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My idea is a combination of already existing in-game mechanics. I´d also love the idea of a tutorial that deceits you in the end akin to Project Zomboid.

In PZ you are given the basic of basics on day-to-day survival. Then the game tricks you in the most deceptive and beautiful way I've ever seen for a tutorial.
At the end a dialogue box pops up that says
¨If you ever get bit, press Q to take the antidote.¨
Without the knowledge of what Q was used for (it is the ¨yell¨ button) you´ll press it and your character will scream something along the lines of ¨I´m over here!¨
Suddenly the entire screen is invaded by zombies, with lack of experience you´ll drown in the ocean of zombies that spawn BUT with some diagonal running you can dodge the horde. Doesn't matter because tutorial and you´ll just die no matter what.

My idea is to take the planet-ending scenario and implant it short in the demo, leaving it re-playable. In just 5 days the planet will explode, you learn the basics on the first day like the normal tutorial and you are left alone until Day 3. On day 3 you´ll get a more advanced tutorial along with a drop-pod with a comm-console in it (or the materials for it and research auto-unlocks it). You are told to place it and you learn how to call factions. On the night of night 4 you will get a message from a random group of raiders raiding you because you placed a comm-console, revealing your position.
Morning of day 5 you get a high-wealth siege. A group of raiders (and the only ones who will ever do it in the game) quickly set up their mortars and launch 5 anti-grain warheads at your colony. Anyone who survives will be eaten by more incoming raids of increasing difficulty. As your last colonist dies, or survives until the supernova, you´ll get a message.

¨Living on the Rim isn´t a cakeride¨ or something along the lines, apologizing and a message from Tynan to buy the full game.

If I got mega-obliterated by super raiders on day 4 I´d be hooked on the game.

J-Rilla7, the magnificent chef and teetotaler of the group (much like his real life counterpart) was a man to behold. In the beginning he did the colonies cooking, raising his skills slowly and eventually outclassing our bionic bartender sniper, Kimmy.

Second Summer, 5502. What I thought was a normal and easy raid would change the colony forever. A group of raiders with what looked to be simple fire-arms came from the north. We could have outlasted them with our 5-thick wall, should have outlasted them. But I had to get cocky. I sent out 5 capable fighters.

J-Rilla7
Kimmy (wife)
Boss
Trado
Toste (husband)

Everyone had Shotguns and Slugs, a devastating combo that practically downs anything short of full body armor. Their most dangerous target to me at the time was the man with their shotgun. Little did I know he was the least of my worries.

As this was happening Clayton, of course, was getting high on his own supply crafting joints.
Our northern wall had a natural stone building only 12 spaces away from it so I stationed my troops there. Our bionic sniper, Kimmy, takes aim at the shotgunner. Rilla takes aim with his rifle once the man is closer range. Eventually the gap is closed and everyone can fire at eachother.

Suddenly as everyone starts dropping on their side a molotov flies into the building. Kimmy catches fire for a short while and I move my men out of the way to let the fire dissipate. This gives enough time for their person to move in with a Mac-10.

Mac-10 guy sprays down Kimmy, Trado, Toste and Rilla, not before taking a few hits himself. Boss is my only soldier who hasn´t been mortally wounded. Boss puts down the Mac-10 guy after taking just a little bit of flak. Everyone starts retreating and I need to quickly think to save 4 lives.

Clayton arrives up north to collect smoke-leaf from the northern geothermal farm. I place down 4 sleeping spots and make them medical inside of the building. Boss is a battle medic. He isn´t our best medic but he can patch up wounds. I assign Clayton to medical. Together with the eventual arrival of two more supporting lower-level doctors I patch everyone up.

The death sound rings out in my headphones. We have lost Toste. I look to see what was wrong and it turns out Clayton couldn´t outheal the bleeding his brother was experiencing.
Clayton lost his brother, Kimmy lost her husband. I´ll worry about sentimentality later. Everyone except for Kimmy and Rilla fully recovers. Kimmy later dying of infection in the hospital and Rilla being fairly crippled in his legs and lost eye. I make an eye-patch and plans for prosthetic legs.

Later, in a hunting incident with a fox, Rilla loses his left leg. I give him a peg leg. In a subsequent raid he loses his other leg AND his peg-leg in a mortar explosion that should have finished him. For the next 2 years he would have two peg legs, a lost eye and countless lost digits on his left hand and scarring on just about every part. But that never stopped the sanguine, teetotaler chef that is Rilla. He still pumped out both lavish and fine meals at rates even Clayton, our sous chef, couldn´t match.

The year is now 5507, Rilla has simple prostheses for his legs, bionic eye and I replaced his arm with a bionic one. As I type he is on a caravan to our second ressurector mech serum quest along with Clayton to bring back their lost friend, and brother. Kimmy is ready to be revived, just waiting for them to return and we will have a ceremony.

Day 25 solar flare as tribals...

wait...

(actually, mechanoids, fuck me too Randy. #PraiseRandy)

tl;dr - Electric Smelter w/ Steel Slag doesn´t feel balanced for the investment you put into it. 10 steel per slag, plus the work needed and the power consumption doesn´t feel worth it for 10 steel.

I had been struggling with steel for a while, I no longer am after making mining colonies next to my base but in the early midst of my steel struggle I invested in the Electric Smelter.

I excitedly collected all the slag on my map. Slag from our original pods of which two of those four colonists are no longer with us and slag from pods crashing into our colony were gathered and hauled in a full work-day. I took one of my least busiest pawns (since we were struggling from the aforementioned losses earlier that season) and got him working on the smelter.

I watched as he melted down the slag and out pops : 10 underwhelming steel. All of the slag from the map, of which there is 17 would give me 170 steel. I smelted all of my available steel items and gained about ~103 steel. I made a very small profit off of my investment.

I moved on from the Smelter and about a day later I notice the lights in the freezer are going off. Scrolling to my batteries I realized my mistake, I left the damn smelter on. My food didn´t spoil luckily.

Is this balanced? Is this going to change come next alpha when ¨The Balancing¨ comes?

I think it's balanced well. In my current colony, I have likely hundreds of slag, which makes it super balanced for me.
Plus, isn't the smelter also what allows you to smelt weapons? That's also super helpful, even if to just exchange a plasteel knife for some plasteel, it helps a lot mid-later game when you have more guns than you know what to do with, and just smelt them all
I think it's pretty okay (maybe bad)for early game, but when you get a colonist with free time in mid-late game, that's likely when it shines.

I smelted all of my steel-based weapons from every raid, including my fallen colonists weapons (Minus my legendary sniper rifle, I keep it in the freezer morgue next to her body. Awaiting the day her and her husband get revived.)

I got enough steel to move on. It´s been about 1 year ago or so in the colony and I now have plenty of steel from caravan-ing to my quarry bases. The faction of the NCR is slowly rising and becoming a power to be reckoned with.

Until Randy blows away my base with targeted meteor strikes and tornadoes. #PraiseRandy

tl;dr - Electric Smelter w/ Steel Slag doesn´t feel balanced for the investment you put into it. 10 steel per slag, plus the work needed and the power consumption doesn´t feel worth it for 10 steel.

I had been struggling with steel for a while, I no longer am after making mining colonies next to my base but in the early midst of my steel struggle I invested in the Electric Smelter.

I excitedly collected all the slag on my map. Slag from our original pods of which two of those four colonists are no longer with us and slag from pods crashing into our colony were gathered and hauled in a full work-day. I took one of my least busiest pawns (since we were struggling from the aforementioned losses earlier that season) and got him working on the smelter.

I watched as he melted down the slag and out pops : 10 underwhelming steel. All of the slag from the map, of which there is 17 would give me 170 steel. I smelted all of my available steel items and gained about ~103 steel. I made a very small profit off of my investment.

I moved on from the Smelter and about a day later I notice the lights in the freezer are going off. Scrolling to my batteries I realized my mistake, I left the damn smelter on. My food didn´t spoil luckily.

Is this balanced? Is this going to change come next alpha when ¨The Balancing¨ comes?