Changelog

Version: 1.99.6
Date: 14 Oct 26

  Features:
    - New "Recent XP" tab at the end of the skill window: shows where your XP came from in the
      last 5 minutes (mining, crafting, kills, research and so on), biggest first, with each
      source's share, the 5-minute total and roughly how much XP you're earning per minute.
      It updates every half second while it's open.
    - Hovering the always-on XP bar now shows the same 5-minute breakdown at a glance.
  Changed:
    - The chat messages about the asteroid XP limit ("reduced to N%", "limit reached") are now
      off by default, as players found them annoying. Turn them back on with the new per-player
      setting "Show asteroid XP limit messages". The limit itself works exactly as before.

Version: 1.99.5
Date: 13 Oct 26

  Changed:
    - At epic and legendary quality, equipment grids are one row taller: the Ironclad Suit's grid is
      18 rows tall at epic and 20 at legendary (was 17 and 19). Factorio applies grid size per
      quality to every grid, so other armour and vehicles at those qualities get the extra row too.
      A new startup setting, "Taller grids at epic and legendary quality", turns this off.

Version: 1.99.4
Date: 13 Oct 26

  Fixes:
    - Ironclad Suits made in an assembler (including every uncommon, rare, epic and legendary
      suit) were missing their Core Reactor and Servo Array until you put them on. Suits now get
      them as soon as they reach your inventory, or when you open their grid from any inventory.
      Suits you already have are filled in the next time you pick one up, open its grid or wear it.

Version: 1.99.3
Date: 13 Oct 26

  Changed:
    - The mod download is much smaller: about 19 MB instead of 58 MB. All the mod's images
      (the Ironclad Suit, the Apex belts, the skill icons) are stored more efficiently and look the
      same in game. No gameplay change.

Version: 1.99.2
Date: 13 Oct 26

  Changed:
    - The Ironclad Suit is drawn at the same size as Mech Armour again. The "heavier build"
      setting has been removed; the gunmetal paint job, the red glow at night and the red exhaust
      trail stay, each with its own setting.
    - The Ironclad Suit can now be put in a recycler. Like any crafted item, it gives back about a
      quarter of its ingredients, at the suit's quality. Before, the recycler wouldn't take it.
    - The suit's built-in Core Reactor and Servo Array can also go in a recycler, but give nothing
      back. Their tooltips now say so.

Version: 1.99.1
Date: 12 Oct 26

  New:
    - New Capstone skill: Ironclad (100 points). It needs the final skill of all three Player
      branches (Apex Predator, Apex Survivor and Lone Wolf) at max level, and unlocks the Ironclad
      Suit recipe for your whole team.
    - The Ironclad Suit: an upgrade of Mech Armour that still flies, with a bigger equipment grid
      (14x14 at normal quality, against Mech Armour's 10x12) and two built-in systems: a Core
      Reactor that powers the suit by itself (2.5 MW) and a Servo Array (+25% movement speed).
      Made from a Mech Armour, 2 nuclear reactors, superconductors, supercapacitors, carbon fibre
      and tungsten plate. Better-quality ingredients make a better-quality suit, with a bigger
      grid, a bigger inventory bonus and a stronger Core Reactor and Servo Array.
    - The suit has its own look: dark gunmetal with your player colour on its main plates, drawn
      larger than Mech Armour, glowing red at night and leaving a red exhaust trail when flying.
      Each of these can be switched off in the startup mod settings.

  Changed:
    - Behind the scenes, the way XP is worked out has been reorganised to prepare for 2.0. XP
      itself is unchanged: you earn the same XP for the same things, and the XP settings work
      exactly as before.

Version: 1.9.97
Date: 11 Oct 26

  Changed:
    - When you load a singleplayer save or join a multiplayer game, a chat message now tells you
      whether XP popups are on or off. With popups off you still earn XP, but nothing appears on
      screen when you do, which could make it look like kills or crafting weren't counting. The
      message says how to switch them on or off: the XP popup button on the shortcut bar, or
      the checkbox in the skill window (Alt+K).
    - The mod description now says 9 skill branches plus a Capstone tab, instead of 8 trees.

  Fixes:
    - On saves with more than one player, the efficient alternate recipes (from Material
      Efficiency, Efficient Circuits, Advanced Smelting, Nano-Fabrication and Underground
      Engineer) could switch themselves off after reloading the world, when someone joined, or when
      research finished. Machines set to those recipes then stopped, until you toggled a skill
      off and on again. The recipes are shared by the whole team, but the mod only looked at one
      player's skills at a time, so a teammate without the skill could lock them for everyone.
      They now stay unlocked as long as anyone on the team has the skill.

Version: 1.9.96
Date: 03 Oct 26

  Changed:
    - The efficient alternate recipes can now be made in any machine that makes the normal
      recipe. Efficient Electronic Circuits and Efficient Advanced Circuits now work in the
      Electromagnetic Plant on Fulgora, not just in assemblers.
    - The "Effect active / Effect disabled" button now only appears on skills where it actually
      does something: the ones that change your own character, like speed, health, crafting,
      reach, regen and damage. It used to appear on team-wide skills such as Mining
      Productivity or Drone Engineer too, where pressing it changed nothing.
    - On the recipe skills (Material Efficiency, Efficient Circuits, Advanced Smelting,
      Nano-Fabrication) the button's tooltip now explains that it only turns off the crafting
      speed bonus. The cheaper recipe stays unlocked.
    - Synergy's lock text now shows your progress as "3 of 9 maxed", and its checklist lists
      the branches in the same order as the tabs.

  XP:
    - Construction robots now earn you XP. Every building a robot puts up from your blueprint or
      ghost gives the same XP as placing it by hand, including ghosts you place from remote
      view on another planet. Space platforms building their own ghosts count too. Robots
      taking things down still give no XP.
    - Your defences now earn you XP. Each enemy killed by your turrets, artillery, land mines or
      combat robots gives a tenth of a normal kill. This is the starting rate; a future XP skill
      tree will be able to raise it.
    - Kills made while driving a car, tank or spidertron now count as your own kills. They
      used to give nothing.
    - Asteroid XP now reaches everyone on the team, wherever they are. You no longer have to be
      standing on the platform. Your personal asteroid XP limit still applies.
    - With Shared XP turned on, XP is now shared with your whole team, not just players on the
      same planet or platform.

  Fixes:
    - Synergy stopped adding research speed after about level 3, and mining productivity after
      about level 4, for anyone with the Knowledge or Production tree maxed. The points were
      spent but did nothing. Every Synergy level now counts, all the way up.
    - Combat damage and fire rate stopped growing at +250%. With the Combat tree fully invested
      and the Combat Damage % or Lone Wolf Bonus % setting turned up, part of the bonus was
      silently lost. The full bonus now always applies.
    - Saves that already had these skills pick up the corrected bonuses automatically within
      a second of loading. Nothing needs to be reset or re-invested.
    - "Max Branch" and "Unlock Branch" could buy a skill before its requirement was met, if a
      later skill in the branch was cheaper than the one before it. For example, Rail Engineer
      could be bought with Belt Mastery still at 0. The buttons now stop at the first skill you
      can't unlock yet.
    - Your health, crafting speed, reach, inventory and other personal bonuses could disappear
      if your character was replaced without dying, for example by the map editor or by mods
      that swap your character. They're now re-applied to the new character straight away.
    - When a player left a multiplayer game while Lone Wolf or Adrenaline Rush was active, the
      rest of the team kept their damage bonus until something else refreshed it. It now ends
      when they leave.
    - Artillery wagons now count as your defences for XP, the same as artillery turrets.
    - Removing the mod and adding it back to a save now also clears the hidden bonuses from
      Rail Engineer and the uncapped research, mining and combat bonuses. It used to miss them.
    - Recycling iron gear wheels, green circuits, red circuits or steel plates gave back far
      too little, even for players who had never touched the Engineering tree. The recycler
      was using the cheaper skill recipes instead of the normal ones. Recycling now returns
      the normal amounts again.
    - The catch-up offer for new players could make a multiplayer game go out of sync when
      someone joined, or never appear for them at all. It now appears reliably when a new
      player arrives on a save with research already done.
    - The catch-up offer could be claimed again by reloading the save before earning any XP.
      Once you accept or decline it, it's gone for good.
    - The catch-up offer no longer counts the mod's own hidden bonuses as researched
      technologies, so the number of points matches the research your team has actually done.
    - With Shared XP turned on, every finished research paid each player once for every
      player on the team. It now pays each player once, as intended.
    - In multiplayer, any player could open the developer panel (Alt+Shift+K) and give
      themselves levels and skill points. It's now limited to admins. Singleplayer is
      unchanged.
    - Locked skills showed a blank button, and a few tooltips and hints had an empty gap at the
      start. These used symbols Factorio's font can't display; they now say "Locked",
      "Recipe:" and so on in plain words.
    - Production Mastery's per-level text said +8% when a tier unlocks; the real figure is +12%,
      and the text now says so.
    - The Combat Damage Bonus % setting now mentions that it also scales Apex Predator.
    - The README is up to date again, including the six skills added in 1.9.95.

Version: 1.9.95
Date: 02 Oct 26

  New things:
    - Six new skills: one more at the end of Speed and Survival, and two each at the end of
      Transport and Manufacturing.
    - Apex Predator (Speed): while Adrenaline Rush is active you also deal more damage and Last
      Stand heals you faster. Getting hit now makes you faster, harder-hitting and quicker to
      recover all at once.
    - Apex Survivor (Survival): when a hit leaves you below 30% health, you instantly heal part
      of your max health and Adrenaline Rush fires, even if it was on cooldown. Works once every
      90 seconds. The more max health your skills give you, the bigger the heal. It can't save
      you from a single hit that would kill you outright.
    - Rail Engineer (Transport): your trains brake harder, so they stop in a shorter distance
      and can run closer together. Stacks with the normal Braking Force research.
    - Underground Engineer (Transport): unlocks cheaper underground belts and splitters, one belt
      tier per level (basic, fast, express, turbo). They use half the raw materials, but you
      still need the full previous-tier underground or splitter when upgrading. A cheaper recipe
      only appears once you've researched the normal one, so it never lets you skip research.
    - Petrochemist (Manufacturing): more output from oil processing, cracking, sulfur, sulfuric
      acid, lubricant, solid fuel, explosives and batteries.
    - Munitions Line (Manufacturing): more output from ammo, grenades, rockets, shells and repair
      packs. These recipes now also accept productivity modules.

  Changed:
    - Speed, Survival, Transport and Manufacturing each have a new final skill. For Synergy and
      the Apex Transport Belt, those branches only count as maxed once the new final skill is
      maxed.
    - If you already own Synergy or the Apex Transport Belt, you keep them. But if one of those
      four branches helped unlock Synergy, you can't add more Synergy levels until you either
      max its new skill or max a different branch instead.
    - Maxing every skill now takes 519 points (level 173), up from 447.
    - Your damage bonus from skills can now go higher than before. Previously it stopped growing
      at +150%; with every combat skill maxed and Apex Predator active it now reaches +184%.

Version: 1.9.94
Date: 02 Oct 26

  Fixes:
    - The mod failed to load with "Not a PNG file: skill-war-machine.png". The skill icons
      had been saved in the wrong image format by mistake. They're back to proper images,
      so the mod loads again and the icons display correctly.

Version: 1.9.93
Date: 01 Oct 26

  Balancing:
    - Asteroid XP now has a limit, so a space platform full of turrets can no longer be left
      running as an endless XP farm. Each player gets an allowance that refills every 5 minutes:
      the first 300 asteroid XP comes at the full rate, the next 200 at 25%, and after that
      asteroids give nothing until the window resets. A normal platform rarely notices; heavy
      farming slows right down.
    - You get one chat message when your asteroid XP drops to 25%, and one when you hit the
      limit, each telling you how long until it resets.

  New things:
    - Two new map settings to tune this: "Asteroid XP: Time Window" (how long the allowance
      lasts) and "Asteroid XP: Full-Rate Allowance per Window" (how much you earn at full rate).
      Set the allowance to 0 to turn asteroid XP off completely.
    - An XP bar now sits in the top-left corner of the screen at all times, showing your level
      and your XP towards the next level (for example "Level 12   1240 / 3000 XP"). It fills
      as you earn XP, and clicking it opens the skill window. Don't want it? Turn off
      "Show XP Bar" in Mod settings (Per player). It's your own choice in multiplayer.

  Fixes:
    - In multiplayer with Shared XP on, each asteroid paid out XP several times over (once for
      every player on the platform, then shared again). It now pays each player once.

Version: 1.9.92
Date: 29 Sep 26

  Changed:
    - "Show XP Source Messages" now shows floating text above you instead of chat lines, e.g.
      "+12 XP  mining". XP earned close together is added up into one popup every half second,
      so mining a patch or hand-crafting a stack doesn't flood the screen. Still off by default.
    - Crafting XP now just says "crafting" instead of the item's internal name.

  New things:
    - Three ways to turn XP popups on and off while you play: a "Toggle XP Popups" button on the
      shortcut bar (lit while popups are on), a "Show XP popups" checkbox at the bottom of the
      skill window, and the existing option in Mod Settings. They're all the same switch, so
      flipping any one of them updates the other two.

Version: 1.9.91
Date: 28 Sep 26

  Changed:
    - The Logistics and Engineering tabs are now split into two branches each, side by side,
      like the Player and Factory tabs.
        Logistics:   Robotics (Drone Engineer, Extended Reach, Network Efficiency, Cargo Drone)
                     Transport (Efficient Logistics, Belt Mastery)
        Engineering: Recipes (Material Efficiency, Efficient Circuits, Advanced Smelting,
                     Nano-Fabrication)
                     Manufacturing (Production Mastery, Recursive Assembly)
      You keep every level you've already invested.
    - Some unlock requirements changed to fit the new branches. Efficient Logistics and
      Production Mastery are now available from the start. Belt Mastery needs Efficient
      Logistics level 1. Nano-Fabrication needs Advanced Smelting level 3. Recursive Assembly
      needs Production Mastery level 3.
    - Synergy now needs the final skill of any 5 of the 9 branches maxed (was 5 of 7 trees).
      If you already had Synergy, you keep it.
    - Apex Transport Belt now needs the final skill of both Logistics branches maxed (Cargo
      Drone and Belt Mastery), instead of every Logistics skill.

    - Efficient Logistics now only boosts bulk and stack inserters (+2 capacity per level).
      It no longer changes regular inserters (burner, basic, long-handed and fast), so fast
      inserters behave like vanilla again. Vanilla inserter capacity research is unaffected.

  Fixed:
    - The Logistics and Engineering tabs had no icon next to their name. They now show a
      logistic robot and an assembling machine.
    - Clicking the Skill System button on the shortcut bar did nothing. It now opens and
      closes the skill window, the same as Alt+K.

Version: 1.9.90
Date: 27 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Resetting a skill tree (or Reset All) didn't actually remove the old bonuses from your
      character. Health, crafting speed, reach and inventory from before the reset stayed on
      top of whatever you reinvested, and kept piling up with every reset until you respawned.
      Resets now cleanly remove the old bonuses.
    - Resetting the Logistics tree left the Apex Transport Belt unlocked for free, even though
      its requirement (every Logistics skill maxed) was no longer met. It's now refunded when
      that happens.
    - Resetting a tree that broke the Synergy requirement also refunded the Apex Transport
      Belt, even when your Logistics tree was still fully maxed. Each Capstone skill is now
      only refunded when its own requirement breaks, and the reset confirmation lists exactly
      which ones will go.
    - Efficient Logistics never affected bulk or stack inserters, only regular ones. It now
      boosts both.
    - The "Show XP Source Messages" setting did nothing. It now prints where each bit of XP
      came from (mining, crafting, kills, research and so on).
    - The skill window's title showed an old version number (v1.9.41). It now shows the
      version you actually have installed.

  New things:
    - Six new per-player sliders in Mod Settings let you tune how strong your skills are:
      Movement Speed, Reach & Build Distance, Combat Damage, Health, Crafting Speed and Lone
      Wolf, each from 0% (off) to 500%. Changes apply instantly. Only the Skill System's own
      bonuses are scaled; research, equipment and other mods are untouched.
    - Press Esc to close the skill window, like any other Factorio window.
    - Locked Capstone skills now show your progress towards unlocking them. Synergy lists each
      tree with a tick or cross, and Apex Transport Belt shows which Logistics skills still
      need maxing.

  Changed:
    - Efficient Logistics has moved from the Knowledge tree to the Logistics tree, where it
      branches off Extended Reach. It now gives +1 hand size to regular inserters and +2
      capacity to bulk and stack inserters per level, max 3 levels at 2 points each (was 8
      levels at 1 point). If you had more than 3 levels, the extra points are refunded when
      you load your save.
    - Knowledge tree is now a straight line: Eureka → Tech Intuition → Advanced Materials →
      Singularity. Tech Intuition now needs Eureka 3, and Advanced Materials needs Tech
      Intuition 3.
    - Apex Transport Belt's requirement now includes Efficient Logistics, since it's part of
      the Logistics tree.
    - Clearer skill descriptions: Cartographer now correctly says it extends your reach and
      build distance (it never affected map vision). Lone Wolf no longer claims a 5-second
      delay (the default is instant). Synergy lists exactly what it boosts instead of "all
      character stats". Research Productivity no longer mentions a hidden technology.

Version: 1.9.89
Date: 27 Sep 26

  Changed:
    - Apex belts no longer have a purple wash over the whole belt. Like every other belt tier,
      only the arrows are coloured (purple), and on Apex undergrounds and splitters the
      coloured panels are purple instead of turbo green.

Version: 1.9.88
Date: 27 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Apex Transport Belts, Underground Belts, Splitters and Loaders looked identical to turbo
      belts once placed; only their inventory icons were purple. They're now purple on the
      ground too, so you can tell them apart at a glance.
    - The upgrade planner didn't offer Apex as the next step up from turbo. Turbo belts,
      undergrounds, splitters and loaders now upgrade to their Apex versions like any other
      belt tier.

Version: 1.9.87
Date: 23 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Steel Mastery's productivity bonus on Efficient Steel Plate was one edit away from silently
      breaking — the recipe was only getting the permission it needs to receive productivity
      bonuses as a side effect of an unrelated list also mentioning it, not because it was
      actually supposed to be there. Restored properly so it doesn't depend on that coincidence.
    - Finished switching the Apex Belt family's unlock over to a hidden technology instead of a
      direct script write — this was fully built but never actually shipped. Still instant on
      investing the skill, no lab time, just routed through the same mechanism vanilla itself
      uses to unlock every tech-gated recipe.

  Internal:
    - Removed leftover diagnostic logging from the Apex Belt investigation — no gameplay effect,
      just cleanup.
    - Checked Factorio 2.1.18 through 2.1.20 for anything that could affect this mod. Nothing
      does — the changes in that range were GUI/robot/rendering fixes and an item fuel-category
      rework this mod doesn't touch.

Version: 1.9.86
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Continuing the Apex Belt ordering investigation: recipes have their own group/subgroup
      fields, separate from the result item's — this was never explicitly set and was assumed
      (never verified) to auto-inherit from the item. Now read directly from each turbo recipe
      and applied explicitly, removing that assumption. Diagnostic logging added to confirm the
      actual values if this still isn't the fix.

Version: 1.9.85
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Starting a brand new game crashed the mod immediately on join. Several storage tables
      added over recent updates were only being set up for saves updating from an older version,
      not for genuinely new games — a new game never goes through that path. Fixed by having
      both paths use the same single setup function, so this class of bug can't happen again for
      any storage added in the future.

Version: 1.9.84
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - The changelog itself was silently broken — Factorio's changelog parser requires every
      category line to end with a colon, and one old entry didn't, which meant the game was
      very likely failing to render most of the mod's changelog history rather than just that
      one entry. Rebuilt the entire file back to 1.0.0 in the correct format; no information
      lost, purely a formatting fix. No gameplay changes.

Version: 1.9.83
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - Apex Belt still sorting before even the basic transport belt, despite an order string that
      should mathematically place it right after turbo. Confirmed via docs that Factorio's order
      comparison is plain lexicographic string comparison, so the logic should work — added
      diagnostics to check whether the order value is actually being applied and surviving
      registration, rather than guess at another cause. No gameplay changes.

Version: 1.9.82
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Build menu icons still weren't purple. "icon_tint" is not an actual Factorio field —
      confirmed against the Prototype Docs and a real published mod's source — it was silently
      ignored the whole time. Item icons are tinted per-layer inside the "icons" array instead;
      fixed for all four items, handling either icon format the source prototype might use.
    - Build menu ordering diagnostics added (still investigating; not yet confirmed fixed).

Version: 1.9.81
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Apex Transport Belt family wasn't tinted purple — the tint was being set on the wrong
      field. Belt graphics use a separate base layer and tintable mask layer; the mask-specific
      field needed to be used instead of the general one. Fixed for the belt, underground belt,
      splitter, and loader.
    - Apex Belt items, entities, and recipes now sort immediately after their turbo counterparts
      in crafting and building menus, instead of an arbitrary position. The sort order is read
      live from each turbo prototype rather than assumed, so this stays correct even if the
      underlying order changes in a future update.
    - Removed the temporary diagnostic logging added over the last several builds — the
      underlying issue (missing locale entries) is confirmed fixed.

Version: 1.9.80
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Diagnostics confirmed the Apex Belt recipes were genuinely enabled and craftable the whole
      time — the actual problem was that none of the four new items, entities, or recipes had
      any locale (display name) entries. Added item-name, entity-name, recipe-name, and
      recipe-description entries for all four, and explicitly set each prototype's
      localised_name so there's no ambiguity about which locale key it resolves to. This was
      very likely why the belt appeared to be missing — it may have been present all along under
      a broken or inherited display name that didn't look like anything new.

Version: 1.9.79
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - The diagnostic prints themselves had a bug: the pattern used to filter for Apex recipe
      names used an unescaped hyphen, which Lua's pattern matching treats as a special repetition
      character rather than a literal hyphen, so the filter silently matched nothing. The
      unconditional "ALT_RECIPES count=8" line confirmed the recipe list itself is correct at
      runtime — fixed the pattern so the per-recipe diagnostics actually fire this time. No
      gameplay changes.

Version: 1.9.78
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - Previous diagnostics build produced no visible output, despite the underlying code and
      data being verified correct through direct inspection. Diagnostics now write to both chat
      and the log file (factorio-current.log) so nothing can be missed in chat scrollback, and
      added an unconditional line logging the total ALT_RECIPES count the moment the sync
      function runs, to rule out the recipe list itself being incomplete at runtime. No gameplay
      changes.

Version: 1.9.77
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - Data-stage diagnostics confirmed the Apex Belt entity/item/recipe all exist correctly and
      read the right Foundry category, but the recipe still isn't showing as craftable — so the
      problem is at runtime, not data stage. Added temporary chat diagnostics to the
      skill-unlocks-recipe sync, printed to the player, showing exactly what happens each time
      it processes an Apex recipe. No gameplay changes.

Version: 1.9.76
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - Added diagnostic logging around Apex Belt's data-stage setup, no gameplay changes. The
      belt family loads without error but isn't appearing as craftable — confirmed the runtime
      skill-invest path is working correctly, so the cause is almost certainly at data stage
      (a prototype name that doesn't match what's actually in this game version). This build
      logs exactly what it finds to factorio-current.log so the real names can be confirmed
      instead of guessed a fourth time.

Version: 1.9.75
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Mod failed to load: the Apex Loader recipe referenced an item that never actually got
      created, because the loader item and its recipe were checking different conditions before
      being added. The recipe now only gets created if the matching item genuinely exists, so a
      Loaders-mod naming mismatch fails quietly (no loader added) instead of crashing the whole
      mod's load.

Version: 1.9.74
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Mod failed to load: the Apex Transport Belt recipes referenced a recipe category
      ("pressing") that doesn't actually exist in the current game data. Rather than guess
      another hardcoded name, the recipes now read their category directly from the turbo belt
      family's own recipes at load time, so this can't drift out of sync again even if the
      underlying category name changes in a future Factorio update.

Version: 1.9.73
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - The mod failed to load entirely, disabling itself with an error about the Apex Transport
      Belt recipes. Factorio 2.1 replaced the old single "category" field on recipes with a
      required "categories" list — the four new Apex Belt recipes were still using the old
      field. Fixed.

Version: 1.9.72
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - The Apex Transport Belt family (belt, underground belt, splitter, loader) didn't appear
      anywhere — not by hand, not in the Foundry. The mod had no declared dependency on Space
      Age, so there was no guarantee Space Age's own content loaded before SkillSystem tried to
      build on top of it; if it didn't, the whole Apex Belt family silently failed to register.
      Fixed by moving that content to run at a stage guaranteed to load after every other mod,
      and by declaring Space Age as an optional dependency.

Version: 1.9.71
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Added:
    - New Capstone skill: Apex Transport Belt. A one-time, 1-point unlock that requires every
      skill in the Logistics tree at max level. Unlocks a new belt tier — belt, underground
      belt, splitter, and (if Vanilla Loaders HD is installed) a matching loader — running at
      double the speed of a turbo transport belt. Craftable only in a Foundry, using materials
      from Vulcanus, Fulgora, and Gleba, so reaching it means genuine progress across every
      planet, not just a skill-point total. Tinted purple so it's identifiable at a glance next
      to normal belts.

Version: 1.9.62
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Laboratory productivity and manufacturing recipe productivity bonuses were being set
      outright instead of added, which could silently erase productivity granted by other
      mods (or by Space Age's own infinite lab-productivity research) touching the same
      properties. Both are now tracked and applied the same safe way the mod already
      handles character stats, so other sources stack correctly instead of getting
      overwritten every time a player levels up or invests a skill point.
    - Uninstalling and reinstalling the mod used to reset several character stats (health,
      crafting speed, mining speed, inventory, reach) to zero outright. If another mod also
      modified those same stats, its contribution was wiped too. Now only SkillSystem's own
      share is removed, so other mods' bonuses survive an uninstall/reinstall.

Version: 1.9.61
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Balance:
    - Production Mastery's productivity bonus now tapers by recipe tier instead of applying
      the same flat percentage to everything. Basic items (gears, belts, green circuits) still
      get up to +40% at max level; late-game and Space Age items (processing units, rocket
      components, holmium, superconductor) taper down to +16%. Finishing the tree no longer
      gives rocket components the same bonus as gear wheels.
    - Worth noting: the alternate recipes from Material Efficiency, Efficient Circuits, and
      Nano-Fabrication (gear wheels, electronic circuits, advanced circuits) don't receive
      Production Mastery's productivity bonus. This isn't a bug — it's an intentional
      counterweight to how strong those recipes already are on their reduced ingredient cost
      alone. The Advanced Smelting alt recipe for steel plate is the exception and does receive
      productivity, since its ingredient discount is smaller.

Version: 1.9.60
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Balance:
    - Skill points per level (Balanced Progression) reduced from 7 to 3. Maxing every
      finite skill now lands around level 150 instead of level 65 — a deep, deliberate
      late-game Space Age milestone rather than something reached in passing.
    - Existing saves get a one-time automatic skill reset on update, with every invested
      point refunded. This keeps banked skill points in sync with the new economy instead
      of leaving early players sitting on points earned at the old, faster rate.

Version: 1.9.56
Date: 08 Sep 26

  Balance:
    - Mining Productivity now costs 2 skill points per level instead of 1. Its power was
      out of step with everything else in the Production tree for the price.
    - Iron Constitution's health bonus raised from +40 to +70 per level, bringing it in
      line with Fortitude instead of trailing well behind it despite costing more to reach.
    - Overclock's speed bonus raised from +6% to +9% per level, closer to Swift Feet's
      value per point instead of falling off at the top of the Speed tree.
    - Tech Intuition's bonus XP per research doubled, from +10 to +20 per level, so it
      keeps pace with how much XP later levels actually require.

Version: 1.9.55
Date: 06 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Crafting a quick recipe — gear wheels, circuits, and other sub-1-second items — could crash
      the game. Fixed.
    - Clicking a skill's "Effect active / Effect disabled" toggle button could crash the game.
      Fixed.
    - The Synergy tooltip described an outdated unlock requirement left over from an old version
      of the capstone system. It now correctly explains that Synergy needs any 5 of the 7 skill
      trees' final skill maxed, matching how the unlock actually works.

Version: 1.9.52
Date: 03 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - No gameplay changes. Cleaned up the code that handles mod updates and reinstalls — it was
      one large block mixing several unrelated jobs together; split into smaller, clearly-named
      pieces so each one does a single thing, making future updates less error-prone.

Version: 1.9.51
Date: 03 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - No gameplay changes. Removed duplicate safety checks scattered throughout the code for
      tables like the per-skill disable list, catch-up offers, and Lone Wolf state — they were
      already guaranteed to exist by the startup and update handlers, so re-checking them
      everywhere else was redundant.
    - Named the craft-count cap (651) as a constant instead of a bare, unexplained number.

Version: 1.9.5
Date: 03 Sep 26

  New things:
    - Per-skill disable toggle. Each invested skill card now has a small button showing "Effect
      active" or "Effect disabled". Click it to silence that skill's bonus without losing your
      investment or breaking prerequisites — useful for investing in Swift Feet just to unlock
      Adrenaline Rush without actually getting the speed bonus. Disable settings persist across
      reloads.
    - Catch-up mechanic for new players joining an existing save. When a player with no prior mod
      progress joins a game that already has research done, the skill window shows a one-time
      offer of bonus skill points based on how many technologies the force has researched. The
      offer shows exactly how many points you'll receive before you accept. Configurable in mod
      settings (points per tech, default 1; set to 0 to disable). Never appears for players who
      already have mod progress.
    - Lone Wolf timing is now configurable per-direction in Mod Settings: Activation Delay
      (default 0, instant), Deactivation Delay (default 0, instant), and Check Interval (default
      3 seconds, trades responsiveness for UPS).

  Fixed:
    - Player movement speed was being applied twice — once via a direct character write and
      again via hidden technologies. The hidden-tech approach has been removed entirely; speed is
      now a single absolute write covering Swift Feet, Overclock, Adrenaline Rush and Lone Wolf
      in one place. Synergy no longer affects movement speed.
    - Every skill now correctly respects the disable flag — crafting speed, health, mining speed,
      inventory, reach, Adrenaline Rush burst, Last Stand regen, Iron Fist, War Machine and Lone
      Wolf damage.
    - Investing or toggling unrelated skills was incorrectly granting research XP, caused by a
      hidden technology firing the research-finished event on every skill change. Now correctly
      ignored.
    - Character properties (health, crafting speed, reach, etc.) could accumulate incorrectly
      across reloads. Contribution tracking now clears on join, respawn, and mod configuration
      changes so values always start clean.

  Changed:
    - Clean uninstall: removing the mod and reinstalling now zeros all character properties the
      mod wrote and revokes all hidden technologies, returning the save to a clean state. The
      catch-up offer also reappears on reinstall.
    - Player data is fully cleaned up when a player is permanently removed from a save.

Version: 1.9.41
Date: 03 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - No gameplay changes. Fixed laboratory research productivity being written twice on every
      skill update — one of the writes was left behind from an earlier refactor and was
      redundant.
    - Removed unused internal code left behind from previous versions: an unread storage key, an
      unused variable, and a helper function that always returned the same value after a related
      feature was removed.
    - Cleaned up Adrenaline Rush's activation code — it was storing a speed value it no longer
      used, since speed is now calculated fresh each time it applies.

Version: 1.9.4
Date: 02 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - This update focuses on compatibility, performance and tidying up. No gameplay changes.

  Fixed:
    - Skill bonuses for HP, crafting speed, mining speed, movement speed, reach and inventory
      slots now layer on top of whatever other mods have set, rather than replacing the whole
      value. Running alongside mods like RPG System should work correctly now.
    - Crafting speed from Nimble Hands and Engineering skills was never actually being applied to
      your character. It now is.
    - Crafting speed was also being calculated twice, one write overwriting the other. Fixed.
    - Synergy was boosting movement speed twice. Fixed.
    - Adrenaline Rush was using an outdated speed value if you'd invested more points since it
      last triggered. It now always uses your current level.

  Balance:
    - Lone Wolf now checks for nearby roboports every 3 seconds instead of every second, and
      skips the check entirely if you haven't moved. Unnoticeable in play, but meaningfully
      cheaper in large multiplayer sessions.
    - Last Stand regeneration no longer runs its check every tick if nobody on the server has
      invested in it.

Version: 1.9.3
Date: 02 Sep 26

  New things:
    - Each tab now shows a small count of how many skills you can currently afford to invest in.
      Disappears when there's nothing actionable.
    - Hovering a skill now tells you exactly how many levels you can afford right now, or warns
      you if you don't have enough points.
    - Logistics skill tooltips now show the actual in-game total — your research bonuses combined
      with the skill bonus — for robot speed, battery, cargo capacity, belt stack size and trash
      slots.

  Fixed:
    - Unlock Branch on the Knowledge tree wasn't reaching Advanced Materials or Singularity
      because it assumed skills unlock in a straight line. Knowledge branches from Efficient
      Logistics into both Tech Intuition and Advanced Materials. Fixed.
    - Movement speed was slightly too high due to an internal miscalculation in Overclock's
      values. Fixed.

  Balance:
    - Player movement speed felt too fast. Swift Feet reduced from +6% to +4% per level.
      Overclock reduced from +10% to +6% per level. Total max speed before Lone Wolf or
      Adrenaline is now +70% instead of +110%.

Version: 1.9.2
Date: 01 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - This is a compatibility update. No gameplay changes. The mod now plays nicer with other
      mods that touch the same game systems — robot speed, trash slots and player movement speed
      bonuses now stack on top of other mods instead of potentially clashing with them.

Version: 1.9.1
Date: 01 Sep 26

  Internal:
    - This is a compatibility update. No gameplay changes. More skill bonuses have been moved to
      use Factorio's technology system internally, which means they now stack correctly with
      other mods and vanilla research rather than replacing those values.

Version: 1.9.0
Date: 01 Sep 26

  New things:
    - Branch buttons below each tree. Click Unlock Branch to invest just enough to open every
      skill in the tree. Click it again to fully max the branch. Spends as many points as you
      have — won't over-charge you. Not shown on Capstone Skills.

  Fixed:
    - Lone Wolf notification text was crashing the game on activation. Fixed.
    - Combat damage skills were referencing a modifier that doesn't exist in Factorio 2.1. Fixed.

Version: 1.8.9
Date: 01 Sep 26

  Changed:
    - The Combat tree has been completely reworked. The old tree (Rapid Deployment, Robot
      Commander, Iron Fist, War Machine) has been replaced with a new tree that makes more sense
      for how combat actually plays: Iron Fist (T1, personal damage from the start), Battle
      Hardened (T2, bonus HP from combat experience), War Machine (T3, bigger damage bonus for
      committing to Combat), Cartographer (T4, extended build and interaction range), and Lone
      Wolf (T5, bonus speed and damage when away from your base).
    - Lone Wolf activates after 5 seconds outside roboport range and shows a gold notification
      when it kicks in, with a persistent indicator while active.

  Fixed:
    - Iron Fist and War Machine were defined but their bonuses were never actually applied. Fixed.

Version: 1.8.82
Date: 01 Sep 26

  Fixed:
    - Auto-deployed combat robots weren't following the player — they'd fight nearby enemies but
      drift rather than orbiting you. Fixed.

Version: 1.8.8
Date: 31 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Several skill effects — mining productivity, research speed, inserter stack bonuses, robot
      cargo capacity, belt stack size — were being lost every time you reloaded the game. They'd
      work fine in the current session but disappear on restart. Fixed. Thanks to Pirate_Rance
      for reporting this one.

Version: 1.8.7
Date: 28 Aug 26

  New things:
    - Capstone gate reworked. Synergy now unlocks when any 5 of the 7 skill trees have their
      final skill maxed — no longer requires specific skills. More flexible, rewards breadth of
      investment across the mod.
    - Resetting skills is now tab-aware. The Reset Tree button resets only the tab you're
      currently on; Reset All still resets everything. Both show a confirmation popup with
      exactly what will be refunded before you commit.
    - If resetting a tree would drop you below the Capstone gate, the popup warns you and
      Capstone skills are automatically refunded too.

  Fixed:
    - Combat robots (Rapid Deployment) weren't following the player. Fixed.

Version: 1.8.6
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Changed:
    - Crafting XP has been reworked. XP now scales with how long a recipe takes to craft — a
      rocket control unit earns around 90 XP, a gear wheel earns 1. Quick recipes also have
      diminishing returns: after 550 crafts of the same sub-1-second recipe (gear wheels,
      circuits, etc.) the XP drops to zero. Longer recipes are never penalised.
    - Click modifiers for investing skill points: Click for +1 level, Shift+Click for +5 levels,
      Ctrl+Click for the max you can afford. The old +1/+2/+3/Max selector buttons have been
      removed in favour of this; a hint line above the skill tabs explains the shortcuts.

Version: 1.8.5
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Network Efficiency was reducing your trash slots instead of adding to them. If you had
      vanilla logistics research, those slots were being wiped. Fixed.

Version: 1.8.4
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Changed:
    - Crafting XP now scales with recipe complexity rather than being a flat rate. More complex
      recipes with longer craft times reward more XP.

Version: 1.8.3
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Balance:
    - Speed and Survival trees have been reworked based on player feedback that repeating the
      same effect across multiple skills felt cheap.
    - Speed: Automation Mastery removed — inserter bonuses belong in the Knowledge tree where
      Efficient Logistics already covers them. Overclock buffed from +6% to +10% per level and
      moved to T4, so it clearly escalates above Swift Feet rather than duplicating it.
    - Survival: Thick Skin and Iron Skin removed — three skills all giving max HP, each weaker
      than the last, has been replaced with a cleaner structure. Fortitude now gives +25 HP per
      level (was +20), max 15 levels (was 10). Iron Constitution is a new T4 skill giving +40 HP
      per level — costs more but gives more, a genuine late-game investment above Fortitude. Last
      Stand moved to T3 and buffed to +1 HP/sec regeneration per level; health regen is now
      actually applied in-game, having previously been defined with no effect at all.

Version: 1.8.2
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Drone Engineer and Extended Reach had no effect on robot speed or battery — the bonuses
      were being applied in a way that replaced vanilla research values rather than stacking with
      them. Fixed.

Version: 1.8.1
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Fixed a crash on load caused by a logistics API that was removed in Factorio 2.0.

  Changed:
    - The T3 Logistics skill has been renamed Network Efficiency and now grants personal trash
      slots instead.

Version: 1.8.0
Date: 25 Aug 26

  New things:
    - New Logistics skill tree with its own tab: Drone Engineer (worker robot speed), Extended
      Reach (robot battery capacity), Network Efficiency (personal trash slots), Cargo Drone
      (robot cargo capacity), and Belt Mastery (belt stack size).

Version: 1.7.6
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Building from blueprints was incorrectly granting XP. Placing a ghost or having robots
      build something no longer counts — only hand-placing entities earns XP.

Version: 1.7.5
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Changed:
    - Skill reset on mod update is now optional. When the mod updates, your skills are kept and a
      banner appears offering you the choice to reset and reinvest or keep everything as-is.

Version: 1.7.4
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Engineering alternate recipes were showing as blank names in the crafting menu. Fixed.

Version: 1.7.3
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - The default keybind conflicted with Factorio's uncouple-train shortcut. Now Alt+K opens the
      skill window and Alt+Shift+K opens the developer panel.
    - The shortcut bar button wasn't opening the skill window. Fixed.
    - The XP bar wasn't updating while the skill window was open. Fixed.
    - Efficient Steel Plate wasn't receiving productivity bonuses from smelting skills. Fixed.

Version: 1.7.2
Date: 25 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - The shortcut bar button wasn't working. Fixed.

  Changed:
    - Default keybind changed to Alt+K.

Version: 1.7.1
Date: 24 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - The Capstone Skills tab was rendering in white instead of gold. Fixed.
    - The points-to-max display showed an enormous number when infinite skills are invested. It
      now correctly excludes skills with no level cap.
    - Skill tooltips were showing "/999" for infinite skills. Fixed.

Version: 1.7.0
Date: 24 Aug 26

  Changed:
    - Major UI overhaul. Skill cards are now horizontal rows with clearer layout. The XP label
      colour-codes based on progress, the points display shows how many more you can earn, tree
      summaries appear next to each header, and infinite capstone skills display their level with
      an infinity symbol instead of a pip bar.

Version: 1.6.6
Date: 24 Aug 26

  Changed:
    - Renamed Assembly Mastery to Production Mastery — the skill affects furnaces too, not just
      assembling machines.

Version: 1.6.5
Date: 24 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Production Mastery productivity bonuses weren't applying correctly. Fixed.
    - Skill connector arrows always showed as unlocked regardless of actual state. Fixed.

  Balance:
    - Expanded Inventory doubled to +12 slots per level.

Version: 1.6.4
Date: 24 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Confirmed lab productivity bonus works correctly in Factorio 2.1. The productivity bar was
      removed from the lab UI in 2.1, but the bonus is real and applies.

Version: 1.6.3
Date: 16 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Lab productivity wasn't applying when the player was in a vehicle or god mode. Fixed.

Version: 1.6.2
Date: 16 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Research Productivity wasn't applying due to a broken technology prerequisite chain
      blocking the bonuses from unlocking. Fixed.

Version: 1.6.1
Date: 16 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Fixed a crash on load caused by an invalid technology modifier name.
    - Fixed a syntax error introduced in the previous build.

Version: 1.6.0
Date: 16 Aug 26

  New things:
    - New infinite Capstone skill: Research Productivity. Requires Synergy level 1. Each level
      adds +5% laboratory productivity with no cap — a permanent point sink for players who've
      maxed everything else.

Version: 1.5.3
Date: 16 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Efficient Steel Plate wasn't receiving productivity bonuses from Smelting Productivity or
      Steel Mastery. Fixed.
    - The skill window was jumping to the centre of the screen on every upgrade click. Fixed.

Version: 1.5.2
Date: 15 Aug 26

  Changed:
    - Production Mastery now unlocks recipe productivity in tiers as you invest more levels,
      rather than all at once at level 1.

Version: 1.5.1
Date: 15 Aug 26

  New things:
    - Added a +1/+2/+3/Max invest selector to the skill window so you can invest multiple levels
      per click.

Version: 1.5.0
Date: 15 Aug 26

  New things:
    - New skills: Production Mastery (Engineering T4) and Steel Mastery (Production T5).

  Changed:
    - Major UI pass — skill cards redesigned as horizontal rows with clearer layout.

Version: 1.4.0
Date: 15 Aug 26

  New things:
    - Seven new skills added across existing trees: Adrenaline Rush, Prospector, Tech Intuition,
      Thick Skin, Battle Hardened, War Machine and Recursive Assembly.

Version: 1.3.1
Date: 08 Aug 26

  Fixed:
    - Fixed compatibility with Factorio 2.1 — recipe format and version dependency updated.

Version: 1.3.0
Date: 12 Jul 26

  Changed:
    - GUI redesigned with tabs: Player, Factory, Engineering and Capstone Skills.

  Balance:
    - Balanced progression points per level raised to 7.

Version: 1.2.1
Date: 05 Jul 26

  Fixed:
    - Various crash fixes and small bugs from the 1.2.0 release.

Version: 1.2.0
Date: 02 Jul 26

  New things:
    - New Combat tree with three skills.
    - New Engineering tree with four skills, each unlocking a cheaper alternate recipe.
    - Knowledge tree upper tiers buffed.

  Changed:
    - Major GUI overhaul with icon-based skill nodes and tooltips.

Version: 1.1.1
Date: 30 Jun 26

  Fixed:
    - Minor fixes from the 1.1.0 release.

Version: 1.1.0
Date: 29 Jun 26

  New things:
    - First real release. Skill window with XP bar, level progress and skill points. Developer
      panel for testing. Level-up sound, shortcut bar button and mod settings.

Version: 1.0.0
Date: 28 Jun 26

  New things:
    - Initial release. Four skill trees — Speed, Production, Knowledge and Survival — with XP
      earned from mining, crafting, killing biters, researching and building.