New to game and going crazy with planet upgrades

Really the only upgrades you NEED to get done ASAP are the first two population upgrades. Just check your credit income and if you see any planets producing negative income you need to upgrade. For higher population upgrades you can just hover over each planet on the Empire tree and see the current population. For non-population upgrades, I would only get them as you need them, you should not be maxing out things like planet health and tactical slots on every planet.

General rules of thumb...

Social specialization is probably best for terrans and oceanics (there are exceptions but not a bad general rule)...

Industrial specialization is probably best for volcanics and barrens (ferrous may fall into this category, can't remember)...

You can go either way with a desert or ice, though if the planet has multiple trade ports you probably should go industrial...other planets, it's not too terribly important and your decision should be based off whether you are loading that planet with labs or with trade ports...

You probably don't need to upgrade tactical slots or health unless it is a frontline planet....

One tip to remember is that the first logistic upgrade adds an additional constructor (after the first, you don't get any more extras)...each tactical upgrade should add an additional constructor as well...this is handy, because when resources aren't a problem but time is of the essence in getting a planet loaded with many structures, it may be to your benefit to upgrade civ and/or tactical slots now rather than later so that you get the extra constructors (and therefore build structures faster)...

Big time, Ferrous has the highest trade bonus from Industrial Specialization. It just doesn't have a lot of logistics slots.