Midgame alternatives

[SpomJ]

So there are many starting biomes currently - sandstone, forest, swampy, ice cave. They all have very different strategies and planning attached to them. Lategame is also very diverse - you have mostly all the resources you could ever wish for and thus build whatever you want.

However, midgame is a bottleneck here. The key to getting into it is steel and plastic production. It's the same on every start, although it is a little bit diverse in production (not that much).

What I'm asking is what if there were alternative paths? Alternative technologies with alternative resources that allow for achieving the same goals much differently?

[tHe_silent_H]

I'd love it if we could make brass(tin+ copper) not as strong as steel, but better than gold. concrete is another manufactured material we are missing( a replacement for ceramic). as for a plastic replacement, carbon fibre/fibreglass could fill that role. Could be something for the next dlc asteroid.