Tech trees and specializations

The way I envision Project Gold is a massively multiplayer game with lots of players doing mining, refining, manufacture and selling.
No one player can do it all, or at least do it all well and efficiently and will depend on trade with other players. 

This also means lots of branches on the tech tree, specializations and boosts. So each player will walk a path that is different from any other. The path chosen will also depend on the environment or biome the player starts in, as the tech tree will start locked except for the initial basic tools and specifics to the starting biome.

It will be in the interest of the player to exploit that biome or else move to another more beneficial biome as soon as possible, but will have to do it researching the technologies that are more appropriate.

Players can be a jack-of-all-trades running mining operations, refining the ores, manufacturing and selling them (and also grow food for their people) or they can specialize very well doing let's say farming, and be an excellent farmer with very high rated food and have food delivery contracts to other player's outposts. But their region could lack water or nutrients, so trade is very important to get those precious items.