I'm interested in starting a playthrough of Freight Forwarding, but I'm not sure if I should include the extra Tungsten, Natural Gas, and Nobel Metals. I'm most weary of Nobel Metals as it's still in Alpha and has a 5/5 crying face on the mod page.

As someone who's never played with any of the BZ mods, do you think I should include all 3?

To be honest, I've never played with any of them either :D

The reason I suggest Noble Metals is because it is the only mod that adds resources that are only used later in the tech tree (rich copper and gold). All other BZ mods add resources that you need before building ships. I really like the sense of progression you get from basic resources (iron/copper/stone/coal), getting steadily more advanced, and harder to get to (-> lead -> titanium/uranium). Noble Metals goes alongside titanium/uranium ores and Tungsten/Zirconium go alongside lead. All other resources are needed before trains so they have to go right at the centre of the starting island.

Natural Gas I like the idea of because it is a fluid, so is a bit more unique. Especially since FF removes land-based oil in favour of only offshore oil rigs.

Your best bet is to make a test world, use /cheat and have a browse through the recipes in the tech tree, crafting GUI, or with Recipe Book. Yes, Noble Metals is pretty complex, it adds 2 ores, 4 metals, and a bunch more intermediates.

Eh, heck it. No pain no gain

Thanks for the insights.