The cheapest ways to improve the Core game are, quite obviously, to incorporate already-existing mods into it. The All-in-One mod is widely used, and has a lot of mods in it that ought to be in Core already.
Add the Clutter mod and the Extra Research Tables mod to Core. They did great work and the art assets belong in the core game. A lot of the clutter objects should increase morale. Maybe some shouldn't. Standardize how much morale benefit per building cost per square they occupy. I.e., bigger clutter objects should cost proportionately more and give proportionately better morale bonus. They should all be weighted more or less equally, so their purpose as clutter (i.e. build whatever you want) is preserved.
Personal items like lockers, desks, and cabinets should contribute to how hapy a colonist is with their bedroom, but on the other hand it doesn't seem reasonable that e.g. tables should provide a larger morale benefit the larger they are. Who wants to sleep in a bedroom with just a bed and a giant table?
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The Embrasures mod should be added to Core, with some modification. The improvements research should be cleaned up (e.g. there's no reason to separately research improvements on metal walls and metal embrasures) and there's no reason why they shouldn't carry power. They're regular walls with rifle ports in them.
On the topic of military fortification, there's an asymmetry in the game with respect to the balance between siege weapons and fortifications. The ability to construct fortifications in the game is roughly on par with early 19th century "star fort" citadel era technology, but the weapons available to destroy such fortifications are as effective as 20th century bunker busters. Many people in the forums have posted about this in some form or another: e.g. the ability of mortars to destroy player bases even when they're built into a mountain.
Perhaps this asymmetry is intentional, forcing the player not to turtle up. Perhaps this is meant to be encouragement to take the fight to the attacker. Fine, but in that case the player is severely lacking in tactical options, mainly arising from the utter lack of mobile weapon platforms.
The most fundamental issues in the game which are causing the above problem are: no AI fog of war, and no conceptual implementation of z-levels. The AI cannot see a mountain, indeed on a single z-plane there is no such thing as a mountain. On the other hand, the AI also cannot not see your base, and thus always knows exactly where everything is.
Implementing z-levels in the game (without restriction, anyway) turns the game into Dwarf Fortress In Space, and takes most of the emphasis off the surface level. It may make the game balance even worse, by implementing an entire map layer that the player can use intelligently but the enemy cannot.
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There is also going to be a fundamental divide among players over whether the Colonist Creation Mod should replace the curent Core colonist generator. It changes the premise of the game, at the cost of making it more customizable.
Part of what made the idea of Rimworld popular was that you get exactly three random colonists, and you're dumped mercilessly on a hostile planet with nearly nothing. It's part of the Roguelike tradition, and many people take it very seriously. You don't get an opportunity to min-max your colonists for survival, or ask to start with five instead of three (which exponentially speeds up early development).
In its current state, using the Colonist Creation Mod changes the game from "Playing Rimworld" to "doing the paperwork to figure out that there are only two good childhood traits and three good adulthood traits to make your five characters experts at four skills each, and needless to say they'll all be armed with miniguns or sniper rifles and be wearing power armor". That being said, I think the CCM's interface, and certain customization options, are an improvement over Core. It definitely helps the player invest emotion into their colonists if we're able to make them how we want them.
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Other things:
By the time the player has researched the ability to build a replacement starship with an antimatter reactor to power it, obviously they should also have the ability to build an antimatter reactor to power their base. Being an end-game tech, one of them should be able to power anything and everything the player is able to build, replacing all previous power technology and being immune to incapacity. At this point in the game, power is the least of the player's problems. You could implement this tomorrow with the right artwork and numbers.
Add the Clutter mod and the Extra Research Tables mod to Core. They did great work and the art assets belong in the core game. A lot of the clutter objects should increase morale. Maybe some shouldn't. Standardize how much morale benefit per building cost per square they occupy. I.e., bigger clutter objects should cost proportionately more and give proportionately better morale bonus. They should all be weighted more or less equally, so their purpose as clutter (i.e. build whatever you want) is preserved.
Personal items like lockers, desks, and cabinets should contribute to how hapy a colonist is with their bedroom, but on the other hand it doesn't seem reasonable that e.g. tables should provide a larger morale benefit the larger they are. Who wants to sleep in a bedroom with just a bed and a giant table?
==
The Embrasures mod should be added to Core, with some modification. The improvements research should be cleaned up (e.g. there's no reason to separately research improvements on metal walls and metal embrasures) and there's no reason why they shouldn't carry power. They're regular walls with rifle ports in them.
On the topic of military fortification, there's an asymmetry in the game with respect to the balance between siege weapons and fortifications. The ability to construct fortifications in the game is roughly on par with early 19th century "star fort" citadel era technology, but the weapons available to destroy such fortifications are as effective as 20th century bunker busters. Many people in the forums have posted about this in some form or another: e.g. the ability of mortars to destroy player bases even when they're built into a mountain.
Perhaps this asymmetry is intentional, forcing the player not to turtle up. Perhaps this is meant to be encouragement to take the fight to the attacker. Fine, but in that case the player is severely lacking in tactical options, mainly arising from the utter lack of mobile weapon platforms.
The most fundamental issues in the game which are causing the above problem are: no AI fog of war, and no conceptual implementation of z-levels. The AI cannot see a mountain, indeed on a single z-plane there is no such thing as a mountain. On the other hand, the AI also cannot not see your base, and thus always knows exactly where everything is.
Implementing z-levels in the game (without restriction, anyway) turns the game into Dwarf Fortress In Space, and takes most of the emphasis off the surface level. It may make the game balance even worse, by implementing an entire map layer that the player can use intelligently but the enemy cannot.
==
There is also going to be a fundamental divide among players over whether the Colonist Creation Mod should replace the curent Core colonist generator. It changes the premise of the game, at the cost of making it more customizable.
Part of what made the idea of Rimworld popular was that you get exactly three random colonists, and you're dumped mercilessly on a hostile planet with nearly nothing. It's part of the Roguelike tradition, and many people take it very seriously. You don't get an opportunity to min-max your colonists for survival, or ask to start with five instead of three (which exponentially speeds up early development).
In its current state, using the Colonist Creation Mod changes the game from "Playing Rimworld" to "doing the paperwork to figure out that there are only two good childhood traits and three good adulthood traits to make your five characters experts at four skills each, and needless to say they'll all be armed with miniguns or sniper rifles and be wearing power armor". That being said, I think the CCM's interface, and certain customization options, are an improvement over Core. It definitely helps the player invest emotion into their colonists if we're able to make them how we want them.
==
Other things:
By the time the player has researched the ability to build a replacement starship with an antimatter reactor to power it, obviously they should also have the ability to build an antimatter reactor to power their base. Being an end-game tech, one of them should be able to power anything and everything the player is able to build, replacing all previous power technology and being immune to incapacity. At this point in the game, power is the least of the player's problems. You could implement this tomorrow with the right artwork and numbers.