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I've been thinking about this article a bit since I saw it earlier today:

Debunking "Losing is Fun" Game Design

Right now the game eventually devolves into repelling massive raids and cleaning up piles of dead bodies due to said raids, to the point where new furniture exists to dispose of all the bodies. It's all a bit macabre, really.

Maybe it's the fact that the RimWorld colonists see more corpses than anything short of a Warhammer 40K game that's bringing them down. If anything is "unrealistic," it's the neverending waves of attackers. Starvation, disease, thirst--these are all bigger problems for survival...

Created charge blaster and inferno cannon weapons for mechanoids.

The colonists have heard of fun things, but I'm pretty sure being shot with something called an "inferno cannon" is not one of them. Guess they'll need to research fire extinguisher technology?

Lots of great stuff here.

Hooray for those poor colonists standing at attention and trying not to starve to death! They will finally be able to have a hot meal of nutrient paste!

One of my colonies didn't quite understand how Fear technology worked or what it would be used for, so they build a dozen gibbets at the entrance to their fort. "Anyone attacking us will be terrified by our grim entrance and run away," they thought. Only instead, they all freaked out every time they went in and out of the camp and any attackers saw it but were nonplussed.

Another colony couldn't tell whether or not their damaged geothermal unit was producing any power, so they blew it up and demolished the power line leading to the base. They eventually built a second one at a different location.

Yet a third colony discovered the hard way that mining can only produce rooms of a certain size before the roof collapses. Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

In terms of information needs:

Some way to toggle the kinds of roofs that are over structures would be nice. I often find myself thinking "Is this a heavy roof? A light one? Will it cover this room or solar panel?" You can mouse over a square to see it one-by-one, but a quick show and hide might be helpful. (And as a side note, I have an aesthetic interest in that as well.)

I also find myself sorting through colonists in an attempt to figure out who would be good at something or bad at it. You don't want to put the Mining 1 guy on rock detail or try to assign hauling to the person who is really bad at it. (Also, ManualDumb is probably hauling, but is it? Internal names are used in the colonist screen and a different set of names on the priorities screen) I think it's been mentioned elsewhere, but some sort of display/sorting would be keen.

A couple of things come to mind.

In one of my early games in the last alpha, the colonists were going mental because among other things, they kept eating raw potatoes and it was upsetting. I think I was completely confused as to the relationship between nutrient paste dispensers and the hopper--how close/far should they be. And after the inevitable mental break that killed everyone, I still didn't know how to fix it.

Figuring out room size and how it relates to comfort is a bit of hidden knowledge--I now know that it's 6x6 but that seems like quite a bit. It could be that the only current furniture for a room is a bed, perhaps this will be less of an issue if there are more creature comforts.

Dealing with ships is confusing as well. "I have all of this silver stored in a cave, why can't I buy anything?" Oh, because it has to be on a launch pad. Likewise, I wish I had a dollar for every time I tried to use the communicator to no response because I couldn't remember that there wasn't anybody in orbit.

I also stretch people to the breaking point by having them rescue a colonist in combat and then stand vigil over their bed, still in recruited mode, since it's easy to be distracted by managing the fight and dealing with the aftermath. Meanwhile, the poor colonist is standing in a room at attention until I get multiple warnings that they have a mental break. Could they return to what they were doing before the rescue?

Thought of another incredibly-cheap idea, though it sorta depends on whether or not a colonist's attributes/skills can be edited after they're created.

What if something caused colonists to shift personalities? Say somebody gets shell-shocked and can't fire a gun anymore, or has a complete break and invents a new personality with new skills.

Alternatively, they find a nice shiny black monolith buried in a mountain and gain 15 research points...

These may be slated for later releases due the need for more art assets, but I think a few more facilities might help improve the lives of colonists. For example: we have agave and potatoes, a still to make booze would be useful for both medicinal and recreational use.

Also, our colonists with an artistic bent might need an easel and paints, or clay, or some other way to create items for decorating rooms and/or sale.

Right now colonists have their active task listed if you select them--would it be hard/easy to create some sort of thought balloon over their head that indicated what they were working on next? Different than social speech indicators, but some sort of mining/hauling/freaking out at the bodies laying about thought. (Be tricky to make icons recognizable at long distances, though...)