DeepCore Exile

The surface is death. The factory must grow below.

DeepCore Exile is a Factorio 2.0 underground-start survival/progression mod. Instead of starting in open Nauvis, you begin inside a locked ruined bunker deep below the surface. Normal surface construction is forbidden, so your first factory must be carved out of the underground.

Core loop

• Start in a ruined underground bunker.
• Mine visible cave walls to expand into the surrounding rock.
• Discover hidden starter ore seams and cave-walled water chambers by digging.
• Use the handheld cave scanner to avoid blind wall-mining.
• Bootstrap electricity underground with discovered water, boilers, steam engines, and pipes.
• Use shaft elevators for controlled travel between the underground and the hostile surface.

Cave scanner progression

The player starts with a basic handheld cave scanner. Press Control + Shift + R underground to scan for the nearest unrevealed starter resource/water signature.

• Handheld cave scanner: rough direction only.
• Tuned cave scanner: target type, direction, and approximate distance.
• Mapping cave scanner: target details plus a temporary map tag.

The scanner does not spawn or reveal resources for free. It points you toward the next hidden discovery so exploration stays readable without removing the digging progression.

Underground progression

DeepCore Exile adds paired shaft elevators and deeper underground infrastructure. Early depth is focused on survival, power, and expansion. Later depth systems include stronger ventilation, cave support, deeper shafts, and optional pressure/threat mechanics.

Performance-safe defaults

The heavier background systems are available as settings but default off for the first public release:

• stale-air damage
• cave instability damage
• underground threat spawns
• shaft cargo transfer

Surface exposure remains enabled by default, keeping the no-surface-building premise intact.

Requirements

Requires Forgeworks Core >= 0.2.7 as a separate installed mod.

Forgeworks Core is not bundled in this package.

Credits and licensing

DeepCore Exile is distributed under GPLv3 because it bundles Subsurface-derived GPLv3 ventilation/support graphics.

The cave scanner icon uses a MIT-licensed YARM resource monitor graphic with attribution included in the package.