I don't know if the dev reads comments on here or cares about suggestions, but I had a couple ideas after putting a fair few hours into the game:
1: Craftable spears. Get together a few sticks, some chemfluid to fuse them, and a sharp object to whittle a point on the end. Or maybe some string/rope and scrap metal to fashion a spearhead. Would make a decent early game melee weapon with good reach, though admittedly I'm not sure there's much of a demand for early game melee weapons due to the early layers mostly just being traps.
2: Dreams. If you get a full session of uninterrupted sleep, there could be a chance you have a dream. I envision it as making a "copy" of your character on a separate, small map for a quick no-stakes experience. Maybe it's a nice dream, like walking through a field of flowers or enjoying a big buffet of tasty food. Or maybe it's a nightmare, like re-experiencing abuse at the hands of the company's scientists, or being chased down and mauled by some horrid cave monster. Nice dreams would give you a little mood buff, nightmares would give you a mood debuff and you'd wake up screaming with a shot of adrenaline running through you.
Aside from those ideas, I have to say this game is very compelling and captivating. I feel so bad for the expies and their plight... I just want them to be happy. I hope one day there's a good ending where our expie can have a chance at survival.