So, the first thing to evaluate: What's new to Rimworld since you made Glitter Tech?

Obviously Royalty is naturally a thing, but I'd say in addition to that, you'd want to consider caravans and the presence of mods that make some quite interesting additions. Things like SRTS already fill a nice niche with transport ships, but could we turn the tables on that mod? What if the commandos didn't arrive by transport pods, but via ships? Could have them arrive via a dropship with today's rimworld tech, then leave with it- or leave it to self destruct and cause toxic fallout in the area if they don't defuse it after killing the commandos. Kill the commandos and defuse it and bam, free dropship!

An important factor is balance, and more importantly, how it can be circumvented in this mod: There are two real ways to game the system. The first way to 'cheat' at Glittertech is to buy one of the higher value items- things like a speed skin suit, a good weapon for a few thousand silver, and voila, you've got yourself a gamechanger. That's not really how it should play, as Glitter Tech's always vibed to me as risk versus reward, and I feel you've balanced that well in a lot of ways. Locking things out of trader purchase would be an ideal start, and tying this into maybe the quest system to obtain access to certain tech would be fantastic.

This brings us back to commando squads, which is currently caught in a tough spot- you don't want them too early, but you do want them to turn up eventually. How best to not have them turn players off the mod? Well, have a tech you can research (or a quest to do) that basically starts a commando raid sequence of events, adds that 'event' to things. You basically sign up for the big leagues by going in for the forbidden tech.

Additionally, given their affinity for cybernetics, why not add some fun down this road: Glittermech! Basically, since your mod makes both the risk and the reward greater, kicking up mechanoids to be something you play with using the new mech clusters tech is an amazing idea, a third 'threat' faction added by your mod- the most advanced, crazy technology stuff isn't available in conventional fabrication. You need those *good* AI chips, the crazy microtechnology of these super mechanoids, not the dull beige of the ancient mechs- shiny, sparkling, vibrant whites, blacks, they look sharp and they stab sharp too!

I think that the best thing to do would be to take advantage of all the ways you can condense this mod down- things like consolidated, upgradable fabrication tables would allow the earlier vibe to still exist from before you trimmed the materials down due to player demand, and with how much new stuff there is I think you can really utilize a lot of ingame 'lategame' stuff as the basis to build new things already. Psytech is obviously a great baseline for this- but that's a whole post on its own to build into that.

The main point is, I think that with where we're at now, you could deliver something truly amazing, faithful to your original mod's vibe, but continue that knife's edge of increased power with a ramped up threat using the modern additions! Not sure if any of that is helpful or gives you other ideas, but at any stage if you need some beta testing let me know! I'd love to help out however I can. Also, there's a few smaller, less ambitious but neat little 'quality of life' mods I think might make a really good inspiration to add more general appeal, but this post is long enough as is ;P

I'd love for anyone else to throw in on this, too! I reckon Glitter Tech 2.0 will be absolutely breathtaking~