Electric Heater

Cold is the problem it solves, and in the snow you feel it fast. Build up there and every naked respawn, every teammate in half a kit, starts losing health to the cold before the first piece of clothing is crafted. A heater in the bag room keeps that room warm for as long as power reaches it, and nobody has to feed wood into anything.

The other job is farming. Crops care about temperature, and a large planter box in a snowy base grows badly when it is freezing. Players set a heater between the planters to lift the temperature around them. That is where it beats a stone fireplace: no fuel to top up, and you can place it right where the plants are instead of against a wall in another room.

A Level 1 workbench and two hundred metal fragments build it, so it is affordable on day one. Power is the real cost. The row gives no figure for its draw, so watch the battery on the first night and add another large solar panel if it runs dry before morning.