Absolutely adore this mod, I didn't think it was possible to improve upon Mouse-Over Construction without one of the countless "early construction bots" mods but this does the trick and then some.

I had the thought that allowing the item canister ammunition to be affected by the shooting speed research would be a reasonably well-balanced way to increase the shotgun's effectiveness going into the midgame; what do you think? Would still require decent investment in science but would give the player character a gradual boost in construction speed.

Alternatively, more / different custom upgrades could just as easily fulfill this purpose; do you intend to extend the custom research beyond green science? Strictly curious - don't mean to come across as nagging in the slightest.

In any event, I must reinforce what an outstanding job you've done with this! Really excellent QoL.

One of the main principles I am trying to stick to with this mod is making sure that the player still has incentive to transition to bots. If I make the shotgun too good, then people will keep using it into the mid to late game, which isn't the point of the mod - it's supposed to bridge that gap between "no bots at all" and "I have bots now", since bots themselves are pretty nice when you actually can get them. It goes the other way as well, I can't make it not worth using at all. I have to strike some sort of balance between reducing the tedium of the early game, without making it so overpowered that bots become less enticing. I've done a lot of testing involving timing myself on how long it takes to build/mine an area of belts, different blueprints of mine, essentially comparing the times for the gun and personal bots without upgrades. It ends up being about the same, with some variations depending on what's going on.

That being said, there is still technically room for improvement - something I hadn't considered up until recently, there could be techs later into the tech tree that allow people to do more with the gun, since they would most likely have some bots and/or bot speed upgrades at that point. While the gun does fill in the duties of construction bots as a whole fairly well, it isn't really until utility science -> portable fusion reactor that personal bots specifically are much easier to justify using, and that's pretty late into the game.

I'm not sure how much I want to change the shooting speed of the gun, I kind of like the fire rate as it is now aesthetically, but I'll mess around with it and see if I like anything else, because I do think I want to add some upgrades later into the tech tree. This way it stays relevant for longer, scaling with the player, but it doesn't ever feel too overpowered at any point. Looking back at it now, I think I was a little bit too paranoid about it being overpowered, but green science is really early for the gun to become maxed out. Bots get a lot of upgrades, why not this?

Anyways, thanks a bunch! I really appreciate the feedback, glad you're enjoying the mod. I'm currently on vacation until the weekend, so I probably won't get around to doing any of this until I get back, but you definitely have encouraged a better perspective.