What technologies are almost always not worth researching? I understand that some techs might be useful on a situational basis only, but are there any that simply have no real practical application.
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Dust repulsion - absolute garbage.
Adapted probes - scanning is almost always easier as money is always better be spent on something else.
Low-G Fungi - anything is better than fungus, even with breakthrough. Building is simply not cost-effective.
Compact Passenger Module - at this point you will breed faster than you will import colonists.
Mars Nauveau - concrete and polumers are rarely an issue because you are not building constantly.
Resilent Architecture - Obsolete the moment you research Scrubbers. It is literally never worth researching ever.
Plasma Cutters - a tier lower than Mohole and rare metals are drained by this point mostly.
Rover Printing - at this stage rovers will mostly stay idling, rarely researching anomalies.
Creative Realities - workshop that consumes precious electronics. Never worth it.
Martian Festivals - decorations are trash
Adapted probes - scanning is almost always easier as money is always better be spent on something else.
Low-G Fungi - anything is better than fungus, even with breakthrough. Building is simply not cost-effective.
Compact Passenger Module - at this point you will breed faster than you will import colonists.
Mars Nauveau - concrete and polumers are rarely an issue because you are not building constantly.
Resilent Architecture - Obsolete the moment you research Scrubbers. It is literally never worth researching ever.
Plasma Cutters - a tier lower than Mohole and rare metals are drained by this point mostly.
Rover Printing - at this stage rovers will mostly stay idling, rarely researching anomalies.
Creative Realities - workshop that consumes precious electronics. Never worth it.
Martian Festivals - decorations are trash
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You just saved me quite a bit of research time. I had just queued it up in a play-through. Thanks.
I have to disagree on this one -- it has more slots for colonists than the other 2 workshops by far, and late-game electronics are easy enough to produce in large quantities since the only limiting factors are colonists to man the buildings and rare metals.
Not entirely relevant to the thread but after I plop down the mohole mine my electronics surplus goes insane; I end up building/upgrading things just to expend my stacks of electronics.
Late-game, where you just to make yourcolonists "busy" is a stage where you basically finished the game. I am talking about mid-game mostly, where resources are not infinite and you have to conserve electronics, polymers and parts.
I mean, workshops are sort of exactly for that time and purpose, so it seems odd to me that you'd single out the most useful of them when they're all useless and a waste of resources until then.
Morbos covered most of them.
Nuclear Fusion & Autoregulators can be very hit or miss depending on breakthroughs.
Once you have Trib Scrubbing you can easily create a no-maintence wind farm (low materials, high area) or a field of open sterling generators (high material cost, tiny area).
If you get the eternal fusion breakthrough, then Nuclear Fusion becomes awesome though.
I tend to get utility crops much later in the game now. Let farms rest, power off & no crop selected, and the soil quality will improve. I know some people use them in hydroponics to survive disasters (O2), but I don't.
Nuclear Fusion & Autoregulators can be very hit or miss depending on breakthroughs.
Once you have Trib Scrubbing you can easily create a no-maintence wind farm (low materials, high area) or a field of open sterling generators (high material cost, tiny area).
If you get the eternal fusion breakthrough, then Nuclear Fusion becomes awesome though.
I tend to get utility crops much later in the game now. Let farms rest, power off & no crop selected, and the soil quality will improve. I know some people use them in hydroponics to survive disasters (O2), but I don't.
- Low-G fungi, Magnetic filtering, fuel compression - I will likely take eventually just as it is cheap to reveal further techs but never actually use it.
- Dome bioscaping, biome engineering, home collective, Martian festivals. Anything that increases comfort is kind of a waste. The comfort system is typically more about the highest level services to keep people happy and anything less than those is actually a waste of time and resource. So stick with your hanging gardens, church spire or even an art store (in the early game) to keep comfort up as pretty much everything else doesn't really apply.
- Storage compression, mega storage - Just build more of the cheaper ones, why waste valuable tech on this?
- Micro engineering, 3d machining - It is better to buy these from earth and save the time on tech researching anything else (especially early game when the tech is more valuable). You typically only need one of each building into the mid game, especially if you are actually putting colonists through university and chances are you have to import the electronics anyway.. By the time you need more you can afford to buy more.
- Drone printing, Rover printing and drone hub. I typically use command rovers to save on maintenance. But if I do need more drones rovers or hubs Earth can supply this.
- Fuelled extractor - Never felt the need to increase production through this, I would more likely build more extractors.
- Dust repulsion, Low-G turbines, Nuclear fusion, atomic accumulator etc. Sterling generators are too good to pass up and save you tonnes of materials in the long run.
- Supportive community, general training - If you think need these what you really need is medical clinics and universities
- Dozer rover, topology AI, conservation landscaping. - Unless you are going to pancake the entire place I don't find the need to waste tech on these. Drone manpower is plentiful and I prefer to have a command rover with a team doing landscape projects over longer periods of time rather than waste tech.
- Terraform subsidies - typically way too expensive tech wise for the return
- Deep water extraction/Water conservation system - Water becomes less of an issue once you get moisture farming. But issues related to water is typically from reluctance to make decent storage for it or reluctance to build more extractors. Water extractors only need to keep you going until you get to moisture farming they aren't a permanent solution.
Yes, I typically send rover with several drones to make a ramp to unreachable locations and never actually need to use rover. You scan other sectors and forget about rover and then your ramp is ready.
The workshops I never bother with, Those things may as well not exist. The fungus farm is junk too. Too many downsides for almost no returns. It's an out dome building so it stresses colonists out in the early game, and it doesn't provide enough to make it worthwhile. The concrete and metal reduction techs are pretty useless too. By the time you get to them typically you need ways to use metal and concrete, not save the stuff. The water reclamation spire is utterly useless too, probably most of all. It takes up valuable space to do.... nothing much? if it generated water like a mega hydrothingy that'd be worth considering, but a lil reduction in water use? meh. Meh in the most sarcastic tone of voice possible.
Rover printing is amazing once you get into the game. I managed to get the Europa Universalis (get more than 10k per day research) achievement without getting a single colonist thanks to rovers, and some lucky breakthroughs (the eternal fusion and unmanned extractors breakthroughs, specifically). Really made me appreciate how nice it is to be able to just queue up another 1k of research any time I want.
Rover printing is amazing once you get into the game. I managed to get the Europa Universalis (get more than 10k per day research) achievement without getting a single colonist thanks to rovers, and some lucky breakthroughs (the eternal fusion and unmanned extractors breakthroughs, specifically). Really made me appreciate how nice it is to be able to just queue up another 1k of research any time I want.
The water reclamation spire is very useful in farm domes where you need lots of water to produce food.
It would be good for this purpose if it didn't require so many colonists working it. You are better off ignoring it and jumping to outdoor farming once you've terraformed enough.
I think most of the less valuable techs are covered however I'd like to say certain things like Mars Noveau can actually be really useful when you are rushing wonders and expanding fast. One huge projects it amounts to quite alot of metals and concrete.
I'm going to give a hot take here too.
Soil Adaption - Farms.
Skip this. Don't build farms or ranches.
Right at the start you can import some food from Earth, its not very expensive. After about Sol 15-20 you can use a trade pad to offer concrete or metal in exchange for food. Your rivals will accept. Converting Concrete into Food is extremely efficient. Building 1-2 extra concrete extractors to feed your colony is way way better than using up a dome slice and 1-2 water. You could build an entire extra dome or two with the water you spare, the freed up workforce can work research or advanced material production.
On any game where I can import food this is now my go-to strategy and it powers up your colony massively early game.
As your colony progresses the need to food can outstrip trading capacity at which point perhaps its worth farming, however I've found I can rush Mohole and/or Space elevator by around Sol 50 and then just pump out food from Earth. From there pivot to outdoor farming for the long term and late game.
I'm going to give a hot take here too.
Soil Adaption - Farms.
Skip this. Don't build farms or ranches.
Right at the start you can import some food from Earth, its not very expensive. After about Sol 15-20 you can use a trade pad to offer concrete or metal in exchange for food. Your rivals will accept. Converting Concrete into Food is extremely efficient. Building 1-2 extra concrete extractors to feed your colony is way way better than using up a dome slice and 1-2 water. You could build an entire extra dome or two with the water you spare, the freed up workforce can work research or advanced material production.
On any game where I can import food this is now my go-to strategy and it powers up your colony massively early game.
As your colony progresses the need to food can outstrip trading capacity at which point perhaps its worth farming, however I've found I can rush Mohole and/or Space elevator by around Sol 50 and then just pump out food from Earth. From there pivot to outdoor farming for the long term and late game.