what is your "must have" vs "don't bother" research list

[amjadken]

just looking through, I think I could skip colored lights but would probably need batteries

[Praeceptorem Poloniae]

Tough question, as usefulness of research heavily depends on situation/context - in high-tech playthroughs better bows can be considered useless, but in tribal start they are high on "to do" list as stopgap between crappy short bow and decent firearms. Other useless tech due to context are tree sowing (and cocoa) on permawinter maps, watermills on map without river, noble and royal clothing when not planning on having royal psycaster (harp and other instruments are useful for recreation)

[HunterSilver]

Surprisingly hospital beds, cryptosleep caskets, and vitals monitors are very high on my to do list. I put a lot of emphasis on putting bionics on my colonists and capturing live targets from raids.

Trust me when I say that it sucks a lot to set an archotech eye to be installed and to get a catastrophic failure, so everything I can do to improve success rates gets stacked onto the list. Doctors get bionic arms and eyes first for better surgery outcomes, glittertech medicine is used, and everything is done in a sterile hospital room. It doesn't guarantee success, but I have more successes than failures.

For prisoners I patch them up and let them recover, apply anesthesia, then put them into cryptosleep caskets for storage. Whenever the royal tax collector comes around I pull them out of cold storage, let them wake up, then trade them in for royal favor. Managing 7 or 8 prisoners at a time early game is manageable, but trying to prevent prison breaks when you have 30 or 40 captures after a raid is just too much work. Prisons are either basically hospital rooms or luxury suites for recruitment.

[frumple]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

For prisoners I patch them up and let them recover, apply anesthesia, then put them into cryptosleep caskets for storage.

Clever idea for managing prisoners using cryo. Beats feeding them, though obviously there will be no recruiting either.

High on my list is Autodoors. Boring but practical. Devilstrand too. I'm very boring.

[Hoki]

batteries are very high in regards to how cheap they are. if you play tribal and get to this point you can probably afford to skip it and go straight for geothermal. or if you plan to go heavy on chemfuel you can skip them as well and use chemfuel generators instead.

for me as soon as i got power sorted i go straight for weapons and flak armor. Im running a loot manager and therefore cant use the weapons raiders bring in.

given i run 200+ mods per usual sterile tiles are somewhat high on my list (any bit of additional research speed is welcomed)

[olympe]

Things on my "don't bother" list:
What I never, ever need: Colored lights. ;) I hate the way they make everything look.
Bows and advanced bows as well as longblades and plate armor usually, since I never played tribal starts yet.
Firefoam. I make sure to not have too much burnable stuff together.
I don't like producing drugs beyond psychite tea, either.
Multi-barrel weapons. I just don't like to use them, so...
Mortars aren't that useful unless you want to attack other settlements.
The other things really depend on the map. Watermill generators, for example, don't make sense if you don't have a river on your map.
Batteries only make sense if you depend on wind and/or solar power.
Beer Brewing isn't exactly necessary, either.
Smokepop belts. What are they good for, anyway? Maybe for running away from enemy gunners? I have yet to figure that one out.

[HunterSilver]

Originally posted by olympe:

Smokepop belts. What are they good for, anyway? Maybe for running away from enemy gunners? I have yet to figure that one out.

They disable turrets and reduce ranged accuracy. Turrets cannot shoot into, out of, or through smoke clouds. They're a must have for mech hives early on. Also good for giving your units a moment to get into advantageous cover when heading into a firefight.

[Drunio]

Plate Armor/Longswords/Shield Belts. Melee rules.

Geothermal. King of Power.

Sterile Tile/Medicine Production/Hospital Beds/Vital Monitors/Bionics. Because diseases suck, operations are not fun when they fail, and colonists lose way too many body parts.

Charge weapons. Because they do well against mechs due to high armor pen.

Recon/Marine Armor. Essentially the endgame where your colonists rarely die because they are hard to kill. Also keeps their temp fairly well in all environments so it can potentially be worn 24/7.

There are others for sure, but those are usually the ones that make the biggest impact for me. For instance deep drilling gives you infinite building materials. Or drug production that can be used to keep your dudes happy or be sold for profit.

There are also things like smokepop belts that could be irrelevant if you have a psicaster able to do that ability or a must have if you do not.

Oh right don't bother list. Here are a few.

Long Range Mineral Scanner. (never needed it)
Colored Lights. (seriously why)
Greatbow (I like recurve more)
Big Turrets. (I use small ones to draw aggro, big ones cost too much and can kill my own guys too easily)
Solar Power. (Geo is better)
Batteries. (same as above)

[Rattler]

My must haves

1. Power : Geothermals, I like to skip batteries if possible
   
2. Guns: Blowback first for some heavy smgs, Precision guns comes way later
   
3. Beer, sometimes Survival meals. But i dont do mutch carawaning
   
4. Component Production+
   
5. Firefoam as i am always using Rimfeller and oilfires are no joke

Things i ignore most of the time are
Pemikan&Most Tribal research, Noble apparel, Television, Solar Power, IEDs, Mortars, Turrets, Drugs

I prefer long range mineral Scanner over deep drilling.

[Diarmuhnd]

!!! NUKES , SPACESHIPS & Beyond !!!
And everything that supports those industries.

[martindirt]

Back in old days, im rushed through "Power" line, to establish my power income with reliable geothermal generators.
Fabrication. Becouse you need components AMAP.
Hospital beds, sterile tiles, vital monitors. Diseases, infection, falied surgeries sacks.

Im never ever researched fire foam, colored lights, devilstrand (im prefer heavy armour).

+ depends on the mods im running.

Nuevodays (since im found this gem on workshop):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1374065851

This one removes the monotony from the game. Just go with the flow, as RR drops the technologies. My current tribal colony is there since 4 years still without electricity. I have some looted modern weapons and armours, but they are still at medieval tech lvl.

[dande48]

Must haves for early game:
-Psychoid tea
-Drugs/psychite refining
-Medicine
-Solar/Batteries and Geothermals.
-Sterile tiles
-Medical beds
-Biofuel refining (turning human flesh into $$$)

Late game:
-Bionics (to replace the lost body parts colonists will have by now)
-Skin hardening (toughskin on everyone)
-Poison Synthesis (venom fangs for everyone, and talons for ranged characters)
-Packaged survival meal. Takes away the need for freezers, and can survive a power outage.

Things I used to use, but now find worthless:
-Beer. Psychoid tea every other day is far superior, and requires much less time and effort.
-Rugs. They're flammable. Use stone bricks instead.
-Deep Drilling/Ground penetrating scanner. I used to love these, but the long ranged scanner is far superior. Plus they take up a lot of time and resources.
-Any drugs but psychoid tea, yayo, and medicine.
-Firefoam. Seriously, just build your base out of stone bricks with stone floors.
-Anything having to do with Starflight. If I wanted to anti-climatically end the game, I'd just quit.

[frumple]

Originally posted by olympe:

Things on my "don't bother" list:
Bows and advanced bows as well as longblades and plate armor usually, since I never played tribal starts yet.

Mortars aren't that useful unless you want to attack other settlements.

Plate armor is pretty good. It's kinda in the middle, but i like the look of it, and it's performed pretty well.

Mortars are *kinda* handy in certain situations, though you can just steal the ones brought to you. The accuracy is appalling, but pawns with bad combat skills, or old age or other issues that slow them down can be useful in a fight by manning mortars. The reload time is worse than the accuracy. And the fact they destroy valuable loot.
I think they're nice on mountain maps with unroofed pockets. Mortars can fire from those places and at least do some damage. Even better if it's a desert map as you can use fire shells without causing map wide fires.

Neither mortars nor plate are must have, but they're ok.
Pretty much agree with the rest. Smokepop is there to annoy players, i'm sure. It's one of those items that benefits the AI.

[martindirt]

Originally posted by frumple:

Smokepop is there to annoy players, i'm sure. It's one of those items that benefits the AI.

Smoke prevents turrets from targeting your pawns. One of the best ways to deal with mech clusters.

[frumple]

Originally posted by martindirt:

Originally posted by frumple:

Smokepop is there to annoy players, i'm sure. It's one of those items that benefits the AI.

Smoke prevents turrets from targeting your pawns. One of the best ways to deal with mech clusters.

I stand corrected. They used to be mostly useless.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Batteries are usually my first tech on a crashlanded start, because i like to get a freezer built quick for food and other perishables. My next priority is the techs to make penoxcylin, and then on to solar power.

I ignore thing like colored lights, rugs, and other techs that you really don't need,