Freight Forwarding is a small overhaul with a focus on long-distance logistics variety.

Technology progression is carefully balanced around the customised procedural island map generation and resource placement. For effective transport, items must now be loaded into containers before travel, but since items are being transported so compactly, transfer from trains to ships is much more straightforward.

Progression

Start

Use the basic resources (iron, copper, stone, and coal) to produce Automation and Logistics sciences.
Unlocks:
- Mini trains
- Container loading
- Lead processing

Transport science

Lead ore is required for Transport science and always spawns at the edge of your starting island, so trains are required to access it. Explore containerization of resources before loading them onto trains.
Unlocks:
- Ships
- Basic oil processing

Chemical science

Oil only spawns in large offshore patches at sea, so you'll need to use oil rigs and tanker ships to retrieve it.
Unlocks:
- Battery-powered trains
- Hovercrafts
- Deep sea dredging
- Titanium processing
- Uranium processing

Advanced resources

Titanium and Uranium only spawn on other continents, so you will load them into containers at their mines and transport the containers using combinations of ships and trains.
Unlocks:
- Spidertron automation

Production / Utility sciences

Expansion onto other continents for larger patches of basic resources will be required.
Unlocks:
- Aircraft
- Cobalt processing
- Titansteel processing

Rocket launch

Rocket parts require Titansteel, which can only be forged in naturally-occuring lava pools using steel, titanium, and cobalt for the ultimate logistics challenge! Combat aircraft have a very large radar area, so can be used to explore large areas of the map using remotes.
You must launch an interstellar communicator to win the game, which can be researched using space science from 10 launched satellites.

Other features

Containers

Stack sizes of all raw and intermediate resources has been halved compared to vanilla
One container holds 20 stacks (10x density compared to vanilla)
Inventory sizes have been reduced to compensate, so trains and ships have had their inventory sizes divided by 10
Other vehicles have had their inventory sizes divided by 2
Containers are very heavy, so transporting them by logistic robots is prohibited
Empty containers can be loaded into spidertrons using docks, but spidertrons also cannot carry loaded containers

Landfill

Landfill and rail bridges cannot be placed on deep water
Landfill can now be removed by right-clicking on it whilst holding a tile in hand

Map generation

Custom procedural map generation originally based on Island Start featuring a completely isolated starting island surrounded by larger islands and continents
Resource patches are larger but further apart
Resource spawning is based on invisible 'regions' so certain resources will often spawn near each other and even larger continents won't feature too many different resource types
Oil only spawns in water

Seismic scanner

Seismic scanner scans a bigger range than radar, but only through connected landmasses
Ideal for scanning the entirety of a newly discovered island
Cannot be placed within 16 tiles of water

Deep sea dredging and cobalt

Seamounts (underwater mountains) spawn in deep water
Place dredging platforms on them, which are limited in size
Dredge up ferrous and cupric nodules which can provide infinite supplies of iron, copper, and stone, supplementing your regular resource mines
Later, unlock cobalt crust, which can be processed into cobalt ingots on land

Titansteel and Lava pools

Lava pools occur naturally in far-away islands
Steel, titanium, and cobalt can be inserted into lava pools to create hot titansteel plates (which also produces slag as a byproduct)
Hot titansteel plates can be cooled into Titansteel plates, which produces lots of steam (so doubles up as a power source)
Titansteel can be reheated in small lava pools if you want to expand the power production
Slag requires sulfuric acid to process, which returns small amounts of iron ore and stone
Titansteel is used in rocket construction

Battery charging

Battery items can be charged in the charging station
Energy stored in charged batteries can be used in the discharging station
Floating power poles (from Cargo Ships) have been removed, so on each island you will have to setup power production or import electricity using containerized charged batteries
Regular trains require charged batteries for power (mini trains still use burnable fuel)

Included Mods

Some of Freight Forwarding's functionality is provided by other, required, mods. Many things from these mods have been changed to fit into the overall balance and progression, so if you find a bug in them, please confirm that it still occurs without Freight Forwarding enabled before reporting it to that mod's owner, or report it to me and I can let you know whether it's my bug or not.

Intermodal Containers: developed from Deadlock's Crating Machine, provides container loading and unloading functionality
Water mods
- Cargo Ships: large inventories for transport across water; oil rigs for drilling oil in the ocean
- Canal Builder Simplified: allows placing shallow water adjacent to existing water
- Beautiful Bridge Railway for Cargoships
- Hovercrafts: easier navigation across both water and land
Mini Trains: adds small trains; regular trains only use batteries and are unlocked later
Spidertron Patrols: useful for transporting items which can't be loaded into containers
Lex's Aircraft: late-game alternative to spidertrons, for automation of product logistics over land and sea
BZ Lead
BZ Titanium

Information

Other mods

I'd recommend installing Freight Forwarding Pack, which provides a few extra challenges in other areas of gameplay.

Enemy difficulty has not been changed, but because of the island/continent-based map generation, enemies may be easier than normal. I'd recommend Armoured Biters (make sure to enable custom nests in mod settings), Explosive Biters, Frost Biters, and Toxic Biters if you want an extra challenge.

Compatible with AAI Industry and Krastorio2. For additional complexity, you can try installing other BZ Ores. In particular, I'd recommend Tungsten, Natural Gas, and Noble Metals.
Not compatible any other overhaul mods (such as Bob's+Angel's and Space Exploration). Maybe in the future I will add compatibility with some overhauls (perhaps Industrial Revolution, or Exotic Industries) but this is unlikely to ever happen. Let me know if you'd be interested in any particular overhaul compatibility.

For quality of life, you are free to choose your own. You can see my general recommendations here.

Other small-to-medium mods will probably work, although may break the intended balance/progression. Fully compatible with Alien Biomes.

Attributions

Thank you to everyone who's contributed to the mods used in Freight Forwarding. In particular: Deadlock989, shanemadden, schnurrebutz, robot256, Klonan, Sacredanarchy, brevven, and lexsus.
Thank you to Galdoc for the lava pool graphics.
Thank you to Stringweasel for the seismic scanner graphics (from Biter Power).
Thank you to FragJacker for the battery charging/discharging station graphics (from SE Space Trains).
Thank you to Yehn for Island Start, which this mod's map generation is based on.
Thank you to PantherX and Kirazy for the dredging platform tile graphics (from Dectorio).
Thank you to PreLeyZero for the tailings water icon (from Exotic Industries) and offshore storage tank graphics (from Exotic Industries: Tanks).
Thank you to Krastorio2 for the interstellar communicator icon.
Thank you to Subnautica for the ferrous nodule, cupric nodule, and cobalt ingot icons.
Thank you to RedRafe, Ray1claw, Xeno Lupus, ElephantInTheRoom and others from my discord for contributions, feedback and suggestions.
If anyone would like to contribute better graphics, please get in touch!