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Just a further thought. This could be two different levels of technology. The exoskeletons are a bit more low tech and the remote controlled droids are more high-tech. Mostly since they keep your colonists out of danger, perhaps however you could limit their usefulness further by a limited range, say some sort of transmitter that they have to stay in touch with. Also means maybe they can't operate far underground...

How about instead of automated units, remote controlled units? A remote controlled construction droid that still requires a colonist to control it but it can build significantly faster. They are more efficient than your colonists but you are more limited in how many you can have than robots since they still require people to control them. They are also expensive, require a lot of power, perhaps require recharging and are susceptible to solar flares and such. Might be more fun than robots. Also of course remote controlled combat droids and so on... Or powered armor suits, something like the exoskeleton in alien? Anything to keep your people the center of attention instead of being more or less replaced by robots in the later game.

I'm sure something like this has already been suggested but here it goes anyway. Allow the player to place something like "defense zones" and "safe zones". Then when you hit the "red alert" button all colonists designated as soldiers runs to the defense zones and all others tun to the safe zones. Would remove some of the annoying micro-management when attacked and removes some of the hand-of-god feeling. I don't really like having to take direct control of the colonists, prefer when they seem to act on their own. They could also automatically man mounted weapons if those are added in the future, might be more fun than auto-turrets.

With the addition of more walls etc. so we can build better pillboxes, bunkers, watchtowers and so on it would be real fun to plan and design your defenses... Perhaps your soldiers could even automatically go grab a weapon when this happens if they are currently carrying some other equipment.