I may be looking at it from owly playing on the Steam Deck too, like never having a keyboard and mouse made a lot of it difficult and gave me a sore thumb lol.
I wanted to play vanilla to understand the mechanics before modding, so I could appreciate the quality-of-life improvements. I definitely have a bunch I play with in Rimworld.
I hear that. I did try to pregame and watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials before jumping into DF. Still had to Google a bunch of stuff. I remember feeling frustrated trying to make soap (even with a flow chart). Like I made the workstation for it but no soap came. Then I learned I needed lye but didn't know how to make it. Learned it came from the butcher but didn't know how to hunt @_@ a lot of those stacked and I eventually gave up.
I only recently got Ideology for Rimworld and am exploring that now :) lots more in the other DLCs to play through too