Lots of stuff in Raft are given to you when they are not necessary anymore, with the best example being the Titanium Sword blueprint being given AFTER you kill the last boss.

But even before that, some stuff arrived so late it was not worth building it. Example: The electric smelter arrived at a point in the game where I was not smelting much stuff anymore so my 4 primitive smelters were enough. Same with the advanced refinery (already had 30 cans of fuel) and electric grill.

Also, if any production equipment is lacking you can always just build lots of it to a point when the better, compact version arrives you are already committed to making a big raft and there is no reason to scale it down.

On the opposite side, gathering ore and algae never gets much easier and the loop of sailing, diving, killing the shark, and harvesting the ocean floor is the same from start to finish. At least we get nets to collect wood and plastic from the sea, thank god.

Anyway, fun game. All in all probably my favorite survival, tho Valheim may surpass it if it gets got patches.