Before I begin, I will stress my awareness that this is a fork and not your creation. I am only posting this because the original mod hasn't been updated in a few months.

I wonder if it would be possible for you to incorporate a compatibility with VortiK's Deep Core Mining, as there is a glitchy interaction between this mod and it causing the mining drones to attempt to dig up the patches that are created under the normal ore after it's been exhausted. The deep core ore ends up all over the ground because the drones cannot actually transport it, causing a giant mess if you don't catch it early enough.

Has the original Mining Drones been fixed for this?

(Not saying I won't/can't fix this, just asking in case I can save a bunch of effort)

I have not tested the original one for the same problem myself, can try to do so. The discussions board for it show people having the same problem as recently as a month ago and the original was last updated 2 months ago.

Edit: Looking at the mining recipe list when you place down a depot in the original version does list the Deep Core ores from the mod, it's possible the bug still exists despite this though.

Edit2: Can confirm the original mod has the same issue. The drones will run up to existing deep core patches and hit them while Deep Core ore falls out of their inventory onto the ground around them. Specifically it has been the Rubyte ore for me, just in case there is code to fix it already, Rubyte seems to be an exception.

It's not got any code for dealing with ores specifically. Just trees get special cased. And when trees that give items other than wood get mined, the other items get dropped on the ground.

What's happening is that it isn't picking up on the changed ore, and thinks it still has a valid mining target of the original type, then finding that it isn't picking up the original type and dumping it.

Could you check if issuing the commend "mining-depots-rescan" makes it stop dumping Deep Core ores on the ground until another square gets depleted? This isn't a fix, just information gathering.

Also, should mining drones be able to mine the Deep Core ore?

I will test the command in the near future and get back to you on that, been busy with other things. Also I don't feel like they should be able to mine it as that would likely circumvent the later-game tech requirements for Deep Core mining, as it was intended to be an alternative to Angel's Infinite Ore's system I would presume. Unless of course there was an easy way to integrate the mining drones alongside the research for it at least, seeing as there is still additional processing on the ore that has to be done.

It could possibly be made a config option for people who disagree though

I've tried the command and while it does work as a temporary stopgap when they get stuck on a Deep Core node, it doesn't prevent them from targeting existing ones in the future.