I've been getting back into Rimworld after a few years. I've played a bit but never gotten very far. I'm a huge fan of colony management games in general (Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, etc.) but Rimworld has always been tough to me. I think part of it is that the tech tree just doesn't make sense in my head.
I think I'm more used to medieval style games with clear "Minecraft like" material progression (can't think of a better term lol). Plus a lot of games I play a gun is just already the highest tech you'll get, so it's this weird thing where I view my weapons as really strong then they're really early game things. Further, I probably think of other weapons I see that are powerful as being super late game weapons.
Can someone give me a breakdown of what techs to research over the first year or two of gameplay? I also might not be researching enough in general. I am 3 seasons in and only have one tech unlocked, batteries. Is that a good pace? I know later it will be faster.
Right now I mostly die to things in the second year it seems like. My new game I am playing with Phoebe Chillax on Adventure Story. Seems like Cassandra Classic on Strive to Survive is the "default". But going over the things they actually change it seems like this will mostly give me smaller raids and events slightly less often, as opposed to doing things like giving me more food from crops. I'm mostly dying to external threats at the moment so I'm trying to make that a teeny bit easier as I learn.
I always rush Shield Belts, Long Blades, Flak Armor, and Gun Turrets in that order. It doesn't matter what else you have in your colony if you can't defend it. Beyond that, Biofuel refining is mandatory for Mortars (and generators, though I usually keep them as emergency power and transition to other power sources when I have the time), then IEDs.
With all these various avenues of defense, you can start branching out into the Sterile Tiles and Hospital Beds to upgrade your cleanrooms.
Psychite Tea, Beer Brewing, and other complex drugs are then important to maintain your pawns mental health. Flake and Yayo should seem repulsive due to their unsafe addictiveness, but research them anyway. You can sustain a psychite addicted pawn harmlessly with tea. And Go-Juice (a fantastic painkiller for emergencies) requires yayo.
After that, you're gonna want some mining tech, as you've likely depleted your metal deposits on your map at this point.
Then? Research whatever. I like grabbing jump packs at this point and upgrading my melee pawns to locust armor and plasteel swords / uranium hammers. But maybe you want marine armor and pulse charged rifles for your gunners. Or better turrets for your automated defenses.
Don't neglect the combat support items like Smokepop and Firefoam packs either, they're worth the trouble.
Boomalope farms tho
I like boomalope farms early game if I can get them, but at a certain point I just need more chemfuel and less wood.
Yeah, that's fair. And boomalope farming is certainly... exciting... so it gets very interesting with a large farm.