Merge pull request #74493 from CleverRaven/kevingranade-FMS-3D-printers

Add section on 3D printers to FMS

doc/FREQUENTLY_MADE_SUGGESTIONS.md

@@ -283,6 +283,24 @@ Storing blood for later is far outside the reach of the survivor even if they kn
 
 Coercing followers into being your personal blood bags is not going to happen. Otherwise, this would require someone with medical knowhow, matching blood types, about an hour of sitting around for the transfusion, and would make the recipient violently ill for about a day. But there is a better solution.
 
+#### Add 3D printers and have them print guns and armor and car parts: Yes but no.
+
+This breaks down into two possibilities, which tl;dr, neither really works.
+The first option is you find design files for 3D prints. This is extremely problematic for a number of reasons.  There's no internet, we have no robust way to search for files on people's computers, and many of the designs of particular interest are low-grade contraband, so where are you getting them? "finding files on USB sticks in the trash" is already stretched past its breaking point, it is most definitely not reasonable to further extend it to cover an entirely new way of crafting items.
+
+Even if you find a house or workplace with 3D printers (which is a safe assumption, because otherwise you aren't going to have a 3D printer in the first place), most of the design files you're going to find are going to be figurines, toys, and replacement parts for random appliances, not things you waThere are a number of issues with adding 3D printing. One, your assertion that ability to 3D print is based on the user's ability to operate a 3D printer assumes that they are working not just from a design, but an extremely well proven design. In reality there are many designs out there you need to heavily modify in order to get it printing, at which point you have to repeat the final stages of testing and adjusting the design in order to get a working output. This is much more the case for the survivor scenario because you're interested in working solutions instead of things that "look right".
+
+The bigger issue here is where are you getting your design files from? There's no internet, we have no robust way to search for files on people's computers, and many of the designs of particular interest are low-grade contraband, so where are you getting them? "finding files on USB sticks in the trash" is already stretched past its breaking point, it is most definitely not reasonable to further extend it to cover an entirely new way of crafting items.
+
+Even if you find a house or workplace with 3D printers (which is a safe assumption, because otherwise you aren't going to have a 3D printer in the first place), most of the design files you're going to find are going to be figurines, toys, and replacement parts for random appliances, not things you want/need.
+
+So the reality is, if you want to 3D print useful items as a survivor, you need to find a working 3D printer, the software for it (including both drivers and design software, oops licenses), filament, and then proceed to create your own designs, which is days to weeks of work for marginally useful items and literally years of work for things like working guns, where in practically all circumstances there are better alternatives for everything you could possibly make that are easier to find than a working 3D printer.
+
+There's another issue, which is that your idea about what you can meaningfully print is bizzarely expansive. You're literally suggesting making car parts and body armor out of printed plastic, this is ludicrous. Even things like buckles are a hard sell because 3D printed plastic just isn't that tough of a material.nt/need.  So this route is fine, with a lot of work, if your goal is collecting 3D printed anime figurine #1 to #500, but not so great for helping you survive.
+
+The other option is you create your own designs. You need to find a working 3D printer, the software for it (including both drivers and design software, oops licenses), filament, and then proceed to create your own designs, which is days to weeks of work for marginally useful items and literally years of work for things like working guns, where in practically all circumstances there are better alternatives for everything you could possibly make that are easier to find than a working 3D printer. Again, if your goal is 3D printing bottle openers and anime figurines, this would be A Way to do that, but for useful survival-y things, it's not a viable option.
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+The final point is even if you do somehow brute force your way to either finding or designing marginally useful items, 3D prints are just not that great, mechanically speaking. Most items you want are going to be strictly higher quality if made of metal, wood, or fabric, and the ways available to craft things out of those items are lower overhead than doing the same with a 3D printer.
 
 ### Electrical power transmission
 This covers several sub-suggestions that do or do not work for various reasons.