Coms console

[Moscovy]

Start of colony.
My suggestion at the start of the game would be to have the visible wreckage of your ship as a starting point. At the wreck you could start the colony or move to a better, more suitable area. This could be great because it would pace the game. All of your technology has to come from the wreck at the beginning of the game. You could have your miner dig through the wreck to get guns, food, metal and that dreaded (Manual) turret gun, All the while being on the look out for the pirates. Travel to and from the sites is a challenge. All this takes valuable time and resources. One of the most valued points to this is the coms station. This could be worked on at the ship or at a better and more secure location, All the while worrying about the pirates that could take it (and you). Its junk till it works. The Com station could set the pace of the game. If you get it to work this means more technology, food and other trade material. BUT this also brings more attention to your colony. So you may not want to get it working right away! Once Pandora’s Box is open your committed. I think that this could then fix the “to early supper tech stuff”

So to sum up:

1) Working with a wrecked ship. (If the wreck is hard to program then the AI disappears into   a simple wreck for a determined amount of time)

2) Get metal and scrap from ship. You still mine for metal but the ship metal can be easy to get. (while it lasts)

3) Start collecting luxury items from ship (Lamps, wire, guns, chairs, carpet) all things BEFORE trade and research.

4) Most important a working Coms station will move you to the next level.