[Suicide Junkie]

It sounds like you might be trying something similar to the SE3 system for propulsion there.

The main thing about P&N, is not so much adding the pirate and nomad techs, but removing the normal techs.
Basically, the trick is that all the colony modules, resource extractors, and other such things are changed to require a "Normal" race trait.

Then, if you can only take one of the primary traits, you can't get both colony modules and pirate/nomad equipment.