Wasteland Biome

Wasteland Biome is one of the biome types found on the Rime asteroid. It is the cold, swamp-like region that appears in slush variants across much of the map, and it is part of what makes Rime distinct from other asteroid types. Unlike the starting Temperate Biome, this biome begins frozen and requires a colony to create its own heat before it becomes useful for farming and broader expansion.

The biome is notable for being a source of early-game water management and several common industrial materials. It contains Polluted Water that can be filtered, and its nearby liquid resources include Salt Water and Brine, which can be desalinated. In terms of solids, it provides Sedimentary Rock and Gold Amalgam. These materials make the biome useful for construction, farming support, and mid-game resource gathering once access has been safely opened.

Rime’s overall cold environment changes how the Wasteland Biome is approached:

• Plants in the region will not grow until the base is heated enough to stabilize temperatures.
• Slimelung tends to die out early because of the cold, although germs from Polluted Oxygen sources such as Polluted Oxygen Vents and Morbs can survive after the surroundings warm up.
• The asteroid lacks wild Dreckos and Slicksters, which makes phosphorite, plastic, and long-term carbon dioxide management harder than on many other maps.
• Because the starting state is cold, the biome is often best treated as a resource reservoir rather than an immediately productive living area.

The biome also fits into Rime’s broader structure of mixed frozen regions, where expansion often means choosing when to break into cold pockets, when to insulate, and when to deliberately add heat. Once the colony has a stable thermal setup, the biome becomes much easier to exploit, but until then it remains a harsh, low-temperature obstacle.