Engineering Workbench

Power and water start here. Solar panels, batteries, switches, pumps and the industrial conveyor parts sit in this bench's own tech tree rather than the normal workbench's, and its game text says the crafting happens here as well.

The price is familiar: the same 100 metal fragments and 500 wood as a Level 1 workbench, and the bench is a Level 1 craft itself. So wood and frags are not what holds a group back. Scrap is. Every unlock in its tree costs some, and for anything you already hold in your hands the research table is usually the cheaper route.

Say you came back from a monument with a large solar panel in your bag. On its own it does nothing. You need the wire tool to hook it up, a battery to store the power and something to spend it on, and that whole evening starts at this bench. The same goes for a water pump feeding a farm.

If nobody in your group cares about electricity, skip it for now. The first time someone wants lights on a timer or a turret that runs at night, you will build one anyway.