So I was looking through the code for this mod to see if it would be possible to separate the very basic 'tiers' of the game.
Early Game, Mid Game, Late Game, and End Game and see if it would be possible to customize the science packs for the tier instead of setting them for every single research.
I think it might be possible, in a basic form by detecting the number of unique science packs the script generates.

You obviously don't want to hard-code any science pack detection as any mod or overhaul could change that scheme completely. So even defining the count threshold for each tier via settings would be possible.

And by count, I mean, how many different science packs are needed, Automation only is 1, versus Automation plus Logistics plus chemical is 3, etc. Count is NOT count of number of science needed, just how many unique packs are needed.

Basically my idea is this, an example of the default count detection:
1-3 packs is Early Game
4-5 packs is Mid Game
6-8 packs is Late Game
9+ is End Game

I'm just looking to make the researches more expensive, without setting a blanket cost to EVERY new research this adds. This mod has so much potential to expanding out interesting and challenging playthroughs.

I also wish there was some way of ensuring that the productivity research FOR a science pack INCLUDED that science pack. Is there a way to programmatically determine what the science packs are? Like check the lab for what names it accepts? And the productivity research for that name included the pack?

I'm not a LUA programmer, and my C# brain rebels at the LUA code. I can't tell you the number of times I've had script errors because I ended a line with ;

I see you decided to make those changes into a fork, congrats!

I will probably take the idea of "science pack research requires itself" as a selectable option and leave the rest for your fork.

Yeah, sorry, I realized that my request might be beyond the scope of what you wanted to do with your mod and I couldn't very well expect you to do it so I did it myself.
Took a bit to work out the LUA, but I managed.

Just throwing this out there for the both of you; I find that the mod adds a ton of filler techs in either case. I was trying to find another mod to organize the tech tree in a different way, but it looks like it doesn't exist.

Otherwise, I think a good next step for a mod would be to add a toggle to generate tech for each crafting category: logistics, intermediates, etc; in my case, I lean towards the intermediates, like plates and circuits and such. Also perhaps an override for the vanilla recipes (eg plastics on Nauvis, rather than on Gleba). I know this may be outside of the scope of the mod, but it's what I would love to see in the future.

Yea, a way to decide which category you want would be nice. I play with many mods and suddenly today I had like hundreds or infinity researches to choose from which I simply don't want and need.

How would you define a category?
Remember, all the script does is detect if something allows productivity and checks which research unlocks said thing and generates the productivity research entry.