A visual guide to what you are, and can research in the future would be nice. Something similar to Civilization's tech tree would be nice. You could even turn it on it's side so it starts from the bottom, and goes up (into space ;P). Being able to see that Researching A can lead to B, and C is great when planning future colony expansions. "So if I go down X research I can get Y? Better start building for that."
I feel like it is more of tech 'list' at this moment duo to the timing of the game we are still in alpha and with the amount of techs we have a tech-tree would result in the empty feeling when doing research duo to the amount that we have now. But for when we get a bigger amount i would not mind seeing the idea of a tech-tree or such an idea for mods that use tech.
In the current state of the game this wouldn't work. As the other person said we would need a lot more research for their to be a tech tree.
Ya, it'd be more of a tech plant.
ship parts are really the only branch. so it is a tree with everything on the trunk with just a single lonely branch for ship parts.
that being said, the list approach is good until we have ALL THE TECHS then we can worry about a proper tree. one of the last Alphas should be about tree balance. until then Tynan shouldnt have to worry about it.
i would like some infinite research projects though to give researchers a use after the tree is finished. like farming, each level (that gets progressively longer to complete) grants a minimum skill in growing. so the first level makes everyone at least a level 1, and so on until level 20. in the end you could have level 20 in all skills but that would be a massive investment in time and unlikely anyone would get that far in any game without debug.
also an option to auto research the lowest tech, the one that needs the fewest points. just so you can set it to go and leave it alone.
If you want a rework of the research system right away, the Superior Crafting mod does a good job of it, although there is no visual research tree.
What's the benefit of having a tech tree ? You already research stuff in a very specific order, for example you get Stonecutting or you die.