With the addition of the achievements, a few people have seen the "In your infinite wisdom" as almost impossible, so to help with this, and to add a little more to the game, i was thinking of adding a new research tree that lets you research things that are unique/specific to certain planet types, or to improve the planets/buildings themselves (maybe improve output on a building like the exotic stuff, or add a small amount of passive stats to a planet)

So to start it off could have-

Advanced Construction: The study of new designs that can be applied to planets with hostile environments, and new multi-purpose constructions. costs 1,000 research points, unlocks next tier.

Spacial Habitat: New construction designs for space-based habitats for planetary population for use on planets that are too unstable to support land based habitats. costs 2,500 research points, unlocks Orbital Colony, size 2, +150 population, can be built on gas planets. (could possibly have some form of image to represent it in orbit around the planet)

Artificial Manipulation: Technology to artificially create natural structures unique to certain planets, to bolster production and planetary defences. costs 5,000 research per tier,
first tier - for volcanic planets - Artificial Stratovolcano - size 2, +2 mining, +300 attack
second tier - for gas planets - Exospheric purifier - size 2, +1 research, +250 defence
third tier - for ocean planets - hydro-purifier - size 2, +1 artefact, +100 population

Atmospheric Sphere: Hypershphere based technology to create a bubble of untainted atmosphere to aid in excavation of rare artefacts. costs 20,000 research points, gives Atmospheric Sphere, can only be built on toxic planets, size 2, +2 artefact, +100 population

Psionic Towers: Genetarr based psionic technology originally used for protection against invaders, by making their most terrifying nightmares seem to come real. costs 50,000 research points, unlocks Psionic Obelisk - size 2, +500 defence, if built on a demon planet it also gains +250 invasion defence

Stealth Shields: Technology based on that used in Zolazin Shroud Bases, designed to bend solar radiation around a planet, reducing the chance of it being attacked. costs 75,000 research points, gives Stealth Shield, size 2, +300 cloak, if used on a aphotic or a planet that only you have scanned it gains an extra +200 cloak (or +250 instead if its a unscanned aphotic)

thats all i can think of for now, numbers on some of them could be tweeked, any comments/feedback? feel free to add more

I'm all for more research, but this isn't it.

First, the total for what you have listed is 163,500 research points. That's not much toward that medal. That's less than 8 hours from start to finish for A LOT of people. Heck, I think I might have enough Data Discs to cover that. Add a couple zeroes on those research required numbers and we'll talk.

Second, even at the puny research required, most of those things just aren't worth using. Well, I might use the hydro purifier, but that's just because of the +artifact. Maybe. The cloak thing is the only thing that is definitely worth having. +500 cloak for 2 space, I'm sold. But the Genetaar thing, that's less than 1 Obviation Barrier, so it's not going to be used. And population on a Gas planet... Even if you COULD, why WOULD you? Someone takes one from you, go colonize another one of the 50+ everyone has in their database. The Atmospheric spherical sphere... Who uses Toxics for artifact production?

Excellent idea, except for the Artifact toxic one. Many toxics have very poor Artifact values.

The cost of upgrade as well as the order of them are badly ordered, as they dont really match the impact of the item properly. Here is my suggested cost modification.

Orbital Colony should cost ~100k RP
It is about on par with astrocore, a bit less pop/space but a bit more fleixability

artifical stratovolcano ~500k RP, this gave amazing efficiency is space used but is limited to volcanic, which is not the primary mineral planet. Would have rated it 5m if it was a generic
Exospheric Purifier ~700k RP, for the fact that this is strictly inferior to +12 and OB combo, but is widely applicable
hydro purifier ~2500k RP, for the fact that this is strictly superior than any researched strucutre combination under assumption that you wish to use population researched strcuture. Also a below par but sufficent usage base.

Atmospheric Sphere ~1m RP, this is the rich and powerful's friend and the pain of the regular player. Completely useless for most players but can be amazing for those that have the resource, let it be massive NPC terraformer farmer or $$ purchase. Should this be generic, I would have rated it at 50m+RP, but the toxic limition really cuts down on its worth

Psionic Towers: ~50k RP, the usefulness of this item is between mass and planetary shield, and is therefore priced accordingly. But tbh, I feel there is no reason to have such a thing...

Stealth Shields: ~300m RP. Most people will end up using this as a 250/space cloaking structure. With that said, it is rougly 4 strcture tiers above the inverse-sat. That is 8 research tier. At the grwoth of research cost, this justify a total research of ~2^9*1.3m in the least. Of course, considering it doesn't give module and is conditional, the price is "cheapened" But I'm sure there are those who would go for this even at this amount.