It works, thanks!
It's a little wonky trying to replace the research if I want a research option. I was able to get the Laser Pistol, Laser Rifle, Heavy Laser, and Laser Cannon to work by using the delete command for their respective research projects. With two listed research dependencies on the manufacture project, it ignored the one that didn't exist. The Laser Defense I managed to get to work by creating a special research dependency which unlocks it.
Pro tip, for anyone reading this and trying to do something similar:
If you set the research cost to 0, you still have to research it, but...
If you make a new project that isn't in the vanilla list and you don't assign it a research cost, it works instantly and invisibly in the background. This is how the vanilla Plasma Beam research works, you can research it with either:
1.) Heavy Plasma and Heavy Plasma Clip, or
2.) Plasma Rifle and Plasma Rifle Clip.
It uses two dependency "research projects" to accomplish this.