I'd like to apologize in advance for not combing the forums to see if any of these ideas have been posted; I'm too busy playing the game to worry about that! Also, I realize that some of these are probably pretty obvious and going to be worked into the game soon/eventually. I'm basically just making a brain dump here.
So, let's get right to it:
- Crude stone walls should probably be a thing, and raw stone too while we're at it, gathered either from rock debris or from mining rock.
- Mining rock could drop 3 raw stone, and building a crude stone wall could require 3 raw stone, which would be in line with the 3 metal requirement for metal walls.
- You could then research stone blocks and stone block walls, and later on tech up to metal walls. Each tier of wall should have advantages and disadvantages, and be useful throughout the game. (Example: crude stone walls are cheap but ugly, stone block walls need a refined resource and take longer to build but are nice looking, metal walls would be aesthetically 'meh' and take much longer to build but would be strong and explosion/fire resistant.)
- All production, refinement, and power generation buildings/furniture should be upgradeable. This would give research a bit more importance and allow for a lot more options both early and late game (and would also help the issue of productivity per unit of space in the extreme late game, since the map size is limited). In my opinion, the upgrade process should take a significant amount of time (like a day or two) and cost exotic (only acquirable through trade) or refined resources as well.
- I'm sorry but the 'berries' icon just looks weird.
- Certain powered things like lamps should have a 'power by proxy' option that could use the same mechanics as the 'resource search radius.'
- Intermittently powered things like doors should only drain power when activated, but I'm not an electrician so I don't know if that's realistic or not.
- More cover options than sandbags; crenellated stone walls, metal barricades, bunkers, etc.
- Windows! They'd function as a light source while it's light outside. Perhaps add power options to lamps to only turn on when it's dark.
To be continued via edits...