Overview of the tech tree

[JustinN]

I just got the game, and it looks like everything I hoped it would be. The problem I'm having is that the tech tree is large and involved, that its hard to develop a research plan. I figured out how to set up the game so I can look at all the available tech, and export the tech areas and levels to text files. I found the data files which detail all the components, facitilies, weapons, etc. What I'm wondering is if there's a way to look at all this, outside of the game, without having to cross-reference several text files.

The first thing I thought of was writing some sort of text parser that would read in the text files, and output them into a Justin-readable format. That way, I could have something that I could look at, and use to formulate a research plan.

Ideally, I'd be able to look and see:

1) What does a specific tech level make available? For example: "I want to spend time researching Propulsion because in 3 levels I'll get X"

2) What does each tech level cost? For example: I'm at Stellar Manipulation level 1. I want something that becomes available at level 5. Right now, I have to research all the intervening level to figure out the cost. With an overview, I could figure out how much levels 2,3,4 and 5 all cost. That would allow me to judge whether I really wanted to go down that path.

3) What tech areas can I find? For example: at the start of the game, if you research Physics it opens up several new research paths. At the start of the game, I can only see what Physics lvl 1 will open up. What about lvl 2? or 3?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this. Has anybody out there written something like this? Got any ideas?