## Devlog: Going Vertical! Introducing the Lift System

Hey everyone,

One of the most unique aspects of Textorio is the need to manage a factory that spans multiple layers of the planet. So far, moving resources between the surface, the caves, and beyond has been a manual task. Today, that all changes. I'm incredibly excited to introduce the new Lift System—a game-changer for vertical logistics!

The goal of this system is to allow for true, multi-layered factory automation. It's composed of two key new structures:

• Lift Stations: These are the anchor points of your vertical network. You can place a station on the surface, another in the caves, and a third in the deep caves, and give each one a unique name (e.g., "Surface Iron Drop-off" or "Cave Gold Pickup").
• Lift Platforms: These are the workhorses. A single platform is linked to a station and will travel automatically between all the layers of the world based on a schedule you create.

The Power of Schedules

The heart of the new system is the powerful and flexible scheduling UI. When you interact with a Lift Station, a new configuration menu will appear. Here, you can create a detailed timetable for your lift platform, adding as many stops as you need.

For each stop in the schedule, you can define:

• Destination: Choose any named Lift Station in your entire network.
• Action: Tell the platform whether to Load from the station's inventory or Unload its cargo into the station.
• Wait Condition: This is where the real magic happens. You can order your platform to wait at a station until a specific condition is met:
  • Time: Wait for a specific number of seconds.
  • Full: Wait until the platform's inventory is completely full.
  • Empty: Wait until the platform's inventory is empty.
  • None: Spend just enough time to transfer items and then immediately depart.

This system allows you to create fully automated, cross-layer supply chains. For example, you can now have a platform that picks up Gold Ore from your cave mining outpost, waits until it's full, travels to your main surface factory, unloads everything, and then returns to the caves to do it all over again—all without any player intervention.

This has been a complex system to build, but it’s fundamental to the vision I have for Textorio. I can't wait to see the incredible multi-layered factories you all will design with it!