The latest Foundry Fridays devblog (DevBlog #110) offers the first look at conveyor lifts and kicks off a community feedback drive on FOUNDRY's power system. The lifts are still work in progress but are scheduled for the next update; no release date has been set.

The new lifts use a design with a single opening on each end, a choice made after player feedback. Playtesting has been positive so far, and the lifts open up new possibilities for vertical gameplay. You can see the core concept, minor issues included, in the first video: Watch the WIP conveyor lift preview.

FOUNDRY's power system is split into high voltage and low voltage: power poles carry high voltage across the map, while powered floors deliver low voltage and let machines connect just by being placed on the floor. A transformer feeds low-voltage floors from the high-voltage grid.

The team's concern is onboarding. Players start with a generator feeding a low-voltage grid and only later transition to high voltage, and the transformer is not immediately obvious. With a lot to learn in the first two hours, the system reads as confusing, so the developers are exploring simplifications that keep it interesting.

No concrete solutions have been shared yet—deliberately, to avoid biasing feedback. The developer asks whether players find the system too complex, would prefer a simpler version like other games, or have other suggestions. They also want thoughts on powered floors: is the placement convenience worth requiring a floor first for almost everything?

The dev asks players to account for their own bias: if you've played 200 hours, it's easy now, so think back to the start. Any changes are still just an exploration and not guaranteed.

The August 7 Foundry Fridays post—DevBlog #109—shows off FOUNDRY's official blueprint system as early work-in-progress. The feature is not final, but the WIP videos already cover copy-paste of machine groups, rotation, robot-staffed workstations, and trains.

The official feature is being developed by Erkle, creator of the existing blueprint mod and many other mods, who has been on the team for over two years. That mod has a 5-star rating and more than 11,000 subscribers; the official blueprints will use it as a starting point but won't be an exact copy.

- Basic copy and paste (WIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Rx92el9lk
- Rotation of blueprints (WIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ_dxdakDt4
- Copy and paste of workstations with robots (WIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOotvVM2dnI
- Also works with trains! (WIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6c6dTwGzj4
- Advanced copy with extra elements outside the "main box" (WIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_gHI4MpOM

The team plans to support "pretty much every object" for blueprints. Modular buildings are the open question, since they can't simply be placed in the world.

In the videos, placing a blueprint instantly builds it if the player has the needed items in inventory. The team is still deciding whether that stays or whether blueprints place only ghosts, which construction industry ships or personal mining drones would then build. FOUNDRY is asking players for their preference and will share more as the feature develops.