The Cave – No Space Age
Standalone Base-Game Edition for Factorio 2.0
The Cave – No Space Age is a separate, standalone edition of The Cave made specifically for players who own only the Factorio 2.0 base game.
It does not require or use the Space Age expansion. All expansion-only planets, official belt stacking, quality, spoilage, freezing and other Space Age systems have been removed or replaced with Base-game-compatible progression.
This is currently a public test build. Please report any loading error, runtime error or unexpected behaviour.
Important Requirements
Requires Factorio 2.0 Base Game
Space Age must be disabled
Quality must be disabled
Elevated Rails must be disabled
The normal Space Age edition of The Cave must be disabled
Start a new game
Saves created with the Space Age edition are not supported
Do not enable both editions of The Cave at the same time
Current test version: 1.0.2
Core Cave Gameplay
The entire world begins buried beneath Solid Rock.
Mine the rock directly to reveal the cave and expand your underground factory. Digging can uncover:
Open cave terrain
Resource veins
Treasure
Enemy ambushes
Enemy Nest rooms
Guarded caverns
Special mission entrances
Fortified Vaults
Uranium Salvage Caverns
Exploration results are generated from stable map data, helping keep discoveries consistent in multiplayer.
Four Depth Zones
Distance from the starting area determines the cave’s difficulty:
Easy
Medium
Hard
Nightmare
Medium depth begins around 300 tiles from the centre, Hard around 700 tiles and Nightmare around 1,000 tiles.
Deeper areas contain stronger enemies, more dangerous rooms and more valuable rewards.
Caverns and Special Rooms
The cave contains multiple room types, including:
Mixed-resource halls
Treasure chambers
Enemy Nest rooms
Guarded resource rooms
Oil discoveries
Fortified research rooms
Uranium Cave entrances
Special progression rooms
Enemy rooms scale according to depth, evolution and the selected global difficulty.
The mod also guarantees an early crude-oil discovery roughly 80–100 tiles from the starting area. It remains hidden until the player digs close enough to reveal it.
Resource Generation
Mixed Resource Veins
Instead of only generating isolated resource patches, The Cave can create long, connected veins containing combinations of:
Iron Ore
Copper Ore
Coal
Stone
Mixed Resource Veins can be disabled for players who prefer classic single-resource patches.
Resource patch size has eight configurable levels.
Digging Mode
Optional Digging Mode removes most normal ore patches and makes mined cave rock the primary source of resources.
Available levels:
Hardcore: 0.5× digging rewards
Digging I: 1×
Digging II: 2×
Digging III: 3×
Digging IV: 4×
Oil and small progression-protection deposits remain available.
Ore Patch Missing
This optional challenge secretly removes one basic resource from natural cave veins. The missing resource must instead be recovered by digging through cave rock.
Ore Patch Protection
Resource deposits can be protected from accidental destruction during cave generation, combat or scripted events.
Resource Tools
Filter Mining Drills
A selection tool allows players to drag over mining drills and configure them to mine only one selected resource.
This is especially useful when several resources are mixed beneath the same mining area.
Resource Eraser
An optional administrative tool can permanently remove selected resource entities.
Access can be configured as:
Disabled
Administrators only
All players
The tool has a 10,000-resource safety limit per selection.
Darkness Infestation
Darkness is a real survival threat.
The 5×5-chunk area around the force spawn point is protected. Outside that area, players must remain close to powered lighting:
Small Lamp protection radius: 12 tiles
Lamp Post protection radius: 30 tiles
After remaining unprotected for 30 seconds, cave creatures begin spawning nearby and attacking the player.
Driving a vehicle resets the darkness timer. Protected Train Interior surfaces are always safe from Darkness Infestation.
This system can be disabled in Startup Settings.
Cave Collapse
Cave Collapse is an optional structural survival system.
When enabled, unsupported cave sections can become unstable and collapse. Players must use walls and researched Support Struts to protect important factory areas.
Features include:
Visible collapse countdowns
Structural support calculations
Wall and Support Strut protection
Ten Support Reach research levels
Increasing supported ceiling distance
Permanent destruction of unsupported terrain and buildings
The complete system can be disabled for a more traditional cave-building experience.
Advancing Collapse
Advancing Collapse is a separate optional survival mode.
The world becomes a northbound ribbon that is 510 tiles wide and divided into 704-tile zones. The southern route is permanently sealed.
Players receive two hours of connected gameplay to prepare. After that, terrain begins disappearing from south to north.
Anything left behind can be permanently erased:
Terrain
Buildings
Vehicles
Rails
Factory infrastructure
Players must continuously move their factory and supplies north.
This Base-game edition uses only Nauvis-style zone palettes.
Uranium Salvage Caverns
From Medium depth onward, certain cavern rooms can contain a Uranium Cave entrance.
Entering begins a 30-minute underground expedition.
The lower cave contains continuous veins made from approximately:
50% Uranium Ore
50% The Cave Scrap
Both resources require sulphuric acid and an electric mining drill.
The Cave Scrap can be processed in assembling machines to recover random Base-game components.
Uranium Cave systems include:
Separate underground mission surface
Fixed entrance and exit
Visible 30-minute timer
Item transport between levels
Fluid transport between levels
Shared electrical connection
Persistent timer across saving and reloading
Warning messages as stability runs out
The lower cave is not restricted to a fixed total amount of uranium.
Fortified Vault Raids
Fortified Vaults are timed underground combat and treasure missions.
Players must first clear the guarded upper room before entering the lower vault.
Each raid lasts 15 minutes and contains three cache classes:
Standard Cache
Secure Cache
High-Security Cache
Opening a cache takes time and triggers an alarm response. More valuable caches create stronger enemy attacks.
Features include:
One-use mission entrances
Timed lower-vault raids
Alarm defenders
Personal and shared cache limits
Re-entry while the timer remains active
Increasing reward quality
Fixed power connection and arrival lighting
Enemies and Combat
Direct digging can trigger controlled enemy ambushes.
Enemy numbers and strength scale using:
Cave depth
Enemy evolution
Global difficulty
Ambush-size settings
Nearby enemy safety limits
Integrated enemy content includes Armoured Biters and their nests, without requiring the original standalone Armoured Biters mod.
Ore Blood
When enabled, killed Biters and Spitters can drop small quantities of a random basic resource:
Iron Ore
Copper Ore
Coal
Stone
Worms, nests, bosses and unrelated enemy types are not affected.
Chemical Rockets
Optional integrated combat ammunition includes:
Chemical Rockets: poison combined with a wide slowdown effect
Incendiary Rockets: create a large burning area on impact
Turret Range Research
Five research levels improve the range of:
Gun Turrets
Laser Turrets
Flamethrower Turrets
Each level adds +3 range, for a total maximum bonus of +15.
Artillery is not affected.
Coins and Market
Combat, exploration and treasure can reward coins.
Coins can be spent through The Cave’s market systems on useful recovery and progression items.
Market content includes Base-game-compatible equipment, materials and specialised utilities such as portable emergency power generators.
Five Portable Power Interface tiers provide:
50 kW
80 kW
100 kW
150 kW
250 kW
These emergency generators can be mined, repaired, damaged and destroyed.
All Space Age-only market items have been removed from this edition.
Train Interiors
Train Interiors are an optional major gameplay system.
When enabled, supported locomotives and wagons receive persistent internal factory areas that travel with the rolling stock.
Enter the nearest supported rolling-stock interior using:
Ctrl+Enter
The shortcut-bar button
Normal Enter remains available for driving locomotives.
Train Interior features include:
Persistent interior factory surfaces
Separate rooms for connected train parts
Cargo and fluid transfer systems
External camera and map access
Fully lit interiors
Darkness Infestation protection
Respawning close to the Main Train
Safe train placement and recovery
Multiplayer access
Researchable interior expansion
Researchable battery storage
Shared Train Shield system
Additional Main Train capacity
Support for attaching recovered train parts
The starter Main Train begins with three registered parts and can be expanded through research to a maximum of ten parts.
Interior expansion research increases the available square layout up to 92×92 tiles per connected interior section.
Six Train Battery upgrades increase internal storage from 6,000 MJ to 25,000 MJ.
Ten Train Shield upgrades raise the shared train protection from 5,000 HP to 35,000 HP, with self-repair reaching 50 HP per second.
Existing interiors remain anchored to their original rolling stock. Adding a new wagon or locomotive to the front or rear of the train must not move previously constructed interior factories into a different room.
When Train Interiors are enabled, normal crafting and mining of standard rolling stock are restricted because train parts become exploration and progression objects.
CAVETORIO
CAVETORIO is an optional experimental Warp Outpost mode.
The Main Train becomes the centre of a repeating expedition. When a warp occurs, only the Warp Outpost and everything safely inside it transfer to the next fresh cave.
Everything outside is abandoned.
Players caught outside during a warp can lose:
Inventory
Armour
Equipment
Weapons
Ammunition
Vehicles
The Main Train must survive. Losing all registered Main Train parts can end the expedition.
CAVETORIO includes:
Timed cave warps
Manual Warp button
Multiplayer majority voting
Researchable Warp Outpost size
Researchable time between warps
Researchable Safety Ring
Increasing enemy pressure
Periodic boss waves
Recovery intervals
Fresh cave generation after each warp
Warp Outpost research can expand the preserved area up to 200×200 tiles and extend expedition time up to 160 minutes.
Character and Research Progression
The Cave adds extensive Base-game research progression.
Digging Speed
Thirty-five technologies progressively improve manual rock-mining speed.
The chain uses Base-game science progression through normal rocket-launched Space Science.
Character Reach
Ten Character Reach upgrades increase multiple interaction distances by a combined +20 tiles.
They also improve character movement and crafting progression.
Toolbelt
Ten Toolbelt upgrades add +10 inventory slots each, for a total of +100 inventory slots.
Research Difficulty
Research costs can be globally scaled using:
Very Easy
Easy
Medium
Hard
Very Hard
Marathon
Equipment Grid Upgrades
Three technologies expand supported equipment grids by:
+2×2
+4×4
+6×6
Supported equipment includes Base-game armour, Tanks and Spidertrons.
Items and installed equipment are preserved during upgrades.
Underground Logistics Research
Underground Belt Reach
Seven research levels increase the maximum distance of Base-game underground belts.
Total additional reach: +9 tiles.
The system supports:
Yellow Underground Belts
Red Underground Belts
Blue Underground Belts
Blueprints
Construction robots
Upgrade Planner
Force-specific research
Official Space Age belt stacking and Turbo logistics are not included.
Underground Pipe Reach
Seven research levels increase Pipe-to-Ground distance by +5 tiles per level.
Maximum total reach becomes 45 tiles.
The system preserves normal Base-game pipe behaviour and supports blueprints and researched upgrades.
Inserter Configuration
Four research levels unlock advanced inserter positioning.
Players can configure:
Pickup direction
Drop direction
Pickup distance
Drop distance
Diagonal positions
Off-axis positions
Precise drop offsets
Research restrictions prevent players from using positions they have not yet unlocked.
Configured inserters are preserved through upgrades and settings transfers.
Machines and Early Progression
The mod includes several integrated Base-game-compatible machines.
Early Cave Machines
Burner Assembling Machine
Burner Lab
Burner Turbine Generator
The Cave Big Wooden Pole
Lamp Post
Portable emergency generators
The Big Wooden Pole reaches across 24 tiles and provides a 4×4 electrical supply area.
Electric Furnaces
Optional integrated furnaces include:
Electric Stone Furnace
Electric Steel Furnace
Electric Furnace 2
Electric Furnace 3
Electric Boiler
The advanced furnaces provide increased crafting speed and module capacity.
Superheating
The integrated Superheating system provides optional advanced heat and fuel progression using Base-game-compatible fuels and machines.
It can be configured or disabled independently through Startup Settings.
Storage and Logistics
Industrial Containers
Twenty-one integrated container variants are available across three sizes:
1×1
2×2
6×6
Each size includes:
Normal container
Filtered container
Passive Provider
Storage
Requester
Buffer
Active Provider
Container capacities can be configured in Startup Settings.
Extra Storage Tanks
Four fixed-capacity fluid tanks are included:
1×1: 2,000 fluid
2×2: 8,000 fluid
3×4: 40,000 fluid
5×5: 70,000 fluid
The normal Base-game 3×3 Storage Tank remains part of oil progression.
Industrial Loaders
Integrated Base-game loaders provide compact high-throughput logistics without using official Space Age belt stacking.
Production Status Indicators
Compatible production machines and mining drills can show clear fixed-colour visual status indicators.
Starter Systems
Starter Pack
Each new player can receive one configurable starter package:
Disabled
Small
Medium
Large
Lazy
Every package contains only Base-game-compatible items in this edition.
Faster Start
Optional Faster Start equipment includes:
Compact modular armour
250 kW portable reactor
Personal roboport
Additional batteries
Faster exoskeleton
Construction robots
Night Vision is intentionally not included.
Quality-of-Life Systems
The Cave includes many optional integrated tools:
Per-player Damage Indicator
Automatic inventory repair
Production status indicators
Corpse-cleaning hotkey
Configurable corpse and remnant fade times
Configurable chest capacities
Configurable ore and scrap stack sizes
Squeak Through-style movement improvements
Filter Mining Drills
Resource Eraser
Starter Pack options
Offline Player Body recovery
Information and Controls GUI
Current Settings display
Player and server information
Force-aware research and progression
Blueprint-safe hidden upgrade variants
The Damage Indicator can be configured independently by each player, including size, visibility, grouping, lifetime, colours, minimum damage and killing-blow markers.
Multiplayer Support
The Cave is designed with multiplayer state in mind.
Features include:
Deterministic cave discoveries
Force-specific research
Shared mission ownership
Multiplayer-safe timers
Train Interior co-op access
Manual Warp voting
Offline Player Body protection
Optional Multi-Team Support
Optional RPG integration
Optional Discord bridge integration
Server information and online player display
When Offline Player Body protection is enabled, a player who remains disconnected for five minutes can have their inventory moved into a permanent lootable body at the force spawn point.
What Is Not Included
This edition intentionally excludes:
Space Age planets
Planetary region progression
Everything on Nauvis
Space Platforms
Official belt stacking
Stack Inserter progression
Turbo Belts and Turbo Loaders
Quality Modules and Quality mechanics
Recycler
Spoilage
Space Age freezing requirements
Space Age heating requirements
Locomotive Garden
Gleba agriculture
Pentapods
Demolishers
Fulgora lightning progression
Expansion-only science packs
Expansion-only market items
Expansion-only treasure and vault rewards