Lower requirements for Mechatronics Engineering

[Farsight]

Requiring 5 skills to unlock Mech. Eng. makes players spend a significant amount of time dealing with annoying micromanagement like getting dupes to clear eggs out of ranches.

The end result is that I end up rerolling dupes on game start until I get one that already has Mech. Eng., because otherwise the game gets annoying instead of fun.

Supplying is already one of the best utility skill trees even w/o Mech Eng, since it gives dupes massive carrying boosts.

Just having Mech Eng require 3 points in Operating would be more than enough.

Another option would be to expand Building into a 5-skill branch like Research is, and put Mech Eng in there, as it has always seemed weird that building shipping items doesn't require building skill at all. Other possible building skills would be Automation Building and Rocketry Building, to gate their construction similar to how research works.

Operating could be boosted by having advanced machines require certain operating skills in the same way that research and other skills are required for certain tasks.

But most importantly, Shipping makes the game much more fun, and shouldn't take so long to unlock.

[pnambic]

How long is "so long"? You can get 5 skill points on a dupe in less than 50 cycles. If that feels long to you, you're probably doing all all-achievement speedrun, in which case you might want to automate egg removal using airlock doors (or a long row of unpowered incubators and an egg cracker).