This paper addresses two scalability problems related to the cognitive map of packets in ad hoc cognitive packet networks and proposes a solution. Previous works have included latency as part of the routing goal of smart packets, which requires packets to collect their arrival time at each node in a path. Such a requirement resulted in a packet overhead proportional to the path length. The second problem is that the multiplicative form of path availability, which was employed to measure resources, loses accuracy in long paths. To solve these problems, new goals are proposed in this paper. These goals are linear functions of low-overhead metrics and can provide similar performance results with lower cost. One direct result shown in simulation is that smart packets driven by a linear function of path length and buffer occupancy can effectively balance the traffic of multiple flows without the large overhead that would be needed if round-trip delay was used. In addition, energy-aware routing is also studied under this scheme as well as link selection based on their expected level of security. © 2006 IEEE.