A machine in the sky that can construct blueprinted facilities from space. First, fill a rocket with everything you need: Conveyor belts, assemblers, poles, mining drills... and send it off. Now, place a blueprint of the factory you want to build. Make sure to make it worth it, as space is expensive...

This game taught me a lot about productivity and work optmization.
It also made me frequently dream of conveyor belts.

It does have several uses. For instance, it does after a while reveal new bases. That is always useful.
Also, it perma-reveals a small area around itself, so when you want to stay updated on a far-away location because you want to watch changes in ressources, that can come in handy.

While I see your point, would you think that you would want to see those other ideas at a later stage in development?
I mean, collecting and refining ideas can never be bad, can it?
So, it is useful to know if the ideas are usable in principle.

(moved here from General discussion because it really didn't belong there.) The current end-game story line says that the colonists are in thermosleep somewhere in deep space, and you have to construct a space ship to fly there and get 'em. But the devs have received some bad critizism for this and ...