I was missing the surfaces_realoaded mod. and first had to search a while and try what works. but have found nothing
so tried Surfaces Origanal and Surfaces Caves, but the are no ladders to change the surface. have I missed something?
It's a real pity that no one seems to be interested, judging by the empty comments.

Hi!

This mod is part of a rewrite of the surfaces mod. I think it mostly works, but I never really finished it. The main thing that's missing are proper graphics.

The main mod is here: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Surfaces_API

The description contains information about how to install the mod. The reason you can't find any ladders is that you are missing the mod that adds transportation entities, and you don't have a "configuration mod" that configures the surfaces. To get started, you can download one of the configuration mods mentioned in the description of the main mod, which will download all dependencies as well.

The reason why I split the mod into several smaller mods and configuration mods is that it would allow you to add your own surface generation mods and then use different generation mods together. For example, you could have different world generation on surfaces below level 10.

One of the main reasons I stopped updating these mods is that the factorio engine isn't really designed for having multiple surfaces with distinct world generation.

Maybe factorio 2.0 and/or Space Age will improve the situation, and maybe that will motivate me to continue development?

now. I have installed all dependencies, 4 mods?
with original a got an crash in Transportation, reported there.
with caves, i dont see any ladders or other items, except Cave Explosives

All transportation items (including the "ladders") are provided by Surfaces Transport, but as you reported, it seems to crash in some situations.

with caves, it did not crsh, but there were no items.
if you don't want to put time into it now, i won't test any further. i just thought i'd make my mod compatible with surfaces.

I'll see if I can reproduce this issue and fix it, because it would be a pretty significant issue.