Poll
Question:
Which style of research do you think best suits people stuck on the frontier
Option 1: Bambo car: deja vu tech, no outside help,no high tech guide, limit 1900 equivalent tech
votes: 0
Option 2: Don't panic: deja vu tech, no outside help, high tech guide, limit 1940 equivalent
votes: 0
Option 3: skip the boring bits: no deja vu, no outside help, high tech guide, limit 1970 equivalent
votes: 0
Option 4: Ikea tech: no deja vu, outside help, high tech guide, limit 2020 equivalent
votes: 3
Option 5: Power of the Gods: no deja vu, outside help, high tech guide, limit 2070 equivalent
votes: 2
Was having a look around the forum and whenever research comes up it tends to be a bit nebulous so thought I would do a poll to see what people thought
NB:
-deja vu tech: meaning colonists literally reinvent everything from blooming smelter to vacuum tubes. no deja vu means colonist use knowledge to skip things e.g. straight to transistors or mini blast furnaces
-outside help: can buy tech from traders, scavenge it from ruins or parts from your old spaceship, ruins can provide blue prints etc.
-high tech guide: 'so you need to rebuild civilisation?' wiki, range from e-book to actual kit that contains reusable sensors (to check you furnace is hot enough, water pure etc.)
-Limit: done a bit of research to get a rough idea of what could be possible. First option is bumped up to just allow radio and solar power (yep solar power was invented that long ago). Last option is for those who want a softer sci fi theme
Putting my vote in for Ikea tech, but with a light spattering of high-end sci-fi stuff for Really End-Game.
I mean, it would make sense - Since things are bound to break, and there generally isn't going to be a supplier down the street in stellar terms, you want things to be modular and to have those modules able to be made fairly easily.
You would have to buy/research blueprints for things to build them, but you start off with the basics - Beds, walls, lights, solar panels, a stockpile, growing areas, dumping grounds, some way to get water when implemented, a food dispenser, a comms console, some form of flooring, a low-level research bench, and batteries. That, to me, seems like something that would be standard in a escape pod's survival kit - In addition to food, water, picks, and some metal, it would have blueprints stored to allow survivors to make the basic things to, well, survive. As you encounter vessels, you can barter and trade for blueprints (or research them yourself for a good amount of time) to make things, or you can outright buy the items (Which would show up as limited stock).
There could also be a reverse-engineering thing where you get an item and break it down as carefully as one can manage to get X points towards the research on it (Or a % boost to researching it) at the cost of the item.
I don't think you should be able to make some of the higher-end weapons (R-4, M-16, M-24) yourself, but I can see Pistols, Lee Enfields, and Molotovs being things that you can make (just to keep people armed).
I dunno, just my thoughts on the matter.