This mod aims to make the other space science packs (from Vulcanus, Fulgora and Aquilo) more challenging to deliver between planets. Our goal was to make it as challenging as Gleba's science packs, which requires fast shipping because of its spoil time and spoilage management, while staying original and true to the planet's identity. The underlying goal is to encourage players to design varied and original cargo ships for each planet. Design your ships according to each science pack's needs!

Vanilla Changes

The science packs from extra-nauvistrial planets have extra quirks and requirements to make their transport more interesting!

Metallurgic Science Packs

"The science packs from Vulcanus are very dense! They're harder to stack together or send into space."

Metallurgic science packs' stack size in inventories has been drastically lowered. By default, they now stack by 30.
Their rocket capacity has also been reduced to 600 packs per rocket.
Both stack size and rocket capacity can be customized in the settings.

Reasoning: These changes incentivize players to build both plenty of rocket silos on Vulcanus and large ships with plenty of cargo bays in order to efficiently bring the metallurgic science packs back to Nauvis.

Electromagnetic Science Packs

"The science packs from Fulgora requires huge amounts of electricity in them to be of any use.
The process is risky to perform on Fulgora's surface, they must be charged in a 0G environment!"

Electromagnetic science packs are crafted "discharged" first on Fulgora's surface.
They have to be shipped to a space platform, then charged in a second EM Plant there.
Discharged packs cannot be used for research purposes!
The charging recipe can't benefit from productivity nor efficiency bonuses.

Reasoning: This change forces players to ship discharged science packs to space, then charge them during transit to make them useful. A dedicated space shuttle needs to be designed accordingly to charge the packs on its way back, with the necessary power setup to keep up with the increased energy cost.

Cryogenic Science Packs

"Aquilo's cryogenic science packs need to stay cold enough to use for research!
They'll heat up over time, and will require cooling down in order to be useful again."

Cryogenic science packs now heat up over time, "spoiling" into unusable "reheated cryogenic packs"
They spoil in 10 minutes.
Fortunately, they can be cooled down to stay fresh in a cryogenic plant at any time by consuming ice and using fluoroketone.
Reheated packs can also be cooled down, but less efficiently and at a higher cost.
Cooling recipes can't benefit from productivity nor quality bonus.

Reasoning: At this point in the game, the player's "last" science ship (we don't talk about promethium science) should be big and powerful enough to reliably transit between Aquilo and Nauvis. With these changes, this ship also needs to continuously cool down the science packs during transport.

The player can either set up a system to harvest space ice and cool down the packs as needed, or they can let the packs heat up during transit and cool it afterwards at a higher cost. Hoarding cryogenic science packs near labs will also require a cooling system to keep them fresh and useful, requiring regular shipments of space ice and some barrels of fluoroketone.

It's the final challenge (that is, before Promethium packs).

What about Gleba and other extraplanetary science packs?

Space, Agricultural and Promethium science packs all remain unchanged, as their transport/manufacture already presents their own challenges.

Space science needs a dedicated space station to be made. Sure, it's not very hard, but it's not meant to be.
Gleba's science packs require a fast space shuttle to bring them to your labs before they spoil.
Promethium packs require a behemoth factory-vessel able to craft them in the first place.

Please feel free to leave feedback, report bugs and suggest cross compatibility options with other mods!

Cross-compatibility

Muluna, Moon of Nauvis

Challenging Pack Logistic has extra cross-compatibility with Muluna, Moon of Nauvis. Namely...

"Space Exploration science packs have to travel through the cosmos to be of use!"

Space Exploration science packs now need to be primed after being crafted. This can be done in two ways:
A) Cram more data into them. This is not very efficient but works anywhere.
B) Bring the packs to other planets to run local planetary analysis.
Each extra-nauvistrial planet has its own priming recipe, which requires a few local raw resources to perform.
The harder it is to reach a planet from Nauvis, the more efficient its priming recipe is.
Nauvis, Muluna and other earth-like planets/moons are too mundane for priming.
Eligible planets: Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, Aquilo, Corrundum

Reasoning: This change drastically affects the production line of Exploration science packs: after bringing data from space and crafting the packs on Nauvis's Moon with it, the player is incentivized to ship these unprimed Exploration science packs to other planets to prime them, then send them back to the labs.

The local recipes aren't very hard to perform, the challenging part is to set up a schedule to move the packs between planets accordingly. Hitch a ride on your other vessels! More priming recipes for modded planets might be added at our discretion.
Of course, you can still produce usable exploration packs directly on Muluna, but this will require a lot more astronomical data.

The vanilla Space science packs remain unchanged, as they're already more challenging to make/transport with Muluna installed.

Corrundum

The science packs from Corrundum are a little more sour with Challenging Pack Logistics!

"Fresh Electrochemical Packs are dangerously acidic, better wait for the acid to settle down to use them... But not too long! They're useless if they're completely neutralized."

Electrochemical science packs now have 3 states they pass through: super-acidic, acidic and neutralized
Super-acidic packs become acidic after 30 mins. Acidic packs become neutralized after 5 mins.
The science packs are always crafted super-acidic first.
Only acidic packs can be used by labs! they can be sent into space efficiently
Neutralized packs don't spoil and they're harder to send into space.
Acid neutralization may be sped up or reversed to facilitate transport and use.

Reasoning: This "neutralization" chain means you have to make a system to manage the Electrochemical pack's supply chain. Make sure it's sent to space at the right time, and that it arrives with the right pH levels to your labs! Moreover, since super-acidic and acidic packs spoil like any spoilable, Corrundum's icebox will prove useful to preserve the packs' shelf life more easily in the late game.

Alternate Science and Alternate Glowing Science

Having either Alternate Science or Alternate Glowing Science installed will automatically use the corresponding alternate science pack sprites for "discharged electromagnetic packs" and "hot cryogenic pack", including the glow sprite.

Future cross-compat ideas currently in concept phase

These are future ideas that have yet to be implemented. Feel free to discuss them in threads on our discussion page.

Metal and Stars - Rework of Neumann V science packs:
-- Rework of Neumann V packs: need to be "fueled" with thruster fuel and oxidizer in space. This creates an extra little production chain in space.
-- Potential rework of Circa packs: need to be "activated" with nanites from Neumann V, encouraging the harvest and export of Nanites towards Circa. This process is very slow without using a microgravity assembler.
-- Other science packs exempted (they already present their own challenge)
-- Muluna cross-compat: Local priming recipes on Neumann V and Nix. Space priming recipe using Mirandite chunks. No plans for priming on Circa yet (unsure).
Krastorio: compatibility fix.

Recommended mods

Distance Customizer - Makes these balance changes even more impactful.

Credits

Valent125 - Concept, coding, english/french locales
Supershadow30 - Sprite edits, Thumbnail + Graphs, english/french locales