Why didn't developers add caves in DST- beta?

[Conker446]

I've survived in present version of DST 75 days now.

 

As many players know, there is a shortage of some minerals like flint

 

Because of this, I have to set my base near the pigking's area.

 

To save my precious flint, I have to use golds to craft like axe.

 

Whenever other players take some minerals and leave from my server, I feel so pressured.

 

I can't even make healing slave to save rocks which is limited in present version of DST.

 

If there are some caves in this world, I can live in that cave for a long time and get some unlimited minerals from earthquake.

 

 

[greenglacier]

Because they afraid  of accidents like this.

[Spazmatic]

First, the core game needs to be in a playable state. It's getting there, but things like extreme rubberbanding at times can make the game less enjoyable. Then eventually the other content can be added/balanced, like the other characters and caves. Plus, how is the server gonna handle people on the surface and caves at the same time? This seems to be the biggest hurdle, since most of the cave creatures and items already work properly when spawned in.

[RationalLemming]

Yep. The caves seem to be a completely different instance based on the loading that occurs in DS the first time that caves are entered. Keeping a cave in sync with the surface when there are characters within the cave probably will be quite technically challenging. Also, a game world is likely to have multiple caves so keeping each cave in sync with the surface and with each other in a game that was originally written to be a single-player experience sounds difficult to me. I have no doubt that Klei will be able to achieve it but I expect that it will take a lot of work.

[Toroic]

It's really not that huge of a concern.

You need some stone for a firepit, crock pots, and a few other fixed costs.

Honey bandages are fully renewable, and superior for general healing (exception being the booster shot)

Flint is just for spears once you find a pig king, as the gold versions are fully renewable as well.

You do need some stone, but after the first stack or two you're just making a lot of farms, which are pretty optional to begin with.

[Pyromailmann]

I've survived in present version of DST 75 days now.

 

As many players know, there is a shortage of some minerals like flint

 

Because of this, I have to set my base near the pigking's area.

 

To save my precious flint, I have to use golds to craft like axe.

 

Whenever other players take some minerals and leave from my server, I feel so pressured.

 

I can't even make healing slave to save rocks which is limited in present version of DST.

 

If there are some caves in this world, I can live in that cave for a long time and get some unlimited minerals from earthquake.

As Spaz said, let's make sure the game is at least stable. Then we'll worry about this.

For now if Rezicib or Dryicefox decide to try at it with some sort of solution, there will be no caves, adventure mode, or a telepotato. Plus once it's stable, it could probably support (at least 2) worlds. If not, I recommend if it gets that bad, spawning in stuff you can't reach or get (like thulecite).

[Habberdash]

If you wish hard,believe,and find a mystical artifact on the third full moon of November...then the caves are said to appear. If that's too much for you,wait until they add it.

 

 

more sarcasm

[The Letter W]

It's kind of like running two maps on one server they said. I believe what they also said last week (in stream) was that it'll be a group decision to go on caves or not, similar to how Adventure Mode works. But, that could change.

[rezecib]

I was all like "wait but caves are way beyond the capabilities of mods" and then I had a stroke of inspiration... What if caves are implemented differently in general? Like, instead of it being a separate world, the world sets aside space on the map for each cave, and entering a sinkhole is like entering a wormhole that takes you to the cave part of the world? It would still be a lot of work to implement, but then at least the game isn't trying to keep track of multiple worlds at once. The major problem I see here is that it would either have to generate all the caves at worldgen or have some way of triggering the worldgen environment while a world was already in progress. But I know very little about worldgen, so... hmm.

[RationalLemming]

@rezecib... that sounds like a clever way to implement caves.

 

I don't know how architecturally similar or different caves are to the surface though. (I haven't played enough DS to learn this yet.) Your idea definitely would remove the burden of requiring multiple maps but may hit other hurdles depending on how different the two types of maps are (e.g. enabling the darkness in caves on one part of the overall map while enabling daytime light on another part of the map, hiding the caves from the mini-map for the player, etc).

[Toroic]

I don't see how any other way of having caves other than integrated with the map will work.

Even on a cooperative map, not everyone will want to go caving.

Other games with above ground/underground areas define by layer/zlevel, which would make sense for caves/ruins.

Parts of caves already follow a day/night cycle, so selective lighting should already be in-engine.

[rezecib]

I don't see how any other way of having caves other than integrated with the map will work.

Even on a cooperative map, not everyone will want to go caving.

Other games with above ground/underground areas define by layer/zlevel, which would make sense for caves/ruins.

Parts of caves already follow a day/night cycle, so selective lighting should already be in-engine.

 

The way that selective lighting is handled is that everything is dark, but then certain areas have "cave lights". I doubt it's as simple to do the reverse.