Changelog

Version: 0.16.3
Date: 2026-08-23
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed removing and re-placing one Surface Access Shaft being able to delete unrelated return shafts across other chunks or levels. Shaft ownership is now tracked as explicit endpoint pairs instead of inferred by nearest-position searches.
    - Removed the global stray-return-shaft cleanup sweep from normal shaft, Fluid Lift, and Power Relay placement validation so a temporarily unmatched endpoint can never trigger mass deletion elsewhere in the save.
    - Shaft travel and optional shaft cargo transfer now prefer the registered paired endpoint, preventing nearby shafts from being selected as another shaft's destination.
  Migration:
    - Existing exact-coordinate shaft pairs are rebuilt safely on configuration change. Ambiguous legacy return shafts are preserved rather than deleted; the protected Nauvis starter pair is explicitly re-linked even though its two endpoints may use the starter offset.

Version: 0.16.2
Date: 2026-08-22
  Features:
    - Cargo Elevator pairs now bridge red-to-red and green-to-green circuit signals across adjacent depths once per second, allowing belt and inserter conditions on one level to react to stock and control signals from the paired level.
    - Excavation Drone Controllers now expose their standard and advanced excavation drill-head counts as normal item signals on connected red and green circuit networks.
  Bugfixes:
    - Disabled the Excavation Drone Controller's inherited roboport logistics and robot-stat circuit output, so wiring the controller no longer reports the surrounding logistics network instead of its own drill-head supply.
    - Fixed Electric Advancing Tunnel Borers becoming stuck on isolated or unpowered pole networks and added direct support for a nearby DeepCore Power Relay as a deeper-level power anchor.
  Compatibility:
    - Cross-depth Cargo Elevator circuit relays subtract DeepCore's own telemetry and mirrored relay signals before forwarding player/mod circuit signals, preventing relay feedback amplification.

Version: 0.16.1
Date: 2026-08-21
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed Vault Salvage Sorting missing explicit recipe icon metadata after its main product was removed, which prevented Factorio 2.1 from loading the recipe prototype.
    - Fixed the campaign starter Surface Access Shaft being able to leave a save stranded underground when its initial surface/Depth 1 route was mined or destroyed. The starter pair is now restored on upgrade when missing and its two initial endpoints are protected from mining and destruction; player-built shaft pairs remain recoverable normally.
    - Fixed DeepCore Fulgora vault processing interfering with vanilla scrap recycling. Vault Salvage Sorting can no longer generate a reverse recycler recipe for scrap, so normal Fulgoran scrap once again produces its standard Space Age salvage outputs.
    - Fixed DeepCore Fulgora Vault Engineering requiring electromagnetic science before it unlocked the Electrostatic Separator needed for the vault-processing bootstrap. The technology now stops at the normal pre-electromagnetic-science Fulgora progression gate.
  Changes:
    - Vault Salvage Sorting and Vault Electrolyte Recovery are explicitly non-recyclable processing recipes so DeepCore multi-output recipes cannot replace or contaminate native recycling routes.

Version: 0.16.0
Date: 2026-08-19
  Features:
    - Added native Cargo Elevator circuit telemetry through the elevator's existing red/green wire connection. Script-owned hidden signal sources join the same circuit networks without adding a player-facing helper entity.
    - Added S/R/B/L/O/I/C/P status signals for occupied send stacks, occupied receive stacks, backpressure, link state, outbound items per second, inbound items per second, connected belt ports, and receive-buffer percentage.
    - Added live queue-content summaries and measured per-second transfer rates to the Cargo Elevator control panel.
  Changes:
    - Cargo Elevator transfer accounting now measures actual item counts crossing levels through both belt ports and the directional inventory buffer without changing existing throughput limits.
    - Cargo Elevator control panels now refresh once per second for usable live telemetry.
    - Existing output filtering, belt-direction routing, Logistics Mastery throughput, drain-before-intake backpressure, and Chest Auto Sort compatibility are retained.

Version: 0.15.3
Date: 2026-08-15
  Compatibility:
    - Added explicit compatibility with Chest Auto Sort. When that mod is active, opening a Cargo Elevator suppresses the native container window so its per-tick sort cannot rearrange DeepCore's directional send and receive inventory halves.
    - Cargo Elevator belt and inserter automation remains unchanged while the native inventory window is suppressed.
  Changes:
    - Added a Close button to the DeepCore Cargo Elevator control panel.

Version: 0.15.2
Date: 2026-08-14
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed Cargo Elevator receive queues oscillating when destination output belts were backed up. Queued freight now drains before new freight is accepted, so a saturated receive buffer remains stable and backpressure propagates cleanly to the input side.
    - Improved Cargo Elevator congestion diagnostics to distinguish normal buffering from a fully backpressured receive queue.
  Changes:
    - Added the public GitLab project as the Mod Portal homepage and issue tracker/contact so bug reports and code contributions have a permanent upstream location.

Version: 0.15.1
Date: 2026-08-10
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the DeepCore Survey Mastery technology icon declaring the 32x32 cave-scanner graphic as 64x64, which prevented the mod from loading.
    - Fixed surface exposure continuing beside valid DeepCore stair and shaft endpoints when the endpoint was not the single prototype previously recognized by the refuge check.
    - Expanded the 8-tile emergency surface refuge to all DeepCore stair, shaft, deep-shaft, abyssal, pressure-sealed, planetary-bore, and matching return endpoints.
    - Kept surface-exposure checks tied to the character's physical surface and position so remote map viewing cannot trigger damage inside a refuge or suppress damage while physically exposed.

Version: 0.15.0
Date: 2026-08-09
  Features:
    - Added a force-wide DeepCore campaign status panel, shortcut-bar action, Control + Shift + C hotkey, and /deepcore-status command covering Nauvis depths, all four Space Age underground regions, mastery gates, and the final objective.
    - Added DeepCore Survey, Logistics, and Excavation Mastery technologies that become available after stabilizing two, three, and four regulation regions respectively.
    - Added Campaign Convergence, enabled only after Abyssal stabilization plus Nauvis Depth 4, Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo regulation are complete.
    - Added the Deep Mantle Coordination Array as the final Nauvis Depth 4 objective. It consumes sustained supplies from the stabilized campaign industries and must run continuously for 180 seconds.
  Rewards:
    - Each completed regulation region reduces coal and electric borer movement and wall-cutting energy by 3 percent, up to 15 percent across all five regulation regions.
    - Survey Mastery reduces Surface Recovery Scanner recalibration from five seconds to two seconds and recovery-site replenishment from ten minutes to eight minutes.
    - Logistics Mastery increases Cargo Elevator transfer throughput by 25 percent.
    - Excavation Mastery reduces borer and excavation-drone energy costs by a further 20 percent and lets drone controllers clear one additional wall per cycle.
  Changes:
    - The Deep Mantle Coordination Array is restricted to Nauvis Depth 4, uses a locked coordination-cycle recipe, and resets unfinished final-objective progress whenever power or required cross-planet supplies are interrupted.
    - Opening an entity-specific DeepCore control panel now closes the campaign overview so custom interfaces do not stack over each other.
  Migration:
    - Existing stabilized regions are recognized immediately for campaign progression and technology gates. Final coordination progress is initialized cleanly without altering completed stabilization objectives.

Version: 0.14.0
Date: 2026-08-05
  Features:
    - Standardized Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo regulation objectives around the same live 60-second industrial validation used by the Nauvis Geothermal Regulation Station.
    - Added a shared compact regulation control panel for all five campaign regulation structures with live progress and placed-versus-active infrastructure counts.
  Changes:
    - Vulcanus now requires three Magma Pressure Bores actively extracting magma fissures, two Volcanic Pressure Separators actively producing flash steam, and three Volcanic Geothermal Turbines actually generating power alongside eight Refractory Cave Supports.
    - Fulgora now requires three Vault Breach Drills actively extracting vault caches, two Electrostatic Separators actively processing vault salvage, four charged Grounding Pylons, and eight Faraday Cave Supports.
    - Gleba now requires three Root Taps actively extracting root nodes, two Root Bioreactors actively concentrating nutrient slurry, two Spore Scrubbers actively running the scrubbing process, and eight Living Cave Supports.
    - Aquilo now requires three Subglacial Bores actively extracting brine vents, two Cryogenic Fractionators actively processing brine, two Subglacial Heat Exchangers actively recovering steam, three Subglacial Geothermal Turbines actually generating power, and eight Cryogenic Cave Supports.
    - Planetary regulation conditions are checked every second; any interruption resets unfinished stabilization progress to zero.
  Migration:
    - Existing completed planetary stabilization objectives remain complete, while unfinished placement-only progress from earlier releases is reset once so it must satisfy the new operational checks.

Version: 0.13.1
Date: 2026-08-04
  Changes:
    - Reworked the Depth 4 Geothermal Regulation Station objective so the full geothermal field must remain genuinely operational for 60 continuous seconds.
    - The station now requires two Geothermal Bores actively extracting geothermal wells, one Geothermal Flash Plant actively processing geothermal steam, two Geothermal Turbines actively generating electricity, six Reinforced Cave Supports, two Deep Ventilation Fans, and full station power.
    - Any interruption to the required infrastructure resets stabilization progress to 0 seconds.
    - Added a dedicated Geothermal Regulation Station control panel with a live 0–60 second progress bar and checklist for station power, supports, ventilation, active bores, active flash processing, and active turbine generation.

Version: 0.13.0
Date: 2026-07-31
  Features:
    - Added Surface Recovery Operations after Surface Habitat Engineering, including a reusable Surface Recovery Scanner, shortcut-bar action, and Control + Shift + F hotkey.
    - Added abandoned supply caches, industrial machinery wrecks, and research expedition debris generated in hazardous recovery rings beyond operational Surface Habitats.
    - Added exact map markers and a compact recovery status panel showing target classification, direction, distance, and expedition guidance.
  Changes:
    - Each researched, operational habitat maintains up to six unclaimed recovery sites between 76 and 210 tiles from the refuge; claimed sites replenish after a ten-minute recovery interval instead of respawning immediately.
    - Salvage rewards combine general manufactured materials with planet-specific resources and compatible modded ore products only when those resources belong on the current planet.
    - Surface Habitat diagnostics now report the number of unclaimed recovery sites assigned to that refuge.
    - The recovery scanner searches the nearest operational habitat's assigned site network, preventing another habitat's abandoned targets from overriding the local expedition route.
    - Recovery wrecks are sealed against normal container access and must be mined to transfer their contents, preventing empty native chest interfaces from obscuring the expedition flow.
  Safety:
    - Recovery scanning uses the character's physical surface and position, so remote map view cannot locate or claim sites on another planet.
    - Player mining, construction-robot mining, entity destruction, save rebuilds, habitat removal, expired markers, and invalid site cleanup use persistent unit-number state without reading removed entities after invalidation.
    - Destroyed recovery sites spill their stored salvage once; mined sites transfer rewards through the event buffer and spill only overflow, preventing duplicate claims or lost material.

Version: 0.12.0
Date: 2026-07-28
  Features:
    - Rebuilt the Surface Habitat as a persistent pressurised refuge with seal integrity, air-filtration state, emergency pressure reserve, and explicit commissioning behaviour.
    - Added a compact Surface Habitat control panel showing operating state, pressure, structural integrity, electrical reserve, protected and commissioning radii, local planetary hazard, interlevel logistics links, and nearby spaceport infrastructure.
    - Added green, yellow, and red entity statuses for operational, pressurising, emergency-pressure, damaged-seal, and offline states.
  Changes:
    - Surface Habitats now require at least 50% structural integrity and 75% internal pressure before their 48-tile construction and exposure-safe refuge becomes operational.
    - Powered intact habitats pressurise over several seconds; power loss consumes a short emergency pressure reserve before the refuge shuts down.
    - Existing powered habitats begin fully commissioned when upgrading, avoiding disruption to established surface factories.
    - Surface Habitats now remain visible on the map instead of using the hidden not-on-map prototype flag.
  Alerts:
    - Added force-wide notifications when a habitat becomes operational, loses refuge protection, or suffers a critical seal-integrity failure.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a non-recoverable crash in the once-per-second Surface Habitat update caused by reading maximum health from LuaEntityPrototype instead of the placed LuaEntity.
    - Closed the unwanted vanilla roboport interface when opening a Surface Habitat, leaving only the dedicated habitat control panel.
    - Added explicit diagnostics for a missing powered grid and for an electrical network that cannot sustain the habitat's 5 MW demand.

Version: 0.11.3
Date: 2026-07-27
  Bugfixes:
    - Moved Bobmonium from Depth 2 to Depth 1 so Angel progression can produce green science before Depth 2 is unlocked.
    - Rebuilt existing modded-ore catalogues and guaranteed survey signatures so updated saves retire the obsolete Depth 2 Bobmonium target and create its Depth 1 replacement without deleting revealed deposits.

Version: 0.11.2
Date: 2026-07-27
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed Mapping Cave Scanner chart tags always failing because a LocalisedString table was passed to the chart-tag text field, which accepts only a plain string.
    - Added a safe frontier-bearing marker when a hidden survey signature is located on undug out-of-map cave rock that cannot hold an exact chart tag.
    - Prevented mapping scans from revealing or converting hidden cave tiles solely to create a marker.
    - Fixed Creative and editor surfaces exposing only part of an installed overhaul's Nauvis ore set when their runtime map-generation controls are incomplete.
    - Fixed normal solid overhaul ores with moderate mining times being incorrectly delayed until Depth 2; generic no-fluid ores now begin at Depth 1 unless their overhaul has an explicit progression profile.
    - Prevented resources assigned only to another planet, space, or asteroid generation from appearing in Nauvis underground surveys, seams, cave-wall rewards, or borer outputs.
    - Made resource surface-condition checks reject a target when the required surface property cannot be read instead of silently accepting it.
  Changes:
    - Mapping scanner messages now distinguish an exact target marker from a nearest-chartable-frontier bearing marker.
  Compatibility:
    - Added prototype-stage planet membership tracking so all six Nauvis-assigned Angel compound ores can be discovered independently of Creative Mode's surface settings.
    - Assigned Angel compound ores to campaign depths: Saphirite and Stiratite at Depth 1; Rubyte and Bobmonium at Depth 2; and Crotinnium and Jivolite at Depth 3.

Version: 0.11.1
Date: 2026-07-25
  Features:
    - Added automatic support for compatible finite item-producing ore resources from installed mods without requiring per-mod compatibility files.
    - Added compatible modded ores to guaranteed underground survey signatures, repeatable Cave Scanner targets, underground seams, cave-wall rewards, and advancing-borer outputs.
  Changes:
    - Resource discovery now follows each parent planet's entity-autoplace settings, resource controls, autoplace configuration, and surface conditions so planet-specific ores remain in compatible underground regions.
    - Revealed seams preserve the original resource prototype, mining category, required fluid, mining time, products, probabilities, and byproducts.
    - Fluid-assisted ores remain seam-only so wall rewards and borers cannot bypass their extraction requirements.
    - Infinite, hidden, fluid-only, and DeepCore-scripted resources are excluded from the automatic ore catalogue.
    - Nauvis ores are assigned to Depth 1, 2, or 3 from their extraction requirements; planet-specific ores use their compatible planet's underground gallery.
    - Advancing borers now reserve only the rewards predicted for their next excavation step instead of reserving output space for every installed ore.
    - Retained Krastorio mineral-water survey support while replacing hard-coded rare-metals and imersite handling with automatic discovery.
  Bugfixes:
    - Prevented large overhaul packs with many ore types from permanently stopping advancing borers through excessive output-space reservation.
    - Removed stale scanner signatures when an ore is uninstalled, disabled for its parent planet, or reassigned to another depth.
    - Migrated existing Krastorio rare-metal and imersite signatures into the automatic catalogue without duplicating revealed deposits.

Version: 0.11.0
Date: 2026-07-25
  Features:
    - Rebuilt the Cargo Elevator interface around live interlevel logistics status instead of hidden-port assumptions.
    - Added endpoint role and transfer-direction guidance showing that upper inputs move down, lower inputs move up, and outward belts receive freight.
    - Added live west/east belt-role summaries, connected-port counts, local and paired send/receive queue usage, belt tier, throughput, filter count, and output-congestion feedback.
    - Added green, yellow, and red entity statuses for Cargo Elevators, Fluid Lifts, and Power Relays so linked or missing endpoints are visible directly in the entity panel.
  Changes:
    - Cargo Elevator port roles update automatically when adjacent belts are placed or rotated, with the GUI reflecting the detected result.
    - Copying settings between Cargo Elevators copies all per-port output filters to the destination endpoint.
    - Compacted and wrapped the Cargo Elevator status panel so it no longer expands across a large portion of the screen.
    - Updated item and entity descriptions to explain the exact belt direction required for upward and downward transfer.
  Bugfixes:
    - Rebuilt Cargo Elevator helper-port runtime state for existing saves under a new schema without deleting visible elevators or their inventories.
    - Corrected lower Fluid Lift and Power Relay status detection so valid upper endpoints are reported as linked.

Version: 0.10.2
Date: 2026-07-18
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed surface-exposure damage following the remote map camera instead of the player's physical character, which could damage underground players viewing a surface.
    - Prevented bypassing surface exposure by viewing an underground surface while the character remains physically exposed.
    - Prevented remote map surface changes from resetting exposure timers or updating physical travel state such as respawn anchors and depth milestones.
    - Applied physical-surface and physical-position checks to stale air, cave instability, planetary underground hazards, and deep-threat targeting so remote map view cannot trigger or suppress environmental effects.

Version: 0.10.1
Date: 2026-07-18
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a non-recoverable crash when a player mined a cave wall and the local cave-frontier rebuild invalidated the wall before its reward-drop force was read.
    - Cached removal-event entity metadata before frontier, paired-entity, or helper cleanup can invalidate the removed entity.

Version: 0.10.0
Date: 2026-07-17
  Major Features:
    - Added the Electric Advancing Tunnel Borer as the powered mid-game excavation tier between coal borers and autonomous excavation drones.
    - Added a moving 64-tile power tether that keeps the electric borer connected to a selected powered pole while it advances.
    - Added filtered output storage to advancing borers so excavated cave-wall materials can be unloaded by inserters.
  Changes:
    - Rebuilt coal and electric borers as native rotatable crafting-machine entities with cardinal rotation, blueprint direction, and settings-paste support.
    - Coal borers now run continuously on coal and can consume multiple fuel items when a high-cost excavation step requires them.
    - Electric borers use a dedicated 16 MJ excavation reserve charged at up to 6 MW through the moving tether.
    - Excavation pauses when the output inventory is full, the selected power tether is out of range, or the path is obstructed.
    - Excavation drones now require Electric Excavation, creating a clear progression from coal boring to tethered electric boring and then autonomous excavation.
  Balancing:
    - Increased coal consumption for movement and cave-wall removal.
    - Restricted coal borers to coal fuel to prevent high-density fuels from enabling effectively unlimited tunnelling.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed coal and electric borers remaining stationary despite having valid fuel or electrical power.
    - Fixed electric tether connections being rejected by the stationary pole's shorter vanilla wire range.
    - Fixed the electric borer's hidden power reserve blocking its own movement path.
    - Fixed one-tile movement snapping, unsuccessful destination moves consuming energy, and active coal fuel being lost during movement.
    - Fixed borer obstruction checks so water, players, buildings, poles, enemies, cliffs, trees, ghosts, and other solid entities stop excavation safely.
    - Fixed frontier cave tiles being mistaken for water because they share the water collision layer.
    - Fixed cave-wall rewards being scattered, deleted, or inserted into a distant player's inventory.
    - Fixed existing 0.10.0 borer variants failing to migrate cleanly to the final rotatable entities.
  Compatibility:
    - Requires Factorio 2.1.0 or newer, Space Age 2.1.0 or newer, and Forgeworks Core 0.3.0 or newer.

Version: 0.9.2
Date: 2026-07-15
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed return-shaft recovery crashing during on_built_entity because stray-shaft cleanup destroyed the newly restored endpoint before paired-shaft validation finished.
    - Preserved the shaft currently being paired during stray-return cleanup and added validity guards around the full paired-shaft creation path.
    - Cached shaft name, force, direction, quality, position, and target data before operations that can alter runtime entities, preventing further invalid LuaEntity reads during recovery placement.

Version: 0.9.1
Date: 2026-07-15
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed mined return shafts becoming unusable downward-shaft items that could not be placed on the lower level, which could strand players underground.
    - Placing a shaft item one level below its normal source depth now restores the matching upward return endpoint and recreates or reconnects its paired upper shaft.
    - Applied the same recovery behaviour to Nauvis depth shafts and planetary bore return shafts, including player and robot construction from existing saves.
    - Reused a nearby matching upper endpoint during return-shaft recovery instead of creating unnecessary duplicate shafts.

Version: 0.9.0
Date: 2026-07-14
  Changes:
    - Updated DeepCore Exile for Factorio 2.1 experimental and raised the hard dependency baseline to Forgeworks Core 0.3.0.
    - Converted every recipe prototype to the Factorio 2.1 categories array and removed the obsolete singular category field.
    - Rebuilt the tunnel borer as a native burner mining drill using Factorio 2.1 require_resources_to_place = false, restoring normal cardinal rotation without resource-patch placement.
    - Removed the 2.0 crafting-machine borer, hidden idle recipe, direction panel, stored direction state, and legacy runtime conversion code.
    - Added a JSON prototype migration from both 0.8.2 borer variants to the native 2.1 tunnel borer and rebuilt runtime indexes after migration.
    - Updated deterministic fluid-resource products to the current product schema and removed obsolete tint probes for mining-drill and generator fields moved in 2.1.
    - Replaced removed LuaEntity fluidbox access with the Factorio 2.1 direct fluid-storage and linked-connection APIs.
    - Replaced removed runtime active/minable writes with disabled_by_script and minable_flag.
    - Declared the required Factorio 2.1 Space Age and freezing feature flags for planetary surfaces and heated Aquilo infrastructure.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed Factorio 2.1 technology loading when the tool prototype table is absent by resolving science packs through Forgeworks Core item-like prototype lookup.
    - Applied the same safe science-pack and prerequisite lookup to Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo technology definitions.
    - Clamped Vulcanus flash-steam output and its geothermal turbine to the 500°C maximum declared by the base steam fluid in Factorio 2.1.
  Compatibility:
    - Requires Factorio 2.1.0 or newer, Space Age 2.1.0 or newer, and Forgeworks Core 0.3.0 or newer.

Version: 0.8.2
Date: 2026-07-14
  Changes:
    - Reworked the DeepCore tunnel borer into a coal-fuelled self-propelled excavation machine. Open its control panel, choose the tunnel direction, load coal into its burner inventory, and it will clear a three-tile-wide path and advance one tile per cycle until it runs out of fuel or meets a player-built obstruction.
    - Replaced the tunnel borer's electric-mining-drill ingredient and technology gate with burner mining, engine-unit, and engine technology requirements.
    - Restricted the tunnel borer to DeepCore underground surfaces and added entity conversion for existing 0.8.1 electric borers and early 0.8.2 burner-drill borers.
  Bugfixes:
    - Kept the tunnel borer as a freely placeable burner crafting machine so it can operate on open cave floor without requiring a resource patch.
    - Added an explicit Tunnel Borer Controls panel with North, East, South, and West direction buttons when the borer is opened; direction changes preserve health, quality, coal, burnt results, and active burn energy.
    - Fixed every Tunnel Borer Controls direction button still moving north by storing a persistent per-borer logical direction and using it for destination, wall-clearing order, save repair, and GUI status instead of the north-locked crafting-machine direction field.
    - Removed the unreliable linked rotate-control workaround, which Factorio could reject before the mod changed the crafting machine's direction.
    - Removed the empty recipe-selection popup by locking the borer to a hidden no-output idle recipe.
    - Added an explicit icon to the hidden borer idle-cycle recipe so Factorio can validate the no-output fixed recipe during prototype loading.
    - Fixed surface-placement rejection reading an entity's surface after destroying the rejected entity, which caused an invalid LuaEntity crash during on_built_entity.

Version: 0.8.1
Date: 2026-07-13
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the Mapping Cave Scanner silently failing to create its temporary map marker because Factorio only accepts chart tags inside generated, charted chunks.
    - Changed scanner chart-tag text to a valid plain string and added target-icon validation with a text-only fallback.
    - The Mapping Cave Scanner now generates and charts only the single target chunk before placing its marker, without spawning or revealing the planned resource deposit.
    - Added explicit feedback if a map marker still cannot be created and clarified that the temporary marker is viewed from the map screen.

Version: 0.8.0
Date: 2026-07-11
  Features:
    - Added the Vulcanus Magma Gallery, Fulgora Vault Strata, Gleba Root Caverns, and Aquilo Subglacial Depths as four distinct planet-specific underground regions in one combined Space Age feature release.
    - Added planet-aware underground surface routing while preserving Nauvis Depths 1 through 4 as their existing progression chain.
    - Added Planetary Bore Engineering and a reusable Planetary Bore Shaft for the real Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo surfaces.
    - Added survey-revealed Vulcanus magma fissures, Fulgora sealed vault caches, Gleba deep-root nutrient nodes, and Aquilo subglacial brine vents.
    - Added Vulcanus refractory pressure-control industry, Fulgora insulated vault extraction and electrostatic salvage recovery, Gleba root-slurry nutrient processing and spore control, and Aquilo ammonia-water fractionation and geothermal heat recovery.
    - Added the Magma Pressure Regulation Complex, Vault Regulation Nexus, Root Ecology Regulation Network, and Subglacial Regulation Array objectives.
    - Added localized magma heat, vault static discharge, root-spore exposure, and subglacial cold hazards with planet-specific protective support infrastructure.
    - Added the Fulgora Vault Strata while preserving Fulgora surface scrap, ruins, lightning, oil-ocean progression, and unified Surface Habitat construction lock.
    - Unified planetary surface exile across Nauvis, Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo: normal construction and paving require a powered Surface Habitat on every Space Age planet.
    - Preserved each Space Age planet's native terrain generation while applying its hostile exile rules through exposure, construction locks, Surface Habitats, and planet-specific underground progression.
  Changes:
    - Extended shafts, player travel, respawn anchors, Cargo Elevators, Fluid Lifts, Power Relays, cave scanners, milestones, level labels, terrain handling, and stabilization checks to all four planetary underground regions.
    - Added unique volcanic, conductive-vault, organic-wetland, and ice/snow cave-floor profiles.
    - Kept Nauvis starter signatures, bunker exclusion rules, and ordinary cave-wall ore rewards out of planetary galleries.
    - Restricted repeatable cave-scanner surveys in each planetary region to its own process resource instead of generating Nauvis ore targets.
    - Added public runtime queries for Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo stabilization state.
    - Made the Planetary Bore Shaft valid on Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo while preserving the normal Nauvis shaft family for Nauvis Depths 1 through 4.
    - Generalized the Surface Habitat into a 48-tile powered refuge on all five Space Age planets, including protected normal industry, paving, cargo infrastructure, and rocket silos.
    - Added planet-specific exposed-surface damage: volcanic heat and ash on Vulcanus, electrical-storm exposure on Fulgora, spores and corrosive biomass on Gleba, and critical heat loss on Aquilo.
    - Kept shafts, interlevel logistics, habitat structures, and basic electrical connections placeable in the wilderness, and added a 24-tile unpowered-habitat commissioning ring for generators, reactors, solar panels, lightning attractors, heat systems, and their fluid connections.
    - Preserved existing surface factories and added one-time restoration of untouched Vulcanus, Gleba, and Aquilo chunks affected by early 0.8.0 terrain repainting tests.
  Bugfixes:
    - Matched the documented performance-first defaults by disabling underground threat spawns by default; the runtime-global setting can still be enabled for testing or harder campaigns.
    - Removed the per-tile planetary terrain repainting that produced large diagonal stripe patterns on Vulcanus, Gleba, and Aquilo; new chunks now retain native Space Age terrain.
    - Added non-destructive native terrain restoration for generated planetary chunks that contain no player infrastructure, deferring chunks near connected players until they leave the area.
    - Cleared stale DeepCore survey panels when changing surfaces so Nauvis Depth 1 water readings no longer remain visible on other planets.
    - Reset exposed-surface tracking when changing planets and immediately show the correct Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, or Aquilo hazard warning instead of carrying the previous planet's warning state.
    - Fixed Space Age ingredient detection across the shaft, Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo recipe definitions by using Forgeworks Core item-like prototype lookup instead of checking only data.raw.item.
    - Prevented Biopolymer Shaft Seal from falling back to a second plastic-bar ingredient when bioflux is provided by a non-basic item prototype type.
    - Fixed Root Nutrient Concentration prototype validation by declaring nutrients as the primary product of its multi-output recipe.
    - Declared ammonia as the primary product of Subglacial Brine Fractionation, preventing the equivalent Aquilo multi-output recipe validation failure.
    - Reapplied underground darkness after copying parent-planet surface properties so inherited solar conditions cannot override cave lighting and solar suppression.
    - Restricted starter-bunker resource safety checks to Nauvis Depth 1 so planetary shaft positions cannot suppress their survey targets.
    - Prevented the Nauvis Surface Access Shaft from being used on other planets; Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba, and Aquilo now require the Planetary Bore Shaft.
    - Added Aquilo heating demand to the Surface Habitat so its refuge remains compatible with the frozen surface rules.
    - Kept Fulgora surface generation native so its scrap, ruins, lightning, and oil-ocean progression remain functional while the construction lock and Vault Strata progression apply.

Version: 0.7.2
Date: 2026-07-10
  Changes:
    - Added the supported Space Age orbital breakout path: build and power a Surface Habitat on Nauvis, then construct the rocket silo and cargo infrastructure inside its protected zone.
    - Added clear Surface Habitat guidance explaining that space platform starter packs must launch from a rocket silo on the real Nauvis surface.
  Bugfixes:
    - Prevented rocket silos, cargo landing pads, and cargo bays from being placed on DeepCore underground surfaces, where Space Age cannot correctly deliver a platform starter pack to a newly created platform.
    - Kept existing underground launch infrastructure intact so upgraded saves can mine and relocate it safely instead of losing expensive modded components.

Version: 0.7.1
Date: 2026-07-07
  Changes:
    - Removed manual Cargo Elevator Downward, Upward, and Balanced modes. Belt flow now determines transfer direction automatically, and both vertical directions can operate simultaneously.
    - Made every west-side and east-side Cargo Elevator port independently switch between input and output according to the connected belt direction.
    - Updated the Cargo Elevator GUI and locale to describe direction-sensing ports and upper/lower freight routing clearly.
    - Converted Geothermal Depths and Surface Habitat Engineering into normal research technologies with standard prerequisite chains instead of runtime Undiscovered gates.
    - Geothermal Depths now requires Abyssal Stabilization and Nuclear Power; Surface Habitat Engineering now requires Geothermal Depths and Rocket Silo technology.
    - Added a dedicated 0.7.1 migration that repairs the technology state and forces one clean Cargo Elevator hidden-port rebuild for upgraded saves.
    - Added persistent per-port output filters to the Cargo Elevator GUI so west and east output belts can sort items independently on each level.
    - Matching filters can route freight from any input port to any filtered output port on the paired endpoint.
    - Balanced matching filtered outputs and unfiltered output pools with persistent round-robin routing; blocked ports are skipped without stalling other outputs.
    - Made inserter-fed inventory freight arrive in the paired endpoint's receive half, where it can leave through balanced belt outputs or be extracted directly by inserters.
    - Queued belt-fed freight in the destination receive inventory whenever no output belt can accept it, allowing inserters to unload the paired endpoint without requiring an output belt.
  Bugfixes:
    - Stopped inserter-fed Cargo Elevator buffer stacks oscillating between levels by separating each endpoint inventory into dedicated send and receive halves.
    - Matching filtered outputs now hold their assigned items when blocked instead of leaking them onto an unfiltered belt.
    - Rebuilt Cargo Elevator runtime registration and all hidden belt ports when updating 0.6.x saves, restoring belt and inserter connections without replacing the elevator.
    - Recognised transport, fast, express, and turbo Cargo Elevator helper ports in cave, bunker, surface, and access-pad cleanup paths.
    - Repaired natural cave walls or blocked cave tiles restored directly beneath legacy Cargo Elevator ports without deleting player-built belts, inserters, or machines.
    - Cancelled and refunded Cargo Elevator, Fluid Lift, and Power Relay placement when the complete paired endpoint cannot be built on the adjacent lower level.
    - Prevented configuration changes from rebuilding the starter bunker, restoring mined cave walls, resetting excavated approaches, destroying bunker machinery, or trapping the player in regenerated terrain.
    - Added non-destructive cleanup for stale restored starter-bunker perimeter walls while preserving untouched frontier walls.
    - Fixed Surface Habitat roboport validation under Krastorio 2 Spaced Out and other prototype passes by setting a valid recharge threshold.
    - Repaired existing saves that inherited disabled Geothermal Depths or Surface Habitat Engineering technologies and restored their researched recipe unlocks.
    - Prevented shaft travel from creating an unrelated Surface Return Shaft when an existing destination shaft was already present.
    - Removed legacy unpaired return shafts created by the 0.7.1 travel regression.
    - Made return-shaft endpoints minable and removed both ends of a paired shaft when either endpoint is mined, preventing duplicate items or stranded endpoints.
    - Added exact paired-endpoint validation for newly placed shafts so placement is cancelled and refunded when the matching level cannot accept the endpoint.
    - Cleaned stale unpaired return shafts before validating Cargo Elevators, Fluid Lifts, and Power Relays so invisible legacy endpoints no longer cause false blocked-placement failures.
    - Restored valid downward shaft placement by preparing only natural cave terrain at a new lower endpoint before collision validation.
    - Kept player-built structures and other real blockers intact; failed shaft placement is refunded and the temporary natural-terrain preparation is rolled back.
    - Enforced each shaft tier on its proper source level instead of reinterpreting a misplaced downward shaft as an upward endpoint.

Version: 0.7.0
Date: 2026-07-06
  Features:
    - Added Space Age as a required dependency and connected DeepCore progression to the orbital campaign.
    - Added Depth 4 as a geothermal pressure zone reached through a pressure-sealed shaft built in Depth 3.
    - Added geothermal brine wells, geothermal bores, flash plants, 500°C geothermal steam, geothermal turbines, and repeatable Depth 4 brine surveys.
    - Added the Geothermal Regulation Station objective. Supplying the required powered geothermal field for 60 seconds permanently stabilizes Depth 4.
    - Added Surface Habitat engineering. A powered habitat creates a 48-tile Nauvis construction and exposure-safe zone for rocket and cargo infrastructure.
  Changes:
    - Cargo Elevator hidden belt ports automatically match the force's highest unlocked transport-belt tier: transport, fast, express, or turbo.
    - Cargo Elevator buffered inventory throughput scales with belt progression from 2 to 8 stacks per lane per second, up to 128 stacks per second.
    - Existing Cargo Elevators upgrade their internal ports immediately when belt research completes, with no recrafting or replacement required.
    - Extended player travel, cargo elevators, fluid lifts, power relays, scanner milestones, and underground terrain handling through four depth levels.
    - Stabilized Depth 4 suppresses stale-air damage, cave instability, cave disturbances, resource guardians, and periodic deep-threat events on that level.
  Bugfixes:
    - Preserved complete item stacks during scripted inventory, belt, shaft, and cargo-elevator transfers, including quality, spoilage, durability, ammo state, tags, and other item metadata.
    - Made the Surface Habitat powerable from nearby electrical infrastructure and kept its enclosed floor available for building.
  Graphics:
    - Added the layered Surface Habitat render from Maraxsis under the MIT License, with DeepCore-derived item and technology icons.

Version: 0.6.1
Date: 2026-07-04
  Fixes:
    - Replaced the DeepCore tunnel borer's inherited accumulator appearance with matching four-way electric mining drill graphics so its placed excavation direction is clearly visible.
    - Fixed missing localized names and descriptions for Excavation Drone Control II and III in the technology tree.

Version: 0.6.0
Date: 2026-07-02
  Features:
    - Added Abyssal Industry as the Depth 3 production stage.
    - Added guaranteed and repeatable Depth 3 abyssal ore survey deposits.
    - Added the Abyssal Refinery and abyssal alloy processing chain.
    - Added reinforced cave supports for permanent deep infrastructure.
    - Added advanced excavation drill heads required by drone controllers in Depth 3.
    - Added the Abyssal Stabilization Core as the Depth 3 objective structure.
    - Added the Excavation Control Network GUI with power, supply, drone, radius, targeting, enable, direction, and auto-load controls.
  Changes:
    - An Abyssal Stabilization Core must remain powered for 60 seconds with four reinforced cave supports and two deep ventilation fans within 24 tiles.
    - Stabilizing Depth 3 suppresses stale-air pressure damage, cave instability damage, cave disturbances, and periodic deep-threat events on that level.
    - Excavation controllers automatically select standard drill heads above Depth 3 and advanced drill heads in Depth 3.
    - Nearby-chest auto-loading only transfers the drill-head type required by the controller's current depth and never consumes player inventory items.
    - Depth 3 milestone guidance now explains the Abyssal Industry and stabilization objective.
    - Opening an excavation controller shows its control panel alongside its built-in supply and reward inventory.
  Fixes:
    - Restored consumed drill heads when a drone launch fails before a flight is created.
    - Consolidated duplicate historical changelog entries.

Version: 0.5.2
Date: 2026-07-01
  Features:
    - Added DeepCore mechanical excavation research.
    - Added the DeepCore tunnel borer, a powered excavation rig that removes cave walls in front of it.
    - Added the DeepCore excavation drone controller for automated area cave-wall clearing.
    - Added excavation drill heads as the drone controller consumable.
    - Added excavation drone control II and III research tiers to increase controller radius and clearing throughput.
    - Added built-in excavation drone controller storage for drill heads and cave-wall reward output.
  Changes:
    - Opening the excavation drone controller now opens its internal storage directly.
    - Excavation drones consume drill heads only from the controller's built-in storage.
    - Automated cave-wall rewards are deposited into the controller's internal storage.
    - Cave-wall automation uses the normal cave reveal path, keeping scanner targets, cave frontier expansion, direct rewards, and disturbance checks consistent with hand mining.
    - Excavation drones are scripted from the controller rather than normal robot pathfinding, avoiding cave-wall pathing deadlocks.
    - Reworked the data stage around Forgeworks Core prototype helpers.
    - Split monolithic prototype definitions into owning shaft, cave support, survey, interlevel logistics, excavation, recipe, technology, and compatibility files.
    - Updated the dependency baseline to Forgeworks Core 0.2.8.
    - Moved large control-stage helper functions behind the DeepCore runtime table to reduce top-level control.lua local pressure.
  Graphics:
    - Added custom excavation drone controller graphics.
    - Added custom excavation drill head item graphics.
    - Added excavation drone technology graphics from the attributed Exotic Industries robot art set.
    - Wired the excavation drone controller to the supplied 32-frame pylon animation sheet.
    - Wired excavation drone visuals to the supplied 16-direction animation sheet.
  Fixes:
    - Fixed the Lua 200-local main chunk limit in control.lua.
    - Fixed excavation drone digging so walls are cleared when the drone reaches the target instead of instantly when the controller ticks.
    - Fixed excavation drone visuals popping in and out by making drones fly from the controller to the target wall and return.
    - Fixed excavation drone visuals spinning through unrelated direction frames while flying.
    - Fixed excavation drones to use runtime animation orientation instead of manual static sprite-frame switching.
    - Fixed automated excavation rewards going into a player inventory instead of the controller storage.
    - Fixed the excavation drone controller inheriting invalid next-upgrade and fast-replace data.
    - Fixed the excavation drone controller footprint to 1x1.
    - Fixed the excavation drone controller no-recipe state by using a roboport-style powered controller.
    - Fixed the excavation drone controller recharge threshold so overhaul mods cannot make the roboport prototype fail validation.
    - Removed obsolete static drone sprite prototypes and temporary controller recipe category data.

Version: 0.5.1
Date: 2026-06-28
  Features:
    - Added a cave scanner shortcut-bar button for controller and Steam Deck players.
    - The shortcut button uses the best cave scanner in the player's inventory and shares the existing scanner cooldown and Survey Network status panel.
  Changes:
    - Updated scanner item descriptions and starter guidance to mention the new clickable scanner button as an alternative to the hotkey.
  Fixes:
    - Fixed the cave scanner shortcut-bar button icon size so the mod loads correctly.

Version: 0.5.0
Date: 2026-06-28
  Features:
    - Added the Survey Network scanner status panel, showing the current target, depth, distance, direction, signal state, and reached guidance when using a cave scanner.
    - Cave scanner readings now keep a visible target status in the left GUI so players do not need to rely only on chat history while following a signal.
    - Merged the planned Overhaul Depths scope into 0.5.0 with depth-aware support for compatible resource fluids, rare ores, and quarry-style abyssal resources when those prototypes exist.
    - Merged the planned Abyssal Industry scope into 0.5.0 with larger Depth 3+ survey deposits, longer-range abyssal survey targets, and stronger resource guardian pressure around deep discoveries.
  Changes:
    - Cave scanner reveal feedback now uses localised messages and explicitly tells the player when the target has been reached but still needs nearby cave-wall mining.
    - Repeatable survey targets that become blocked or invalid can now be abandoned and replaced with a safer target on the next scan.
    - Depth 2+ surveys now bias toward oil/resource-fluid progression and compatible rare ore progression when available.
    - Depth 3+ surveys now generate richer base ore, uranium, oil/fluid, and quarry-style resource pockets for permanent deep industry.
    - Compatible overhaul starts keep the lab recipe available instead of granting a free starter lab item.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed repeatable scanner locks being able to keep targeting an abandoned survey point.
    - Added guardian matching for oil-style and mineral-water-style resource discoveries so deep threat events have better resource-themed enemy selection.

Version: 0.4.9
Date: 2026-06-28
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed Depth 1 starter ore survey pockets being blocked by the bunker-safety check.
    - Fixed existing saves where iron or copper scanner targets could report the target underfoot but fail to spawn the ore seam.
    - Starter ore reveals now preserve bunker floor tiles and bunker entities while still allowing the intended nearby seams to spawn.
    - Fixed water survey reveal crashing when starter-bunker preservation options were missing during cave-wall mining.
    - Starter water pocket reveals now use the same bunker-preservation path as starter ore reveals.

Version: 0.4.8
Date: 2026-06-26
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed planned fluid survey pockets placing wells too close together for multiple pumpjacks.
    - Fixed planned solid ore survey targets being able to point at an unrevealed tile without a visible ore seam spawning.
    - Fixed very-close scanner targets getting stuck by allowing the scanner to repair/reveal a reached target if the old save already opened the pocket.

Version: 0.4.7
Date: 2026-06-26
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the power relay recipe requiring an accumulator, which could block powering deeper pumpjacks before oil processing.
  Graphics:
    - Rebuilt the fluid lift and power relay item icons from their active entity art so both relay items are easier to recognise.

Version: 0.4.6
Date: 2026-06-26
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed repeatable scanner survey targets being generated inside or too close to the starter bunker after the initial starter resource patches were exhausted.
    - Fixed repeatable resource pockets being able to remove starter bunker floor tiles when revealed near the base wall.
    - Fixed existing unsafe repeatable survey targets being skipped and replaced with a safe target outside the starter bunker buffer.

Version: 0.4.5
Date: 2026-06-26
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed progression deadlock where crude oil could be unavailable before blue science and Depth 3 access.
    - Fixed repeatable scanner targets being allowed too close to the starter bunker, which could let resource pockets remove bunker floor tiles or point players back inside the base.
  Changes:
    - Cave scanners now create a new planned survey target after all currently known signatures on that depth have been revealed, so players can keep scanning for more underground deposits instead of exhausting the scanner list.
    - Added crude oil as a planned Depth 2+ scanner signature instead of a random cave-wall fluid discovery.
    - Added uranium as a planned Depth 3+ scanner signature so late-game mining resources are not limited to random cave-wall drops.
    - Added mineral-water-style compatible fluid resources as planned Depth 2+ scanner signatures instead of random cave-wall discoveries.
    - Planned fluid/resource signatures now open a small cave pocket and place accessible resource nodes only when the player digs into the scanned target area.
    - Existing Depth 2+ saves merge the new planned signatures without resetting already found starter resources.

Version: 0.4.4
Date: 2026-06-25
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed shaft travel on deeper levels crashing when starter-bunker cleanup encountered optional remnant entities that are not available in the active mod set.

Version: 0.4.3
Date: 2026-06-25
  Changes:
    - Improved basic cave scanner guidance with rough distance bands and stronger/weaker signal feedback while moving.
    - Reduced the cave scanner recharge time so starter signatures are easier to follow.
    - Basic scanner now keeps tracking the same resource signature until that signature is revealed, instead of jumping to another nearby resource mid-search.
    - Starter ore signatures now open a small cave pocket and place the resource seam before the scanner advances to the next signature.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed starter resource signatures being marked as revealed before their resource seam had actually spawned.
    - Fixed existing saves with stale starter survey flags reporting that no signatures remained even when a starter resource had not actually appeared.

Version: 0.4.2
Date: 2026-06-25
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed startup failure caused by control.lua exceeding Factorio's Lua local-variable limit.
    - Fixed cave-wall direct inventory reward text not appearing reliably by using local flying text before falling back to surface flying text.
  Changes:
    - Added underground crash-reactor placement for compatible starts that provide a crash reactor prototype, so the starter bunker gets fixed bootstrap power instead of relying on surface crash-site spawning.
    - Removed the DeepCore malfunctioning emergency generator entity, item, recipe, starter item, and fallback logic.
    - Adjusted compatible overhaul bootstrap starts so they no longer grant a starter lab.
    - Kept the small starter wood allowance when a compatible crash reactor is active.
    - Added underground discovery support for compatible overhaul rare-metal resources on Depth 2 and deeper.
    - Added underground discovery support for compatible overhaul imersite-style quarry resources on Depth 3 and deeper.
    - Existing underground scanner caches now merge newly available compatible resource signatures without resetting already discovered base signatures.
    - Changed random solid cave-wall mining rewards to insert small item amounts directly into the miner's inventory instead of creating ore patches on the ground.
    - Added visible +item-count flying text when cave-wall mining inserts stone or ore directly into the miner's inventory.
    - Removed random fluid-resource discoveries from cave-wall mining so oil-style and mineral-water-style resources are no longer spawned underground by digging rewards.
    - Removed legacy fluid scanner signatures from existing underground signature caches when they are refreshed.
    - Reduced ordinary cave-wall stone output to a small chance-based inventory reward.

Version: 0.4.1
Date: 2026-06-24
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed player-placed Depth 1 shaft endpoints incorrectly sending players to the Nauvis surface instead of resolving the intended adjacent-depth destination.
    - Fixed mined script-created upward return shafts granting extra shaft items.
    - Fixed repeated shaft placement, mining, and travel loops allowing infinite upward shaft items.
    - Fixed Depth 1 return travel falling back to the starting surface shaft position instead of the matching linked shaft location.
  Changes:
    - Removed the confusing starter surface-access shaft item from new-game inventory while keeping the scripted starter return shaft available.
    - Updated shaft item and entity descriptions to clarify which shafts connect Nauvis and Depth 1, and which deeper shafts require later technology.
    - Disabled underground entity shadows for bundled DeepCore entities to improve cave immersion.
    - Added a basic starter weapon and ammunition so early underground enemy encounters do not leave the player defenseless.

Version: 0.4.0
Date: 2026-06-22
  Major Features:
    - Added optional enemy integration registry for underground threats.
    - Added resource guardian events for deeper resource discoveries outside the starter safety zone.
    - Added resource-themed guardian matching for iron, copper, coal, stone, and uranium discoveries.
    - Added Seismic Dampener as new craftable underground support content.
    - Seismic Dampeners suppress local cave disturbances, block nearby resource guardian events, and count as cave support for stability checks.
    - Added crude oil as a Depth 2+ hidden scanner signature and random deep discovery.
    - Oil discoveries create small underground crude-oil well clusters while surface resources remain stripped.
    - Added DeepCore Fluid Lift for moving fluids between adjacent levels.
    - Added DeepCore Power Relay for balancing stored electric energy between adjacent levels.
    - Added DeepCore interlevel logistics technology to unlock fluid and power transfer infrastructure.
    - Added compact level indicator GUI showing Nauvis surface or current underground depth.
    - Restricted the imported starter bunker to the Depth 1 starting area instead of rebuilding it on every deeper level.
    - Changed player-built shaft entrances so they no longer auto-spawn matching shaft entities on the next level.
    - Shaft travel now resolves the actual destination shaft entity first, opens a compact natural cave chamber, and guarantees a nearby upward return shaft on the destination level.
    - Removed detached Depth 2/3 origin rooms and centered deeper starter access, migration recentering, and shaft travel around a proper shaft hub.
    - Shaft cargo transfer now only moves items when a matching shaft already exists on the lower level.
  Features:
    - Added the DeepCore cargo elevator as the first dedicated item-freight building.
    - Cargo elevator down endpoints can link/create cargo elevator up endpoints on the next lower prepared level.
    - Cargo elevators transfer item stacks through paired endpoints, replacing hidden shaft cargo as the main freight direction.
    - Added cargo elevator graphics and icons.
    - Added cargo elevator status GUI with linked level, buffer, transfer rate, and mode display.
    - Added cargo elevator transfer modes: Downward, Upward, and Balanced.
    - Added 8-lane virtual cargo elevator lane logic, preserving lane groups between paired endpoints.
    - Updated cargo elevator balanced mode to compare and transfer per lane instead of whole-inventory merging.
    - Added automatic cargo elevator belt input/output ports so normal belts can feed and receive freight directly.
    - Added transport-line transfer between cargo elevator input ports and paired output ports.
    - Mining either cargo elevator endpoint now removes the linked endpoint and both sets of belt ports.
    - Paired cargo endpoint inventory and port-line items are spilled before script removal to prevent item loss.
    - Reworked Fluid Lift into an integrated fixed-port entity with left/right pipe sockets aligned to its fluid box connections.
    - Reworked Power Relay into a fixed cable-terminal composite graphic.
    - Upgraded Cargo Elevator visuals and runtime port layout to 8 input ports plus 8 output ports, providing 16 active belt lanes.
  Changes:
    - Restored Cargo Elevator invisible lane helper belt collision mask compatibility with base transport belts.
    - Tightened Cargo Elevator collision box so internal hidden belt mouths do not overlap the main cargo body collision.
    - Fixed invisible Cargo Elevator lane helper belt collision box width while keeping its collision mask empty.
    - Fixed invisible Cargo Elevator lane helper belt animation_set direction count so transport-belt port prototypes load correctly.
    - Replaced Power Relay render with custom animated power-interface graphics.
    - Replaced Cargo Elevator render with a full generated built-in-port entity graphic.
    - Made Cargo Elevator helper belt ports invisible/internal so connections are visually built into the entity.
    - Realigned Cargo Elevator hidden port coordinates to the built-in left/right lane hardware.
    - Matched Fluid Lift endpoint health, volume, power, and mining time to compact pump-style values.
    - Reworked Fluid Lift into a compact pump with one rotatable normal pipe port instead of a storage-tank side-port layout.
    - Paired Fluid Lifts now preserve the placed direction so the upper/lower pipe ports match.
    - Reduced automatic Fluid Lift pad clearing to match the new compact 1x1 pump footprint.
    - Tightened Fluid Lift selection box so the yellow selection outline matches the compact sprite while keeping side pipe ports valid.
    - Expanded Fluid Lift bounding box so outer side pipe sockets load correctly at +/-1.5 tile positions.
    - Removed stone floor access pads from surface, shaft, and logistics access clearing.
    - Added endpoint safety so shaft travel uses existing endpoints where possible and only creates the missing upward return shaft needed to prevent stranding.
    - Reworked shaft visuals into down/up endpoints using the supplied stair graphics.
    - Added script-created upward return shaft prototypes with up-stair graphics while craftable shaft items remain downward endpoints.
    - Shaft travel now skips cave-pocket generation when a real destination shaft/room already exists.
    - Destination lookup now treats old same-name shafts and new up/down endpoints as compatible, so existing saves do not get wrapped in cave walls.
  Settings:
    - Added runtime setting to enable or disable optional enemy integrations.
    - Added runtime setting to enable or disable resource guardian events.
    - Added underground threat intensity setting: low, normal, high.
  Balancing:
    - Starter bunker and early water route remain protected by existing safety radius checks.
    - Depth 2 and deeper shaft starts and travel now place players in a compact shaft hub with nearby mineable cave walls, without bunker or stone-floor pads.
    - Resource guardians and modded enemy pools respect no-enemies map settings and local enemy caps.
    - Set power relays to use a 20MJ buffer with 4MW input and output flow limits.
    - Kept interlevel logistics gated behind the Interlevel Logistics technology.
  Graphics:
    - Added user-provided transparent cargo elevator and cargo elevator up graphics.
    - Added user-provided transparent power relay animation artwork.
    - Rebuilt the power relay animation sheet to exact 250x250 frames so Factorio can animate it correctly.
    - Scaled the power relay animation to fit inside a 2x2 footprint.
    - Added custom fluid-lift, power-relay, and interlevel logistics technology art.
    - Replaced vanilla interlevel logistics placeholders with active dedicated graphics.
    - Removed obsolete unused legacy relay sprites from the package.
  Scripting:
    - Reworked the power relay from accumulator charge graphics to an electric-energy-interface with continuous animation.
    - Added runtime registration and rebuilding for interlevel logistics entities across all generated surfaces.
    - Added adjacent-floor pairing logic for cargo elevators, fluid lifts, and power relays.
    - Added periodic interlevel logistics transfer handling alongside the existing shaft cargo transfer loop.
    - Added linked fluidbox connections for fluid lift pairs.
    - Split the level GUI and starter bunker layout into proper runtime-owned files to reduce control.lua size and avoid Factorio's local-variable limit.
    - Bumped underground terrain refresh state so existing deeper levels stop receiving the starter bunker layout on configuration change.
  Bugfixes:
    - Removed the basic surface access shaft from starter inventory because the scripted starter return shaft already provides early surface access.
    - Clarified basic shaft locale so players know it links Nauvis and Depth 1, while Depth 2 requires Deep shaft technology.
    - Updated return-shaft display names and item descriptions to make starter surface access less confusing.
    - Prevented script-created upward return shafts from being mined into extra craftable shaft items.
    - Fixed arbitrary Depth 1 shaft placements falling back to the starting surface shaft and teleporting players to the wrong surface location.
    - Fixed cargo elevator artwork so the centre body fills correctly and the belt graphics visually feed into the elevator.
    - Fixed power relay in-world graphics being oversized.
    - Fixed power relay active graphics not animating by moving to a continuously animated electric-energy-interface sprite.
    - Aligned DeepCore Fluid Lift pipe connections to the visible left/right side ports at +/-1.5 tile edge positions.
    - Restored visible Cargo Elevator belt port entities with base transport-belt graphics and hardened mining cleanup so orphan port belts are removed when either endpoint is mined.
    - Fixed 0.4.0 changelog packaging so previous release entries are retained in Factorio changelog format.
  Info:
    - Prepared the 0.4.0 Mod Portal release package.
    - Requires Forgeworks Core >= 0.2.7 as a separate dependency.

Version: 0.3.0
Date: 2026-06-21
  Major Features:
    - Added native DeepCore cave disturbance events.
    - Added semi-random hidden starter signatures for water, iron, copper, coal, and stone.
    - Scanner guidance now reads the generated starter signatures instead of fixed hardcoded coordinates.
    - Made Nauvis surface chunks barren by removing surface resources, water tiles, grass/decoratives, fish, and living trees.
    - Repainted Nauvis surface chunks into dry dirt/sand/desert tile variants with sparse rocks and dead-tree remains.
    - Fixed barren Nauvis startup crash caused by using the wrong tile prototype helper name.
    - Mining cave walls outside the starter safety zone can now rarely disturb underground enemies when deep threats are enabled.
    - Added depth-scaled native enemy pools for disturbance and periodic deep-threat spawns.
    - Starter bunker and early water route remain protected by a safety radius.
  Balancing:
    - Deep threats now default enabled for the 0.3.0 content line, but still respect no-enemies map settings.
    - Disturbance chance scales by depth and is capped by nearby enemy counts to prevent runaway piles.
  Bugfixes:
    - Reworked periodic deep-threat spawning to use the same native depth-scaled enemy pool.

Version: 0.2.2
Date: 2026-06-21
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed crash when mining/removing a shaft elevator.
    - Fixed crash when placing a starter shaft item and dismantling it again.
    - Forward-declared target_for_shaft before remove_paired_shaft so paired-shaft cleanup is safe.

Version: 0.2.1
Date: 2026-06-20
  Changes:
    - Basic cave scanner now reports both the target type and rough direction.
    - Updated scanner item text so players know the starter scanner identifies the signature type.
    - Removed DeepCore's custom character-light override so vanilla flashlight behaviour is untouched.
    - Restored underground darkness to surface settings only: frozen midnight, no clouds, full brightness visual weights, zero minimum brightness, and zero solar multiplier.
    - Basic cave scanner now prioritises the first water signature until water is discovered.
    - Moved the guaranteed depth-1 water reveal closer north of the starter bunker so early power is no longer a long blind dig.
  Balancing:
    - Basic scanner still does not report distance or create map tags; those remain upgrade progression.

Version: 0.2.0
Date: 2026-06-20
  Major Features:
    - Added Digging Progression as the main early-game loop: mine cave walls to discover hidden ore seams and cave-walled water chambers.
    - Reworked the starting area into a locked ruined underground bunker/factory layout using the final player-authored editor design.
    - Added handheld cave scanner progression for finding hidden starter resources and water.
    - Basic scanner starts with the player and reports rough direction only.
    - Tuned scanner upgrade reports target type, direction, and approximate distance.
    - Mapping scanner upgrade reports target details and marks the target with a temporary map tag.
    - Added scanner recipes, scanner technologies, and the Control + Shift + R scanner input.
    - Added paired surface/underground shaft entrance placement matching the final starter layout.
    - Added darker pitch-black underground tuning with frozen midnight, zero minimum brightness, full-channel darkness weights, cloudless skies, and underground solar power disabled.
  Balancing:
    - Removed exposed starter ore and water from the bunker.
    - Starter discoveries are directional and one-shot: north = water, west = iron, east = copper, southwest = coal, southeast = stone.
    - Delayed the first Depth 1 water pocket so it cannot appear immediately beside the starter bunker.
    - Kept ore and water hidden behind cave-wall digging; scanners guide the player without revealing resources for free.
    - Smaller random dig rewards can appear farther from the bunker after the main starter discoveries.
    - Bunker walls, gates, pipes, chests, and remnant clutter are locked so they cannot be mined for free materials.
  Graphics:
    - Added an MIT-licensed resource monitor graphic as the cave scanner icon.
    - Updated scanner item and technology icons to use the scanner graphic.
    - Kept only actively referenced bundled graphics.
  Changes:
    - Added the cave scanner control hint to the first-start power guidance message.
    - Preserved the edited four-room starter bunker layout and moved shaft position.
    - Added a denser ruined-factory remnant composition without bundling unused reference assets.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed cave-wall mining crashes by capturing mined entity data before frontier and reward handling.
    - Fixed cave-wall reward handler ordering so reveal_dig_reward is available before removal events call it.
    - Fixed repeated duplicate water pools and ore seams near spawn.
    - Fixed empty unmineable void edges after digging by rebuilding local cave frontier walls.
    - Fixed water chambers missing cave-wall borders.
    - Fixed Cave Support item icon display.
    - Fixed duplicate locale section errors from earlier test builds.
    - Fixed scanner mapping technology using the removed Factorio 1.x advanced-electronics prerequisite; it now uses Factorio 2.0 advanced-circuit.
  Info:
    - Prepared the 0.2.0 Mod Portal release package.
    - Requires Forgeworks Core >= 0.2.7 as a separate dependency.
    - No Forgeworks Core files are bundled.
    - No reference scripts, build tools, temporary files, or unused asset folders are bundled.
    - Added MIT attribution and license text for the scanner icon.

Version: 0.1.0
Date: 2026-06-19
  Features:
    - Initial public release candidate.
    - Starts players underground and blocks normal construction on the Nauvis surface.
    - Adds shaft elevators for travel between surface and depth layers.
    - Creates a paired starting surface shaft so the surface can be accessed from the initial underground shaft.
    - Adds downward shaft cargo transfer between paired shafts.
    - Adds generated underground depths with distinct terrain palettes.
    - Adds mineable cave walls so players must dig to expand underground rooms and corridors.
    - Adds tiered ventilation, cave supports, stale-air pressure, cave instability, and deep threat pressure.
    - Adds progression technologies for deep mining, deep ventilation, and abyssal depths.
    - Adds runtime-global balancing/testing settings for hazard and logistics systems.
    - Adds remote compatibility hooks for other mods to query DeepCore surfaces and register valid surface exceptions.
  Graphics:
    - Includes local DeepCore shaft icon/entity graphics.
    - Includes only actively referenced GNU GPLv3-licensed ventilation/support graphics.
  Info:
    - Requires Forgeworks Core >= 0.2.7 as a separate dependency.
  Optimizations:
    - Uses performance-safe underground generation and chunk tracking to avoid repeated full-surface repainting.
    - Disables underground autoplace for entities and decoratives; DeepCore places scripted starter/underground content.
    - Slows non-critical hazard/cargo checks and avoids repeated startup sweeps.