Your not so cheap ideas.

[Reaver41]

Researches:
Gasmask V1, When researched all Units get equipped with a gasmask
It adds 10 procent more protection against weapons and Chemical weapons.
Gasmask v2: This will upgrade all units with a v2 version it has a small flashlight on it and it has 15 procent more protection.

Chemical Warfare: this will enable the following
Tin can of Dust: basicily its a homemade cheap grenade with dust in it with tremendous amounts of dust stuffed in it, it will stun the enemy for several second the seconds is random from 5-60 secs
Tear gas: More expensive can of dust, it will make the enemy (or anyone which gets hit by it) Stunned for 10-100 seconds or make the person pass out.

Sulfur Nade: This has a 30-40 procent chance of stunning for 5-10 secs, and it will give 5 damage a second.


Battle suit Extremely hard research and end-game research This replaces Gasmask and all other armors, It gives 100 procent more protection It has a better flashlight on its armor
Its model should be kind of randomized it would kinda look like this except more black and grey and brown and orange, like its rusted and old and not really painted, http://halo4nation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/86Koe.jpg
Jetpacks
This explains itself, it makes you able to fly over walls (outside only) and rocks.
Tower turrets:
They are A tower with a turret in it, it has a much faster rate of fire but not as good accuracy and more expensive, and it can shoot over walls (only outside)

Opposite Colony, basicily its neutral units that will land at the other side of your base and start a base themselfs and take resources, they are able to be raided by you and raiders, there is a slight chance they are hostile and attacks you but they wont near your place unless they'll attack, you can also trade with them and such, but you wont be able to set homesite near them before they are killed off or captured, there is also a slight chance where you can get them to join you.

Molotov grenade turret this is a slingshot kinda turret that shoots off molotovs

Turret, this is like the normal turret except its as big as a standard lamp and can only be sat in walls and lower accuracy and damage but higher rate of fire

Flaregun: simple shoots a flare which lights a wide area of darkness, and have a chance to start a fire around it and burns anyone which gets hit.

Melee weapons: replaces any ranged weapon but increases damage here is a list of what should be included in rarity and damage

Pipe
Shovel
Wrench
Pocket knife
Knife
Combat knife
Plantation Knife (like a machete but smaller)
Kukri
Machete
Katana
Fire axe
Special melees:
Cattleprod (stuns after a few stuns makes a person pass out)
Heated Branding iron its lightly incendiary

Punji sticks: its like a mine but its reuseable like each time it an enemy falls in it someone has to go over and recamoflauge it
caltrops: its like punji sticks except not camoflauged and doesent kill instantly but rather just give a small amount of damage also not reusable but really really cheap
Robot vacumm cleaner it needs to be repaired once in a while and wont leave a building and can only be used inside a building

Scrap robots, those are Robots they cant fight or build they can only haul clean and cut stuff and mine, they need to get repaired by a scientist

Dogs, these are just, dogs, they help fight and cheers everyone and haul alot more, also can be used for suicide , rare and expensive can be breeded and sold, slave traders sometimes sell them for a high price too.

Weapon crafts table with this you can craft weapons its like research but takes longer and gives you one weapon of your choice Also you can unlock more by researching.

Custom Storyteller you can choose the priority
Debug mode Makes you able to start events and stuff manually
like you can start choose that a animal goes crazy and how many or if theres a eclipse or such

Random clothing
random colors
chooseable Clothing color, like yo ucan make all your  colonists have red clothing or such
diffrent clothings and such for diffrent types like oafs and assassins have diffrent clothing like assassins have hoods and trench coats or something like that

acid pools

Thinarium oil which can be found inside mines rarely which gives 8000 power output and can be used to get an expensive generator placed like the geothermal generators

also includes oil tanks which works like batterys except for oil

EDIT: oh yeah and rotting corpses if not putting them in gibbets or in graves they will rot and this will cause them to smell and such and this will make people very very mad and research branches you can choose permant branches to research in which will change your colony for example you could choose Military or Civilian branch (focus on military power or making a peaceful civilized still protected but civilized branch)
or Humane or Raider (raider makes people happy when you sell slaves or such, this inspires alot of fear, whilst humane makes people more happy and such) for example
also each branch unlocks unique reserachs  you can first progress to next branch when unlocking all researches
Humane > Civil > Trading > Mining > metal
(hence this will specialize my colony in beign a peaceful humane Trading colony focusing on metal.)

[DIEHARD24]

Hi all

1.Backpacs (more capacity for haulig, lower walking speed). Colonists may equip weapon or backpack, neiher both of them.
2. Turrets, piloting by colonists. 2 or 3 colonist managed turret. one of them aiming, second and third - reloading. if only one colonist hadle with turret, idcrease reload time. (maybe, take a lot of time to coding)
3. hardener walls (like standart, but no power conduit and double HP)
4. Bunker or some kind of that. Its a building about 3x3 squares with its own roof. Protection against gunfire like walls, but no protection from grenades.
5. bigger wersions of solar power plant and battery (surely, it should not be wery expesive

With best regards, Konstantin
Ukraine, Dnepropetrovsk

[letheus]

and how about smoke inside buildings? e.g. if something burns inside your station, then the smoke could fill the rooms and damages the colonists, and you don't see anything, since its all grey.

how about water inside the rock? like an underground lake, that a) could provide water,  b) could flood your station when digged into, c) to cross it, you would have to build a tiny boat.
please, consider the underground-lake!

how about different currencies? the traders could have different ones, and there could be a changing value compared to each other. (i don't know the english word, but i hope you get what i mean) 2 or 3 different currencies would certainly be enough.

how about crystal-caves? they would be very rare, and maybe surrounded by hard rock, but then again, if you manage to get some, they offered a lot of value... (maybe combined with the underground lake, like the crystals would be on an island in the middle of that lake)

how about meteor-strikes? they would hit randomly, and either set stuff on fire on the outside, or maybe they could make the caves collapse. this leads me to the next idea:

how about earthquakes? they could make the caves collapse. or maybe just small parts of them, but some colonists get trapped inside?

how about lava? e.g. the mountain the players are digging in is sometimes volcano? so you had lava-streams underground that the player has to deal with and maybe eruptions of the vulcano itself

how about oil-wells? the colonists need to develop an oil-pump, and the oil well runs out of oil one day.

rabbits? tiny nice rabbits that are cute, eat your crops and can be shot. and eaten.

fancy creatures inside the rock? maybe a cave, that houses a fancy large snake? or something else?

are there already natural caves? if no, please consider them! just caves inside the rock that might be useful? they could be small, huge, and maybe connected with each other?

best regards,
Zeiss
Germany.

[LDShadowLord]

Biomass Burners (Power Production)
Put in food, bodies or anything else combustable and get a small amoutn of energy back from it. Good for underground colonies with hydroponics!
uses no power but is quite costly

Grinders (Scrap production)
Put in weapons or debris/rubble and gain a small amount of scrap back from it
Uses a large amount of power and is relatively costly

Switches (Wiring)
cut off sections of your power system with switches. No need to individually turn off hundreds of items.
Uses: No power (Mechanical!) and is cheap

Wireless Walls (Building)
A standard wall but without wire already inside it (unconductive)
Uses: No power and is the cost of a wire subtracted from the cost of a wall (If plausible)

Reinforced Sandbags (Building)
Standard sandbags but with strong steel rebar inside of them. Units are much slower going through them and they are difficult to destroy.
Uses: No power and is 1.5 times the price of a standard sandbag

Incinerator (Utility?)
Toss useless bodies, weapons and other combustibles in here to be burnt to a crisp. Produces nothing of value. Designed as a way to rid you of useless items.
Uses: Some power and is cheap

[willow512]

Sorry for any doubles, 18+ pages now

• Idle colonists can sit on chairs and chat thus creating good thoughts.
  
• Adding memorial text to a gravestone for those loved and lost colonists.
  
• Wheelbarrows, portable stock pile that can be moved from site to site. (Combine stockpile + Arrest behavior?)
  
• A simple colony inventory with "center on" button. (I know I have that m16 somewhere)
  
• Lock camera to a colonist.
  
• Location hotkeys, ctrl f1 stores location + zoom + colonist lock?, f1 restores.
  
• Doors can be set to open for everyone, for colonists only, for no-one.
  
• Super walls, ridiculously expensive (60 metal?) but can take a lot more punishment.
  
• Special events where problem is posed that requires N research points to solve and finish with monetary reward. (Neighbors have the plague/radiation/want new and fancier kind of cutlery)
  
• Windmill power source.
  
• Power switch, a construction that can toggle the passage of electrical power through a conduit, these could eventually evolve into elaborate traps.
  
• Colonists that come with pets, a squirrel or rat that follows the colonist around maybe generating happy thoughts.
  
• Instruct a colonist to take a smoke break, in an attempt to avoid a mental meltdown.
  
• Stun grenades, incapacitates raiders a little easier. (Stunned if stun damage > health left, otherwise no effect)
  

[BeefWizard]

• Raiders could bring attack dogs (maybe attack muffalos) that are much faster, can jump over sandbags, but have less health.
• Staircases onto the roof. During a raid, colonists with long range weapons could climb on top of a building and go prone for improved range, accuracy, and protection.
• Plantable bushes and cacti, to make a pretty garden.
• Bodies decompose/get eaten by wildlife after a while. These bodies further decrease happiness and increase fear. The entrance to my base is full of dead raiders, because I can't be bothered to bury them.
• Alcohol, which increases a colonists happiness but temporarily decreases all their other skills.

[Foul]

Heres some hopefully cheap ideas, haven't read every page so apologies for repeats. I'm no programmer, just a massive dwarf fortress enthusiast, enjoy!

EVENTS
- Orbital bombardment, like a lightning storm except targeted by an enemy scout spawned on the map. I image a raiding party appears and instead of preparing to assault your base, you have to go after the enemy before they "lock" your base co-ordinates (as in, start raiding by staying put and attacking with precise lightning strikes).
- Moon ants. Build dump piles over ants nests (like geothermal holes), quickly decomposes corpses in pile. Also eats raw food lying about.
- Acid Rain event, corrodes outdoor electronics, maybe research to nullify?
- Moontrolls. Appear and act like an enraged moofolo, but much tougher and targeted by autoturrets. Essentially a forgotten beast like encounter out of Dwarf fortress.

RESEARCH
- Ventilation power conduit for caves. No fancy programming, just an upgrade that pushes air through the power conduit and reduces the cramped debuff in caves/rooms. Maybe dust storms could blow dirt into power ducted rooms in an event requiring cleaning.
- Solar lights. No power needed, weaker/expensive compared to powered lights. Lovingly targeted by raiders.
- Flavoured paste machines, progresively higher food use per unit but offering various moodlet buffs/debuffs. The strategy would be to toggle paste dispensors output, balancing food stores against desired buffs/debuffs.

RAIDS
- Open communications with raid parties (Perhaps by building a loudspeaker beacon). If social is high enough, non-combat interactions could be possible. Intimidate some or all of them away, demand the give up a slave, or weapon etc, or give into their demands via a trade screen like interface. Low social could force them into attacking sooner, or leaving and returning with a bigger raid party.
- Trained giant boomrat like animal appearing in rading parties. Maybe a Moofolo donkey bomb melee enemy unit, explodes when killed.
- Assasin disguised as Moofolo, no notification, cuts power wires and kills colonists. Reveals and flees when attacked.
- Long range Emp rifle units, disables turrets, detects and disables charges.

[CosmicKobal]

I have several Ideas:

Pitfall/Spikepit traps- you could even create a string of these around your base to act as a defensive trench instead.

trainable boomrats- basically mobile, tracking mines that you could unleash on a group of raiders as soon as they land. yes, your boomrats would die, and they should take a LONG time to train up, I'd say at least a full cycle to be able to use them this way. there could even be an animal husbandry trait that reduces training time by a certain amount. you could choose what you wanted to train in a screen similar to the research screen.

Fixed cannons- They could cost 500 materials each, and only have a 90 degree turning radius, but could do 75 damage per shot, have an affect similar to a grenade, and take 2 to 3 times as long to fire as the auto turret with around twice the range.

pet squirrels- They could be used as a happieness modifier. the animal trainer/animal husbandry person could go out and catch squirrels to be put in a cage built in each colonists room.

Taser- A weapon that does almost no damage, but can be used in melee to incapacitate enemies to be captured and recruited/sold/beaten/executed. Not dropped by raiders. Only acquired by buying from arms dealers.

Stungun- same as the Taser, except that it doesn't have to be in melee to be used. Not dropped by raiders. Only acquired by buying from arms dealers. Rarer than Tasers.

Electric Fence- self explanatory

Random ideas-

     Raiders could demand tributes/protection payments of resources or weapons i.e.

"We hear you've got some good guns in there. Either you give us 3 of your Pulse Rifles or we put holes in you and take them anyway!"

 

[Tournesol]

Tournesol's End Game Content Package:

4 additions only, interacts carefully with each other and they are easy to implement. Coding: ~4 hours (all the key functionality), graphics: ~1 hour, play testing/balancing: lots 

1. More colonists means more unhappiness: 1-5: no change; 6-10: -2 for each extra; 11-15: -4 for each; 16-20: -5 for each.
Ex: 10 colonists gives a constant -10 unhappiness, 15 gives -30 and 20 gives -55. Prisoners count little or nothing.

2. Advanced food dispenser: Uses 3-5x more food for each meal, uses 1200W, ~500 metal, gives +12 happiness, researchable (~10-20k)
Needed for larger colonies to manage happiness. Puts real pressure on food production, so you need several (~4) trained growers and a well designed colony with good transportation layout.

3. Superior beds, with blanket heating, air-condition and back massage: Gives +5 extra happiness for one day (slept well), gives +10 happiness for ~two days (has a nice bed), uses 750W, ~600 metal, very long construction time ~one day (if easy), needs frequent time consuming repairs (if easy), 2x2 size, researchable (~5-15k).
Again needed for larger colonies to manage happiness. Puts real pressure on power grid and repair, so you need several (~4) trained constructors and a colony layout that makes repairs easy.

4. Gardens of beauty (pot plants): gives +5 happiness while in same room, stacks 4 times, uses 25W, ~20 metal, requires lots of styling/gardening, dies slowly if unpowered (~2 days), 1x2 size, researchable (~10-15k), might make dirt when worked on (if easy).
The last mile of new happiness. Puts real pressure on artistic or gardening/cutting (pot plant fallback). Several (~2) trained colonists are needed to maintain them, with 4 each in 20 bedrooms. Possibly 1-2 colonists extra for cleaning up the mess.

--Done--

All 4 reuse elements and code that already exists, and should be relatively fast to implement
I also believe that the AI manager hardly *need* changes with this package. The happiness buildings and colony size has basic self balance properties, as bigger setbacks means you can turn off the expensive stuff.

The total effect happiness effect is balanced so that at 20 colonists and all new buildings gives +0 happiness.
This imposes 'Gardens of beauty' everywhere in the base however. So, even with peaceful settings getting 20 colonists is supposed to require good planing.

The happiness modifiers, food usage, repair time and energy usage are semi-guesses.
Hopefully the package is somewhat balanced in the resources needed. Each element taxes different skills, and has varied resource requirements.

Also great stories are possible!:
When raiders attack during a solar flare you have to arrest many "trouble makers" (reducing number of colonists).
However after the battle you have lost several skilled gardeners, but have 3 new raiders captured.
On this dark day you arrest some of your own assassins that can't grow food, and take in the captured people.
As food supply drops with the half trained growers, you sell your arrested assassins to buy a stockpile of food.
With the colony safe from starvation you let the new guys train growing, and start patching up the new defences 

[jjgoldman]

How about guns suitable only for emplacement.  Larger than personal weapons, but needing to be "assembled" and fixed once assembled.  As well unlike the autoturret, would require a colonist (or two?) to operate.

[Pioneer]

I've read this forum more or less attentively, but could not find what I'll sujest below. So:
1. Slaughtered animals like muffalo drops 1 unit(s) of foodstuff (or more till 5 - it can be depends on combat skill of colonist, who kills an animal). It would be nice to get more "usefull" muffalo.
Maybe later it will more different foodstuff with different nutrition and taste to satisfy colonist's needs.
******Optional*******
for carpet making it will be very nice to use muffalo's wool. 
********************
2. Remove "stockpile area". Instead of it create storage furniture (as an equipment rack, but separately for food and materials. Each has a finite amount of things stored in it. Also, improved food storage furniture(or simply refrigerator) can use electricity to prevent food spoilage). IMHO, this can be very helpfull to plan your own storage  according to landscape and colonist's needs.
3. Mining or garden tools and other usefull equipment. I think, it is not very complicate. For example - shovel or pickaxe  uses weapon's slot.
4. Workbench. Yes, for crafting tools or even weapons. (so it can be necessary to create new skill = "crafting". Higher skill = higher speed of crafting).
5. Fire extinguisher. Man, yesterday I lose 8 colonists in fire caused by short circuit . This would not happen again...

[samtarling]

Having to "deconstruct" buildings/items instead of just selling them

[Leird]

Be able to choose if you want a room to be roofed or not. It would be cool to be able to... Let's say you want to wall in you solar panels and grow plots to protect against raiders and animals, would be pretty cool to be able to do that!

[Farden]

Hi there, quick suggestion : rain should clean the blood traces on the ground! After all, water is quite good at cleaning stuff, right?

[cappie]

I have several suggestions:

#cheap features (1-2 hour(s))
- Mines (the types that go BOOM), based on the blast things, but then with a different icon (small blinking led in the dirt).
- Make 'repairing' a separate task instead of having it part of 'construction' (already included in changelog of Nov 1st 2013, thank you!)
- Upgradeable turrets (just use the repair animation on it, but increase the turret's hitpoints in exchange for some metal). Also, have the last upgrade level (400% hitpoints, but lower firing/tracking rate due to armor weight) cause the turret NOT to explode anymore, but costing about 4x as much as a normal turret in the end)

#less cheap upgrades (3-4 hours)
- Add startup time before electronic devices are active whenever they're built and/or (re-)powered.. devices like turrets or communication arrays.. timers ticking down while you are REALLY in a bad situation are great story telling plot helpers
-- Add a research options to 1) reduce startup time 2) install a new OS on your devices for quicker startup and/or more features (windows vs linux) 3) replace hardware on your devices (like an SSD upgrade to your HDD, but then 10.000 years in the future).
- Mass graves for raiders with massive penalty whenever colonists see an ex-colonist in there, but using way less space than normal graves, also, add an option to set it to fire to get rid of the corpses and use it again after the fire has emptied it. (the smell could upset people with a weak stomach)

#bugfixes (full day perhaps? I dno..)
- Maybe a quick bugfix for your pathfinding which seems to cause massive slowdowns after un-forbidding a bunch of items: whenever there are more than 'n' number of items that trigger the pathfinding algo's, just calculate the pathfind to the closest item, do not pre-calculate the other paths.