Mod Suggestion: Realistic Research

[AcetheSuperVillain]

A thought.  Being able to sift through centuries of technological advancement with a simple wooden bench is a little weird and pretty boring.  A more realistic version could also be more fun. 

Tech Manuals:  Manuals that teach your colony how to use a certain tech.  You need to trade with a trader of the appropriate tech level to obtain one.  You might also get them by raiding other settlements.  Once your society understands the given tech sufficiently, you can trade tech to other factions.  Either once you've learned something, you learn it forever, or you need to have the manual to use the tech, if it gets destroyed or stolen, you can't use that tech anymore. 

Scavenged Tech:  If you encounter a piece of equipment that requires tech you don't have, you can sacrifice it to gain knowledge.  This could be incremental, so like if a tribal colony dissects a pulse rifle, they would get Smithing tech, not jump all the way to Pulse Munitions and the tech branches that build up to it.  (Alternatively, they get a Pulse Munitions Manual that does them no good until they have all the other appropriate tech)  Mechanoid carcasses can be scavenged for random tech.  Maybe insects too. 

Internet Research:  Once you learn to contact ships in space, you can access something akin to the internet, and research existing technology, akin to the way the game already does it.  Allied factions allow you access to their internet accounts, so you can download tech from your neighbors.  This could be incomplete, i.e., you can only access a passing ship's internet while it is in orbit, or you only get access to whatever tech an ally has.  You might be able to hack into enemy factions, passing ships or mechanoids and steal tech, risking a retaliatory counter-hack or raid. 

Personal Memory (Advanced):  And individual pawn knows a specific tech.  So your colony might have one crafter that knows how to build Long Blades but no one else in the colony can.  Pawns who know the tech can write manuals to teach other individual pawns this tech.  Prisoners can be forced to write manuals for tech they know.  Sufficiently advanced colonies might be able to extract information from the brain directly, or upload information to a colonist's brain quickly.  Bionic brain chips allow a pawn to access the internet and use any technology even if they haven't learned it, or perhaps a cellphone or laptop item can allow this at a penalty as long as it's in a pawn's inventory.  A pawn's background should influence their starting tech. 

[LWM]

I always figured it was "we sort of know how this sort of thing works, but not exactly so we try until something works" until someone figures out how to get solder working for scavenged components, and then it's Wikipedia...In SPAAAAACE.

There's a reason I don't play Tribal starts!

--LWM