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"What is this variety? First the game has to be more defined in its purpose. Is it more of a sim builder or a strategy survival? Does or should it last as long as the player want it or does it have an ending? Should it be a tense or a chill experience? "

That is dictated by the AI Storyteller and your difficulty.  Regardless, the first choice on research is still to build turrets, to reduce the risk to your colonists.

No offense, but if you've kept reading a bit longer, you'd see how i mention AI director answers only partially to this.

In a discussion/dialog its important to actually read what others are saying, otherwise its a monologue not a discussion (and i say this to everyone in here)

This is a good idea to rescue them, although i think this may have been mentioned elsewhere.

Quite a lot actually. But hey, the more attention it gets...

Not that I think turrets are the root of all evil, I actually like the concept a lot, but they do need some thinking. Lets see

- They are not unrealistic at all, we already have automatic guns, imagine the future. But i do agree they are too early on the tech tree.
- Sentries are awesome, but i guess in that sense they could be anticlimactic. Check this scene in Aliens:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDy-5IQvuU 
That's one very cool way to handle sentries, not the only, but a really cool one.
This work because :
a) the sentries are cool. They kill stuff fast while they (hamanz) watch on the screen. awesome
b) but they also have limitations, they have ammo which runs out. uh oh
c) in the end, the fight belong to the humans

Should the game need ammo ? Not necessarily, but they need a limitation while still being awesome (in contrary of just nerfing the guns). IMO, It should be awesome against hordes  and sucky against smart enemies, for example. Or should be good to defend mining outposts against monster / feral creatures, small raiding parties, but should fall quickly against an organized force (grenades, rocket launchers...).
Perhaps the sentry should be a haulable object / equipable and the pawn sets it where you want, perhaps it has an operation limit (it works for x amount of time) or needs to be refueled/rearmed from time to time.

Either way, i support that it needs to be a research path and that it needs to be controlled in its number (command console, AI, whatever).

"Personally, I think turret's are a must for outdoor colonies"
Although currently they are a must, I don't think that's the way it should be. Nothing should be a must - everytime - to dictate how you want to build your colony, short of adapting to challenges.

"Arbitrary research requirement doesn't change much.  It just makes turrets the de-facto first thing to research, then back to square one"
Not if the game has - and I'm repeating myself here - more variety.

What is this variety? First the game has to be more defined in its purpose. Is it more of a sim builder or a strategy survival? Does or should it last as long as the player want it or does it have an ending? Should it be a tense or a chill experience?

The directors answers only partially to this, but doesn't define the scope of the game.
Sim city and other similar builders have a clear definition: you select your difficulty, map and you build stuff in it. You might have different scenarios with different resources and, depending on the game you have missions (time sensitive missions, collecting, resource managing, you might even need to defend against barbarians while keeping your pop happy and then there's the obligatory sandbox mode.

In games like command & conquer and similar rts, you have missions with clear win and lose conditions. Every map has its own challenges and design. You might have different resources to deal with, distinct enemies, several map features with varied effects,  so there's usually not a single "win" strategy, and then there's the obligatory skirmish mode.

Right now, in rimworld, i don't think it has a clear scope of what it is (and that's ok, it's still growing up) nor it has enough diversity to allow for multiple strategies neither a secondary game mode experience.

I don't want turrets to go away, I don't want  dwarfing to be nerfed to the point of annoyance. But I want that not every game makes you need to build turrets, nor build a mountain fortress(actually, to punish you more for not building one), or killboxes (actually, to punish you more for not building one) although sometimes it should do. I want the game to challenge me in ways that make me want to adapt in varied ways, but sometimes I might just want to chill down, relax and build happy-garden-town. I guess what i want is more game modes and missions if you want to put that way, and a better defined game goal/end goal.

If you have this, researching turrets might not need to be the obvious research path. If you drop on an arid planet, you might wanna research ways to increase your food production first; if you drop on a jungle world you might want to research into medicine and vaccines first; if you suffer from earthquakes you might want to keep of from mountains; if you have bloodsucking mosquitoes  you might want to dwarf, at least until you research some kind of repellent. Etcetera.
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Someone would care, in another thread, to discuss endgame, goals and game modes or is too soon to talk about it again?

tl;dr:  the game needs more variety, be it endgame goals, game modes and/or events.

Even better if you could choose somehow what you'd want to strip, otherwise the area would just be clogged with useless apparel

Would be neat to cook more than one meal at a time, so cooking could take longer depending on the number of plates you'd want, but then it would be ready for all, no wasting needed. I know, kinda like the sims, but seems feasible.

+1 for harvesting implants
-2 for harvesting organs from recently deceased bodies. 1) the window to harvest a recently dead is thin, sometimes shootout lasts for hours, despite being just a few minutes for the player. 2) too exploitable, you'd end with hundreds of organs to sell and this is survivor not Organ Harvest Corp - The organ harvesting simulator. Or so i hope.  3) Unless they have a very low lifespan/duration. So you'd harvest just for that operation and not for profit. I actually don't know how long a harvested organ lasts once its out of its owner.

+2 for donor card and mad scientist

Fungus, or aggressive vegetation that need to be weeded (with flamethrowers preferably), are a cool addition.

I think the point of all these energy types we do have is that they are meant to be clean energy solutions. Also relatively easy to build, operate and sustain. Coal, gas, nuclear, fusion would all need to be manned around the clock. Their not really feasible for small colonies, more for developed societies who need the additional power.
If we get flowing rivers, maybe we might be able to include hydro-electric as well.

I get what you are saying, but most types of energy should be (and most are) scalable in size. Since this is a sci-fi game, we could agree that miniaturization and efficiency are a few levels ahead of today. We already can build thermal and solar plants out of "thin air" with what looks like a magical omni-tool, despite your skill, so should be possible to build smaller scale fusion tech, cold fusion, whatever. It's not like scientists are not already researching into this as of now.

Anyway, i just threw this one around, it's not a final or the best solution to the discussion in hand.

I havnt read the whole thread, because I havnt the time to do so .

But my input, I believe creating cave bases should cost a whole lot more than they do. Building into a mountain would take a huge amount of work even by todays standards, let alone some random guys with pick axes!!

If you only have pick axes, maybe they should only allow you to mine a certain amount of blocks into the mountain, to get deeper you would need some heavier machinery, some supports etc.

How many people die from mining even today in this day and age?? Its a very hazardous job. Mining in Rimworld is not realistic, and that's why its too easy to build a mountain base.

I mean no offense, but might I then suggest you to read whole thread? This has come up a number of times and variations.

By not reading we just bloat a topic with repeated suggestions (like the littered cheapest ideas thread), while if you read, even if you have a similar idea, you might reach a new one from the exchange.

I never understood why select all/none would be such a hassle. The hassle is not having it.

How about the ability to give some of your guys a day off work?
It would be especially useful for those going through psych drones, or some people who are just generally on the verge of mental break. Additionally being assigned time off would make them happier, give them a break day. The effect could be amplified if it's someone's birthday.

I suggested a idle/chill time which you could slide in a % fashion, so someone under a lot of stress you would put a 50% workload, half their time they could spend on chill objects (yet to be introduced), like VR simulators, sitting on a bench watching the sky, chatting with other people...

Am I the only that think organ harvesting is the single most evil thing in the game right now?

It was kind of funny watching Ty presentation  "why don't we make some money of her too (your colonist), lets just harvest her left kidney". I mean, it's not dark, it's plain evil lol

But yeah, +1 for harvesting bionics out of dead people, indeed very cyberpunkish

I'd still love to see predators in the game, the environment feels lacking without them somehow.

Enviroment and gameplay. I'd love to see a man vs nature game only, or as part of a long and hard game beginning.

More energy types are always welcome.

Some or most energy production could exhaust waste or pollution, so you'd want to place them in the open (pollution debbuf, more debuffs yay!)

So you either deal with pollution; use very specific power sources or research something like nuclear (and deal with its potential dangers); build outside where you can sprawl around and have more energy options and pollution/waste dissipation available

I feel like if bionic eyes are so easy to build that a few ragtag survivors in a backwater rimworld can make and install them on themselves, on makeshift accommodations, i think it's safe to assume most of your colonists would come equipped with such body modifications.

Hm, it would be cool to have some starting pawn with bionics, despite their availability

These kind of resources have been brought up in this thread a couple of times, and yeah I agree they'd help to even things a little. If not, at least they would bring more diversity to the game, which is mostly nice.

I actually think the game would profit more from a more randomized approach and better/diverse game goals, if not for a core experience, at least a solid alternative one.

Random pawns, maps/biomes, equipment, fauna and flora, weather, enemies, events, etc. Basically each "drop" would have it's own theme, it's own challenges, not unlike a mission or a scenario in other RTS games.

So, one drop you might get heavy thunderstorms or heatwaves, thus you'd move into the ground. Another drop you'd have regular earthquakes, so building into mountains would require more investment (metal supports, anti-tremor walls or earthquake sensors), or perhaps you have one of those special resources laying around, making building outside more worthwhile than inside. Basically every game you'd have to adapt to your newly found situation, actually giving some rapport with your own pawns, because they too have no idea what to expect from their environment.

I've already suggested this a couple of times, but as a thread grow in size people stop reading the middle comments, so here it is again