Things Nations Buy:

ItemDescription
Shipyard Mixing a Blueprint, Energy and Materials into finished ship HULLS
Colony Meant for human/colonists survival.  Focus on basic existence and growth
Station Station in space is multi-purpose.  Often used as trading posts.
Farm Aquaponics, Algaculture & Hydroponics mostly.
Mine Extracting resources from the source into a processable ore
Factory Mixing a Blueprint, Energy and Materials into finished products
Ship Dock
(Repairing)
A place to repair ships from their current damage
Refinery, ORE Refines the unprocessed ore into the finished material, like metal
Refinery, H20 Refines water/ice into Water, Hydrogen and Oxygen
Infrastructure Module All bases need an Infrastructure module to start. 
Storage Module Additional storage module.  Can be used for trading posts or as input or output hopper for finished goods
Research Lab The facility that up to (4) Scientists can inhabit to create Research Points
Scientist The Scientists that work in the Research Lab
Finance Building Earth-Based Finance Building generates 1B / Nation turn
Jump Ship Carries up to 6 other ships in to the next parsec
Jump Gate Allows multi-parsec “jumps”