting your tortoises that the females are the more valuable, for obvious reasons. I don't reccomend setting limits on the young ones, as they don't produce much meat when slaughtered. (Sorry, Tortoises.)

This is just more of a section on things to add to make the colony run smoother, or make the colony more thematic from an RP angle. None of it is needed, but is helpful/fun.

• Because your tortoises that sleep in the cave will walk the same path out (assuming you gave them an area restriction) every day, putting some straw down can help with the filth.
  
  
• Tortoises don't weigh too much, so they make decent gifts to settlements via pod launcher. They're not the most optimal, but it's funny to imagine drop-podding a colony only for it to be filled with tortoises.
  
  
• Go nuts. Have tortoise shaped mosaics in your living rooms. The only limit is your imagination.
  
  As an example, below is also a replica of the ship I escaped in my turtle - centric review, which was shaped like a giant turtle.
  

So now you know how to harness the insane power of the tortoise to make fat cash money. Good luck, and happy ranching!

(Link to the aforementioned tortoise centric rimworld review here.)