Your ultimate guide for cave camping ( BETA) [DST]

[Healfree]

Hello there survivors !

 

I wanted to make this topic for some interesting reasons Although the guide completion is still on progress but this is it's current state.

I play with random ppl alot and finding players who want to camp or camping in caves is extremely rare and almost non-existing so I want to share my knowledge here to make cave camping more popular because I'm not kidding , I survived a year in a cave camp and it was my most enjoyable surviving experience .

I'm not gonna post the " Cons " & " Pros " of cave camping I'm just gonna give an overview about cave camping I felt it to be better this way , so here it is :

1- A little bit more challenging than camping outside but much more enjoyable .

2- There is no hound waves , instead there is much harder waves with more powerful enemy called " Depth worms " however they drop 4 monster meat instead of 1.

3- most of the enemies are stronger versions of the enemies outside however their drops are much better ( bunnymen is considered the pigs of caves they drop better loot but slightly harder than pigs and hostile , cave spiders are the worst they don't drop anything better than normal ones but much more harder to kill ) plus totally new enemies ( Big tentacles which u basically defeat it to have a nice teleportation , slurtles & snurtles .. etc )

4- There is no morning in the caves , the time cursor point in the morning duration but it's just to tell you that it's morning outside however the time cursor disabled inside the cave if you are away from your camp ( or near an exit since most of my camping is near an exit ) , however this means you can use the tent ANYTIME inside the cave .

5- There is a refilled illumination item ( The lantern ) easy to make and light bulbs is it's fuel and they are EVERYWHERE and their plant regrowth just like twigs , so using a torch inside the cave is a total waste unless you need to burn something or you don't have a lantern  .

5- The weather inside the cave is little bit more convenient that outside , slightly warmer in winter and cozier in the summer but you still suffer from cold and rarely overheating , also nothing will burn inside the cave on summer whatsoever ( which means you can ignore building flingomatics )

6- Rain happens anytime randomly in all seasons inside the cave however more and less on each season .

7- Sanity drain is a permanent factor inside the cave , you can almost never make it stop so you have to prepare the means of sanity recovery ( tents , candies .. etc ) , the regular sanity items  ( Garland , Top hat , Dapper vest .. etc ) will reduce the sanity drain but still won't make it completely stop unless you gonna use something strong like ( Tam o shanter , Hibearnation vest ) . "on a side note only Wendy can stop sanity drain with top hat and similar level of sanity recovery items since she  has less sanity drain in darkness .

8- Earthquakes is a constant factor happens every lets say 20-30 mins they do hurt you if the rocks fall off ontop of your head but there is a good side of this is it drops all kind of rocks which you don't need to worry about collecting ( rocks , flints , gold , nitre , even marbles ) after you establish the basics of your camp .

9- ALOT of mushrooms and I mean REALLY ALOT which means excellent food filler compensator, more than 90% of the trees inside the caves are mush trees which drop wood and mushroom . (check mushrooms section)

10- you don't need to worry about any boss inside the cave ( camped so many times and the only time I saw the ancient guardian was once with a 10,000 HP staying at his place minding his own business so no worry ! ) the rest of the bosses are only outside and no way they will be inside the cave so no deerclops, no moosgoose, no bearger however you want to kill them be my guest you can go outside and smack them ( I always wanted the eyebrella in every game ) .

11-Ruins is considered the most dangerous area in the game overall due to how MANY different and powerful enemies in it and they come in much much more numbers than usual with sanity traps ( chests be like "be careful what you wish for" ) so I advice being over prepared to go deep in the ruins . ( check ruins section )

 

That is basically what do you expect inside the cave and now we will start the real guide of how to survive a whole year inside the cave without any problems .

 

1st , choosing a character : 

not gonna include Wes , he is just too controversial  .

 

Characters you should really consider picking for cave camping :

Wendy : She is by far the best for caves , Abigail have a permanent max damage inside the caves and pretty good tank for worm waves and also caves considered dark ALL the time so Wendy is the best character to adapt in dark areas .

Wigfrid : my 2nd best cave character , due to the difficult enemies inside the caves specially the depth worm waves Wigfrid have no problem surviving / killing them when wave happens , also she can always regain sanity by go and kill anything inside the cave because yes sanity is a problem in caves , the only downside would be having meat in inventory the whole time which makes the bunnymen permanent hostile to you however you are Wigfrid depth worms concidered easy for you so bunnymen are your least concern .

 

Characters considered okay to pick for cave camping :

Wilson : He is just jack of all trade and master of none character he is suitable for everything however he don't excels in anything but pretty much ok to pick .

Willow :  Willow is a fair choice for the caves, as sanity can be managed rather easily with a fire. She requires some amount of stat management with her small sanity pool of 120, but it's a lot easier to maintain compared to Webber. In addition to that, she can cook mushrooms wherever with her lighter. (Yes! Willow... can cook food... with her lighter... in stacks even!)  .

WX-78 : Although rain happens often in the caves however WX-78 kinda okay in here since you don't need gears as much as outside , the only thing you need gears for is a fridge since you don't need flingomatics for summer in caves , so eat dem gears you stupid robot !

Wolfgang : He is a strong character overall however it is permanent darkness in the caves and Wolfgang isn't really good with darkness but caves have ton of mushrooms for sanity ( check mushrooms section ) and stuff instead of using them for fillers early on he is a good fighter after all , furthermore "Tam o'Shanter" is the ONLY item that would make sanity drain stops nothing else will make it stop draining unless you wear a combination of lower sanity items like dapper vest and top hat which is over doing it and kinda pointless , the only reason Wigfrid is a higher tier than him for cave camping because she is more stable, but hey he is Wolfgang .

 

Characters you should "Avoid" picking for caves :

note :This section doesn't mean you "can't" survive with your favorite character if it is included in here it's just picking the characters included in here is less convenient and more challenging for cave camping than the rest of the characters .

Wickerbottom : Worst pick for caves since the hardest thing to maintain in Wickerbottom is sanity and caves is all about sanity drain and tent uses furthermore she can't sleep sooooo yeah it would be even more challenging to play her than Wes .

Woodie : He is normally have sanity problems and trees might not be as available as outside unless its a heavy mush tree area also mush trees yield much less wood and without cones to replant them for sanity gain , to add more sanity drain for Woodie it will be really challenging .

Webber : Smallest sanity pool , due to how important to have pig farms to many players ( for inside cave manure production , also meat and pigskin  ) they will be hostile towards him so pig farm is not an option for him neither bunnymen instead of them being a some sort of resource and protection they will definitely will not be a protection factor , in addition to that spiders are not as a big threat as other creatures being hostile to Webber . 

 

 

 

 

Now for the part of what you should do when you start your game :

The 1st 3 days you can leave it for a little bit of exploration OUTSIDE the cave since you need to try and pick a cave enterance which is pretty much close to the most resources you need ( spiders , beefalos  .. etc ) depending on cave spiders is not a good idea , you cannot get gloomer inside the cave and pig king is pretty much irrelevant considering how much gold you can get inside the cave ( mining inside the cave + earthquakes ) so you can pretty much ignore the need of discovering both of them , once you found the perfect entrance you start gathering the basics ( stones , wood , rocks .. etc ) to establish the camp inside the cave however once you gathered them don't build the camp right away once you enter the cave . Take a small tour inside in case of bunnymen / cave spiders nearby , and also a blue mushroom biome ( trust me it is as awesome as finding gloomer and chester in 1 place ) because in 1 night you can gather at least 30 mushrooms ( if it is not too small biome ) and they grow back really fast so you can consider them a main filler resource or sanity recovery in case of emergency . 

 

Stuff you need to know :

These things you might already know however if you didn't it's really good to know them specially for caves adventures .

 

Mushrooms :

This is a quick heads up before you go in caves devour everything you see popping out from the ground so basically of course 3 types of mushrooms each have it's positive values and and the negative ones we gonna see each of them and tell which one is best for :

color indicators : Red = Health , Yellow = Hunger , Orange = Sanity 

                                       Raw                                     Cooked                     

Red cap :               -20  / 12.5 /   0                            1 / 0 / -10    

Green cap :              0  / 12.5 / -50                           -1 / 0 / 15

Blue cap :               20 / 12.5 / -15                           -3 / 0 / 10

 

As you can see from this Mushroom chart some mushrooms better be eaten Raw , some mushrooms better be eaten cooked and some mushrooms better not to be eaten at all ! .

so I'd say red caps always for fillers , green caps eaten cooked for sanity , Blue cap eaten raw for health and hunger ( in cost of sanity ) or lower its total value eaten cooked for sanity ( green are still much better for sanity ) , you can actually do a really good combination of eating cooked green caps with raw blue caps or cooked blue with raw blue for the best recovery ( you've been given the numbers u do the math ) 

 

 

 

 

Establishing your camp :

 

3 important things you need to consider when you establish the exact position of your camp :

1- The area is wide and illuminated enough ( not talking about the light bulb flowers I'm talking about the ceilings light )

2- Your camp is not far from the original cave exit & if you find another exit nearby that is even better so you have access to multiple places outside .

3- The area is centered and accessed to most different cave biomes also away from cave spiders / spitters nest .

 

Now after considering these you need to consider what you should prioritize building :

1- After the basic engine and crockpot ( these 2 are obvious ) you should rush for an alchemy engine ( to make the lantern / Miner's Hat ... etc ) as soon as possible it will be your most used items in the game .

2- After the engine you need to get a tent pretty fast because the sanity will not stop draining which means GO FOR SILK .

3- After doing your 1st tent now you need to hunt for tier3 spiders OUTSIDE the cave ( there are normal spiders inside but you won't bother explore inside the cave once you found them outside in your 1st 3 days it will just be a little bit waste of time unless you found them right away then you are a lucky person  ) you really need to get the spider's egg to make spider farms inside the cave for constant silk resource because trust me , silk will be as consumable as meat ( well roughly ) due to the constant usage of tent and early usage of umbrellas .

4- Now the priority buildings are over, the rest is what you personally need the most , me I would go for a fridge and a birdcage , I don't really care too much for farms but if I did I would build pig farm to get infinite manures to avoid going out and in for beefalos since you only need them 1 time for the wool also they are a really nice defense for worm waves ( they can't kill them but will get them busy but rock lobsters is your absolute defense give them flint and bring them home ) .

 

side notes to consider in cave building :

A- If you have somebody helping you with the camping you can hunt for Rabbit hutches they are A REALLY good resources to give u a really good headstart for base camping ( Boards , ton of carrots , lots of meat , Fur for beds "Furs will help you not to rush for tent if you are in no silk position" ) so 1 break the house and the other kill the bunny inside ( can be done solo but much much easier and faster with someone ) however you might ONLY do that in the morning ( according to outside since caves have no morning ) so you won't be swarmed by them if you tried to attack anyone OR have meat in your inventory  , I usually spend little bit more time exploring in the cave just to find the Rabbit hutches .

B- I like the bee boxes really however they are a pain to find the write place to build them since if you need honey bees HAVE to find flower to harvest otherwise they won't produce honey and the flowers need light so they don't wither ( YES they do wither in a permanent dark area ) also they are normally time consuming to build plus in cave camping you're hand is full of other important stuff to do . Personally if I have the time to do them in autumn I do build them otherwise they are a really 2nd option .

 

Post camping :

Now after you've done building your optimal camp in autumn I'd say congratulations you have done the hardest part in cave camping ( unless you taking a deep ruins adventure ) , now however there are some stuff you need to be aware of  :

Earthquakes :

These lovely earthquakes are actually a good thing , just a free resources for you while you sitting in your camp doing w/e you are doing however when they happen I would advice to wear armor because they still can hurt you if anything fall on your head so as long as you have any type of armor you are fine and they also slowly break your walls if they fell on it,adding to that you can actually make the earthquake happen by igniting a gunpowder or slurtle slime if you don't want to wait 20-30 mins for extra rocks / gems loot however it is more complicated than you think so we had some research on it here how the earthquakes works :

we will consider the earthquake as a big mob with a certain health lets say (480 HP as of 2 days before the earthquake happens) each minute passes the HP drop by a little certain amount let's say 30 HP ( since 1 day = 8 minutes of real time play ) so in order to have another sudden earthquake right after the earthquake happens you need to deal 480 total damage which means even 2 gunpowders won't be enough ( 400 damage ) but it WILL shorten the time needed for next earthquake ,so I guess you got the idea now .

 

Depth worms waves :

These tough bastards could be annoying yes so I advise you need a really good weapon and a full durability armor because you gonna have a tough fight the ( HP is 900 and they hit for 75 points without armor ) however the time between their attacks are extremely slow but still deadly since that damage is as high as the deerclops swing ( as a Wigfrid I fight them head on with no problems however Abigail can't clear the WHOLE wave of depth worms by herself she need help from player but as mentioned in replies she can actually kill a single depth worm single handedly ) .

Now if you found rock lobsters in rocky biome inside the caves let them roam your base they will stay forever and they are the best for this situation there is no way the depth worms can kill them they will just tank them for eternity .

 

 

The Ruins : 

Although the ruins is actually an optional area among the caves but it's kinda a waste to ignore it , yes going deep the ruins is dangerous considered how many the mobs are there vary ( from randomize caves maps system it could be EXTREMELY chaotic I mean it ! ) the main goal of going deep into the ruins is to find the "Ancient Pseudoscience Station" to craft lot of cool stuff ( it might be always on broken state so you need to fix it to have access to more craftable items however the broken state is an always factor (still need confirmation) .

To find the ruins you need to follow an orange turf ground with ton of bulb flowers keep exploring in here and you'll see yourself entering the ruins .

Let's get down to the enemies you will only encounter in the ruins ( white spiders and depth worms are in and out of ruins as tested so not gonna include them) :

Splumonkeys: Neutral creatures with low health that steal items and throw "poop" (yes typical monkeys) if you are in nightmare mode they turn shadow and no longer throw poop they will be close and persoal and of course they will become hostile . Loot : banana , morsel , chance of nightmare fuel and beard hair ( only in shadow form )

Slurpers : Hostile creatures also low health they do melee damage also equip themselves into your head and drain lot of hunger outta ya however you can unequip them easily just like unequipping any head slot but will drop them out to the field again , while they are attached to your head they give you light just like the miner's hat . Loot : 2 lightbulbs , chance of slurper pelt .

Damaged clockworks : Just like the normal clockworks but the drops are different , also they keep spawning from broken clockworks pile which can be repaired with 3 gears to have clockworks allies ( how cool !? ) . Loot : D.Rook + D.Knight = Gear , chance nightmare fuel , chance thulecite fragment / D.Bishop = ( no gear ) , purple gem , chance nightmare fuel , chance thulecite fragment .

Shadow creatures : The usual nightmare creatures but they also appear in the ruins near the "Nightmare light" and "Nightmare fissures" regardless your sanity condition so be cautious . Loot : nightmare fuels ( they are the usual creatures ) .

 

 

Ancient Guardian : 

This fearsome fella is not as you think he is from "Don't starve" indeed he is similar to the regular game but in DST he have 10,000 HP ( x4 times the DS HP ) ! so if you are alone oh boy he will take a couple of days swinging your best weapon at him to kill however his fighting mechanics seems to be exactly the same as the normal clockwork Rook but when you fight him close and personal he is totally different , when you stick to the Rook he will keep charging in your face but the Ancient Guardian will not he will do a more likely uppercut with his horn with a much much less delayed attack ( ~ 2 sec between each hit ) , so if you already know his uppdercut pattern to dodge it then you might really don't need much of an armor but I would advice anyone to bring health items and more than 2 armors and of course 2 weapons ( unless its a hambat ) .

Loot : the Ancient Guardian loot might be considered to be the most rewarding loot among all bosses ( a par with Dragonfly DST loot maybe better depends on chances ) besides the meat and the special crafting item like all the other bosses have ( deerclops eye , thick fur ... etc ) he also drop a big chest with lots of useful and awesome stuff in it ( I mean really good stuff ) .

In the end if you are not looking into an UBER SUPER adventure I'd say ignore him since he is deep in the ruins with a 10k HP ( Although the houndius shootius is pretty cool but eyebrella is also cool so who knows  )

 

 

conclusion :

In the end I wanted to say I'm really sorry if I said any tiny information that isn't exactly correct since this guide is still on beta made by my personal very and many successful cave camping with help with some other experienced players but trust me soon enough you don't need to know more to have a wonderful experience in a cave  .

 

Change log :

09/03/2016 :

- Added Willow in " Okay to pick tier " .

- Updated the sanity drain removal items for caves in the sanity section of the overview .

- Updated the earthquakes informations on the post camping section .

- Updated Abigail information towards her combat vs depth worm in post camping section .

- Webber moved from "Okay to pick tier" to "Avoid picking tier" .

 

11/03/2016 : 

- Wolfgang moved from "Avoid picking tier" to "Okay to pick tier" ( finally ?)

- Added a new section " Stuff you need to know " .

- Added mushroom section under "Stuff you need to know" .

- Added a new section "The ruins" .

- Added Ancient guardian section under "The ruins" .

 

 

Credits : ( to those who participated on updating this guide )

- @Learner for Willow & pigs manure input

- @Snowhusky5 for Abigail input & earthquake review

- @t0panka for the earthquake adition

- @werlpolf for the earthquake trigger reaserch 

 

Happy cave camping everybody !  

 

 

 

[Sheauwn]

Seeing as this is don't starve together, some characters have abilities that actually help the caves a lot. For example, Woody is amazing in the caves because he receives the 5 sanity bonus from saplings (I've played as woody in caves before, lasting seasons on seasons until I got bored). He also gets night vision in the beaver form.

Also, he helps spawn the treeguards, which gets more living logs for the ruin recipes.

 

I would argue that Webber is the worst in caves, going insane quickly and bunnymen always being hosting towards him.

[Learner]

I've got a few things to point out.

About characters, #1: Willow is a fair choice for the caves, as sanity can be managed rather easily with a fire. She requires some amount of stat management with her small sanity pool of 100, but it's a lot easier to maintain compared to Webber. In addition to that, she can cook mushrooms wherever with her lighter. (Yes! Willow... can cook food... with her lighter... in stacks even!)

#2: In my opinion, WX-78 is a fantastic choice for the caves! Sure, cave rain sucks when you play as him (thanks Eyebrella!), but well... not having to worry about food staleness helps me out a lot down there for those long exploration trips down there. And, because he can eat gears to regain all of his stats, this makes him PERFECT for ruin exploration! They're so full of clockworks that are both broken and functional that gears will not be in short supply... just don't eat them the second you get them. Stretch them out, fix a clockwork if you want. Don't be that guy who eats the gears right away for 5 units of hunger (+the upgrade) out of the 75 sanity, health, and hunger you would normally get back...

About sanity management: I don't need to use tents. In fact, I don't ever seem to use tents. Seriously. I've lasted seasons without any sleep just fine. I regain my sanity from mushrooms. Green mushrooms are great for that, but blue mushrooms will work just as fine, especially if you live near a gigantic blue mushtree forest. (In a particular world, I was able to pick 20-40 blue caps from the biome in a single night, and many more were still available for later nights. That right there is 200-400 sanity regained if they were all cooked.)

But anyhow... on the subject of sleeping for sanity and health... tents aren't your only choice for sleeping. Because you'll be underground, bunnymen will be available, and fur rolls can be made from their bunny puffs. Plus, you can sleep in those anywhere since you carry them with you! (They're also very nice for Winters in the caves.)

Lastly, there remains one unbeatable method to maintain sanity, and that's to get a Tam o' Shanter. The sanity gain from it surpasses the sanity drain of the cavern's darkness.

About the hazards of living in the caves: Depth Worms are the real threat of the caverns.

Early on, they arrive in very low numbers. One can be fought off with no trouble. Just dodge its bite, and rush in to strike, (on every other bite attempt, it resurfaces and burrows again, opening it to more attacks.) Two can be managed, albeit with more trouble. Basically... it's a lot more dodging and a lot less attacking. But once you start to get 3 or more (god help you), then honestly, it just seems to be too much.

When you must deal with them and can't get assistance against them, back away until you have just 1 (or 2 if you're up for it) that are still chasing you (and just deal with it like normal), or until they all stop chasing you. If they all stop chasing you, then it becomes a matter of baiting only 1 (ideally) to start chasing you.

About your sources of light.

3 hours ago, Healfree said:

1- After the basic engine and crockpot ( these 2 are obvious ) you should rush for an alchemy engine to make the lantern as soon as possible it will be your most used item in the game .

Sorry Healfree, but I disagree. Though it's true that I always carry a lantern, it is not my primary source of light. (At best, my lantern is my backup light source, or to illuminate a fight.) My primary light source is my Miner's Helmet. That being said, that item is prototyped at the Alchemy engine anyhow.

My time is valuable. I do not want to waste that little extra bit of time that revolves around dropping the lantern, grabbing it again, and making sure that my tool slot is cleared before I grab it. Does it sound petty? Sure. But everyone needs to understand that I'm constantly on the move down there, and dropping the lantern to chop down 1 tree here, another one over there, and again down there... it slows the process a bit. And well... that little extra time spent adds up, and when my priority is to always be in the light for as long as I can to avoid the heightened sanity loss of pitch blackness, it simply makes sense!

Outside of my miner's helmet, I carry one last source of light that surpasses all others. Once acquired, I always carry a pair of Moggles. They're just too handy! Whenever an earthquake happens, I always equip them to locate all of the debris that I want. When I'm exploring new places, I also equip them to observe my pathways ahead, and when I'm in dangerous terrain, I most certainly equip them to avoid and dodge enemies that might otherwise be hidden in the dark ahead of me.

And conveniently, I can simply refuel them with lesser glow berries!

Other noteworthy things to think about: When I set up a camp, I like to pick a nice spot that has plenty of light flowers nearby and ceiling lights. I need to make sure light bulbs are within immediate access if need be. Often times, I make sure that my camp has light flowers inside it, so I don't have to be bothered to light a fire to see! (It also makes my camp friendlier to less equipped players who otherwise might not be able to see.)

Ceiling lights are important: you can't run a farm or check the time unless you step into a ceiling light. When you're picking a location, you ideally want to have as much space being lit up by ceiling lights. The more space that gets lit up from above, the more appealing it becomes because you can see more constantly, and have more space for farms! (Just make sure you have a birdcage down there, or the will not be renewable without trips to the surface.)

Cave ponds do not freeze in the winter! This means that you can acquire fish all year long, so having ponds and spiders within reasonable distance is also desirable.

Because the caves rain on their own schedule, a rain-o-meter becomes justifiable. You can plan trips to your favorite mushroom gathering spots in preparation for incoming rain.

Once you know the location of the ruins, and if fortune has it they're conveniently close to your camp, you can routinely plan trips to harvest lichen and eels (if you want)! Lichen can easily become your biggest life-saver, as they're crock-pot friendly and count as veggies! If you're hurting and desperate for health, tossing an eel and lichen in a crockpot will make an Unagi in 10 seconds and heal for 20 hp! Don't worry about the filler. The recipe has the highest priority in the crockpot.

About food sources, as more earthquakes happen, more moleworms fall, and sooner or later, they'll build up to noteworthy numbers, and they'll provide a morsel each. Make sure you use hammers to get them, because if you kill one, the others retreat to their burrows.

Outside of all of that, make sure you stay prepared for winter, and expect extra cave rain for spring. As for the summer? A breeze! It can't touch you! If you don't know what season it is, simply observe the mushtrees, as certain trees spore in the seasons that provide the respective color the most time of their preference.

Two more things: if you find a touchstone underground, leave a lantern at it and shut it off. If you die, you'll want a source of light that'll help get you back.

And the last thing? If you do die, make sure your valuable stones, gems, and minerals are in the backpack (earthquakes destroy gems and rocks on the ground)... and pray there aren't any Splumonkeys nearby...

[Healfree]

2 hours ago, Learner said:

About characters, #1: Willow is a fair choice for the caves, as sanity can be managed rather easily with a fire. She requires some amount of stat management with her small sanity pool of 100, but it's a lot easier to maintain compared to Webber. In addition to that, she can cook mushrooms wherever with her lighter. (Yes! Willow... can cook food... with her lighter... in stacks even!)

Really interesting input and I really did miss Willow on characters part so thats on me, also my partner played willow with me in the cave and was pretty much helpful. 

2 hours ago, Learner said:

Sorry Healfree, but I disagree. Though it's true that I always carry a lantern, it is not my primary source of light. (At best, my lantern is my backup light source, or to illuminate a fight.) My primary light source is my Miner's Helmet. That being said, that item is prototyped at the Alchemy engine anyhow.

It depends on your playstyle really I mostly play as Wigfrid so I always wear a battle helm coz I always wanted to be rdy for anything but that doesn't change the fact that you need to rush an alchemy engine for the Illuminating items

 

I mean this is good this is what I was looking for, good critism to have more input in this so this guide can be updated to be better thank you .

Don't hold back guys smack me with opinions if you believe it's better or more correct / suitable. 

 

[werlpolf]

In short a description, how I go for caves and ruins and why.

Reasons for going into cave: you want a "hidden" base, you want gold and gems and do magic. Especially as Wigfrid you need alot of gold and can avoid the hunting of pig houses. You even can craft helmets for other players! This are my main reasons why I head down below.

Reasons for going into ruins: even more "hidden" base XD, you get awesome stuff, have awesome challanges

1. First base: You can make your first science machine either somewhere above or in a cave "behind" a cave exit in the dark. Above best is near spiders - so you can farm silk. In case you cannot find any flints or gold in the upper world (for example because the world is older), you head down living in caves - the cave entrances are then often already open. Not later then after 2 earthquakes you ll ve enough materials for science machine. During that time get food (bunnymen, normal spiders in caves, mushrooms) and twigs, grass and wood. Flints are no problem in caves. You can also kill the stronger spiders and eat their monster meat and use spider gland or healing salve - lightbulbs are good for ashes.

2. Second base: When you get enough food, grass, twigs and some wood, head to the middle into the cave where you find the 'lightbulb' biome with tall stalagmites. Alternatively you can go to a red mushroom forest with normal stalagmites, which drop also blue gems. Use the lighbbulbs to save your light source while mining. You can also light the slurtle mounds and slurtle to get more earthquakes. When you get enough gold and rocks for crockpot and alchemy engine, you return and make or enhance your first base "behind" a cave exit. Now you can make a lantern! Alternatively you can make the base somewhere in the lightbulb biome, since it is directly in the middle, so you reach everything - including all cave exits and ruins - in an acceptable amount of time.

3. Preparation for going into ruins: collect 40 rocks, grass and twigs. If you want to make drying racks collect 80 grass. Take around 20 pine cones with you XD. Have enough silk for tent or prebuilt it. Prebuild Prestihatitator, firepit and another alchemy engine and crockpot. You can hammer your previous structures and reuse the materials if you want. As Wigfrid take 20 gold - as other character take additionally 40 logs and 40 grass. Oh and take enough food with you - maybe for 3 or 2 days, since it can take a while to find the ruins and a good base spot.

4. Third base: Go to / Search the ruins. On the lightbulb biome you collect around 40 lightbulbs. Now pass the wilds and a village biome until you reach a big quadratic platform with an ancient statue in the middle (sorry no picture). Mine that statue and replace it with your firepit. Build your base like you want. Now you are in between the village biome (monkeys - endless food - and thelecite) and a sacred biome (awesome stuff and challanges (use your tent)). After establishing the base, I aim first for a gear to build a fridge.

5. Adventuring: Go fighting and collecting awesome gems. When you get a green gem, search for an ancient pseudoscience station. Upgrade it with thelecite, craft your green amulet and use it to craft crowns.

Thats it!!

[Serph]

One of these is very wrong. Bunnymen aren't "cave pigs" (both function so differently is not even comparable), their loot looks better but pig skin is much more useful than bunny fur and they're not hostile by default, only if you're carrying meat. I guess you never realized that because you play Wigfrid?

[werlpolf]

8 minutes ago, Serph said:

pig skin is much more useful than bunny fur

True, you can either fight pigs with football helmets or bunny without armor and sleep later with a fur roll to heal. For sleep you need more food. Bunnies give more food

[Healfree]

27 minutes ago, Serph said:

One of these is very wrong. Bunnymen aren't "cave pigs" (both function so differently is not even comparable), their loot looks better but pig skin is much more useful than bunny fur and they're not hostile by default, only if you're carrying meat. I guess you never realized that because you play Wigfrid?

I wasn't just implying of them being "pigs" since their drop is different so do their mechanics , I was trying to bring the closest thing to pigs inside the caves which is the bunnymen 

20 hours ago, Healfree said:

basically almost everything in the cave is hostile to everyone

I did say "almost" here for a reason and yes I'm fully aware they are hostile if you carry meat and since when did I say they are hostile by default ? 

20 hours ago, Healfree said:

( unless you wanna make a pig farm which is pretty nice inside the cave )

I encouraged to make pig farm in the cave for obvious reasons here since you won't find pigs inside the cave which bunnymen aren't pigs

[Snowhusky5]

a few corrections to OP:

Willow has 150 sanity, not 100

Abigail can indeed kill a depths worm all by herself (but will die vs 2 or 3) because she can still hit them while they are hiding underground

In DST, you can find regular spider nests underground, in the same biome the cave exits/entrances are, so you don't necessarily need to bring them down from the surface

As someone else pointed out, the Tam'o'Shanter's sanity bonus is stronger than the caves' sanity drain. Also, iirc, Wendy can wear a top hat to get net-0 sanity in the caves

Also, living underground is great for magic, since gems will literally fall from the sky ceiling, and you can get them from stalagmites (the crooked ones only drop 1 type of gem, the mound ones drop red and blue). Plus, you can get nightmare fuel anytime you want.

Great guide though, lots of good tips.

[Healfree]

3 minutes ago, Snowhusky5 said:

a few corrections to OP:

Willow has 150 sanity, not 100

Abigail can indeed kill a depths worm all by herself (but will die vs 2 or 3) because she can still hit them while they are hiding underground

In DST, you can find regular spider nests underground, in the same biome the cave exits/entrances are, so you don't necessarily need to bring them down from the surface

As someone else pointed out, the Tam'o'Shanter's sanity bonus is stronger than the caves' sanity drain. Also, iirc, Wendy can wear a top hat to get net-0 sanity in the caves

Also, living underground is great for magic, since gems will literally fall from the sky ceiling, and you can get them from stalagmites (the crooked ones only drop 1 type of gem, the mound ones drop red and blue). Plus, you can get nightmare fuel anytime you want.

Great guide though, lots of good tips.

Ty for this input will fix the number in guide  

[t0panka]

Dude you should really play more DST in caves/ruins before making guide for other (unexperienced) players to see! Lot of information is wrong/incorrect

[Healfree]

11 minutes ago, t0panka said:

Dude you should really play more DST in caves/ruins before making guide for other (unexperienced) players to see! Lot of information is wrong/incorrect

I'll be happy if you point them out I can't help if u misunderstood stuff and as I said this guide is still being updated by ppl supporting it with "good" critism and opinions not bashing ppl out for personal preferences .

[Learner]

12 minutes ago, t0panka said:

Dude you should really play more DST in caves/ruins before making guide for other (unexperienced) players to see! Lot of information is wrong/incorrect

Well since you clearly seem to see so many issues on the list here... surely you wouldn't mind sharing or pointing out those issues right? The OP is welcoming of criticism. Or are you going to be the guy who says "You're wrong" and doesn't say why?

Also Healfree, just an fyi, and I forgot to point this out, you can feed lightbulbs to pigs to get manure easily.

[Snowhusky5]

Once you are done editing and expanding this guide, you should put it in the steam guides section

[Healfree]

Just now, Snowhusky5 said:

Once you are done editing and expanding this guide, you should put it in the steam guides section

Might will do so but as you can see it's still need lot of tweaking with help from other cave campers with really good experience also with my personal new discoveries towards any subject that have to do with caves .

[t0panka]

@Healfree i saw more posts from you with incorrect information as "help" to others and i always wrote what was wrong so thats why i didnt bother to pick out your wall of text because you still continue. Yesterday you didnt even know there are ruins in caves ... i told you about it and today you made guide about caves? Why make guide when you don't know about half of the caves?

I had this page open since it is wall of text to read it later and i read it just now - UNedited version - and post comment, you changed lot of stuff

- worms are not harder waves - there is less of them and they have simple attack pattern where you can group them and kill them one by one whatever the number is. Not like hounds where they are a lot harder to kill without traps in big numbers

- bunnies are totally different mob than pigs - attack pattern, walking, behaviour, etc.

- yellow spiders from above world have double HP = 400 and i think that white spiders = same as those yellow have the same HP as in DS (i could be wrong here tho)

- big tentacles give you only 1 time "wormhole" and then you need to defeat it again

- you forget about all mobs that are in ruins which is part of caves now

- there is "morning" in caves, there are more parts of caves that have light coming from above where you can see the above world "time" and also bulbs (maybe some other stuff) are working with that time in mind so this "time" is still working in caves but yes you can sleep in tent all the time

- there is also miner hat and most importantly moogles which are the best you can make for "light" in caves

- the weather is without rain only in summer and other 3 season is raining little bit or heavily in spring + freezing in winter. Also in summer you dont overheat in caves only when you stand next to normal fire/firepit

- of course you can make stop the sanity drain, same as you can stop it in night above. You can use Top Hat + dapper vest or thelucite armor or hibernation vest to stop the sanity drain. Or just wear Tam and you are set

- earthquakes also spawn red and blue gems, you can also "make" earthquake with igniting gunpowder or slurter slime, also moles and rabbits will drop from ceiling so you dont need to go up to take those jsut wait for few earthquakes and if you see them drop you can pick them up right away before they start to "live"

 

Wont be commenting on every character since what you wrote is about how you can play them and most of what you wrote is just about sanity and since that is not that much of a problem when you know how to deal with sanity its just matter of  preferences which character you play.

But about "avoid" characters: Wicker is OP character for whatever and she has only problem with sanity but with sanity items or blue/green mushrooms she is good to go. Woodie - i have one friend who always plays Woodie and he doesnt even use much of sanity clothing/hats since he can manage that with wood/ chopping stuff + getting quick good with woodie in caves is really good and also spawning tree guards is needed for magic/dark swords/ thelucite items. Wigfrid will never outclass Wolfgang in matter of fighting = this is again only about sanity

- imo mushrooms doesnt regrow so fast

- better area to create camp is actually in ruins in that bulb biome with brown turf since you get there a lot of light for free from bulbs and also there are usually other biomes around this area  + it is also close to ancient station

- i dont have much experience with farms in caves but last time we tested that farms didnt work in caves without manure

- you can make rabbit wars with just 1 carrot - no need to destroy their homes

- there are tiny areas around bunny hutches where there is light and this is enough for planting flowers for bees so this is doable even in ruins = honey is needed for taffy - if this is what you need to use for sanity. With this small circle of light you can have lot of beeboxes working in caves/ruins

- earthquakes also destroy walls so if you have for example chest full of rocks surrounded with walls as a protection against slimes you need to run out of camp when earthquake hits - its not fun repairing them all the time

- with worm waves you just need to learn their simple attack pattern and after that you can kill all 5 of them at once (1by1) or just befirend spiders, lobsters, pigs to kill them for you, bunnies (maybe pigs too?) will agro them automatically so just lure them to your bunnie village. Also worms will aggro on almost anything imo so if you dont have experience just run to some other mob or just run away

- yes you need to know more about caves to have better experience and that is there are ruins together with caves in one "world" so there is no 2nd level of caves in DST it is just everything in one place

[Healfree]

8 minutes ago, t0panka said:

Yesterday you didnt even know there are ruins in caves ... i told you about it and today you made guide about caves?

Ruins is a totally optional area , however saying you need to know about ruins to survive cave camping is like saying you need to know how to kill a moosgoos to survive spring .. that is a dead wrong thought .

11 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- worms are not harder waves - there is less of them and they have simple attack pattern where you can group them and kill them one by one whatever the number is. Not like hounds where they are a lot harder to kill without traps in big numbers

that's totally a personal preference and as an inexperienced player would you rather him fight a hound or a depth worm ? 

12 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- big tentacles give you only 1 time "wormhole" and then you need to defeat it again

Indeed big tentacles give you teleportation if you defeat it and I will include the 1 time only thx for the input .

 

14 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- there is "morning" in caves, there are more parts of caves that have light coming from above where you can see the above world "time" and also bulbs (maybe some other stuff) are working with that time in mind so this "time" is still working in caves but yes you can sleep in tent all the time

Morning in cave doesn't function as a normal morning their function is completely different than morning so I secluded that to avoid misunderstandings  ( i.e if you build a pigs house in the dark they will never leave their home even if it's morning outside just like permanent dusk and night ).

 

17 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- there is also miner hat and most importantly moogles which are the best you can make for "light" in caves

I included most of the illumination items for caves to avoid contradiction with ppl's preferences .

 

20 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- of course you can make stop the sanity drain, same as you can stop it in night above. You can use Top Hat + dapper vest or thelucite armor or hibernation vest to stop the sanity drain. Or just wear Tam and you are set

Was noted from previous replies some items could make it completely stop and it's on the editing .

 

22 minutes ago, t0panka said:

you can also "make" earthquake with igniting gunpowder or slurter slime

ty for this input will include it in the guide .

 

23 minutes ago, t0panka said:

Wigfrid will never outclass Wolfgang in matter of fighting = this is again only about sanity

On 3/7/2016 at 11:30 PM, Healfree said:

Wigfrid can pretty much outclass him ( inside the cave )

I did mention it in the guide she can outclass him inside the cave which for cave camping , outside I personally say no Wolfgang hit harder and move faster but temporary in this state he does outclass Wigfrid .

and again for Woodie and Wickerbottom I'd still say for new cave campers to avoid picking them unless you really know how to maintain them .

27 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- imo mushrooms doesnt regrow so fast

compared to outside they are MUCH faster regrowing .

 

29 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- i dont have much experience with farms in caves but last time we tested that farms didnt work in caves without manure

I mentioned pig farms, give a pig flowers or bulbs ( bulbs as Learner mentioned ) and he will poop for eternity  .

 

30 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- you can make rabbit wars with just 1 carrot - no need to destroy their homes

I personally destroy their homes for a quick resources as a head start, ton of boards , ton of fur , ton of food and besides what do you need the bunnymen for after you destroy lets say 8 houses ? carrot and meat ? I'd rather go for a big batch of boards , fur , food in the start .

 

34 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- there are tiny areas around bunny hutches where there is light and this is enough for planting flowers for bees so this is doable even in ruins = honey is needed for taffy - if this is what you need to use for sanity. With this small circle of light you can have lot of beeboxes working in caves/ruins

I included the Bee Boxes section in the guide much more detailed

 

36 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- earthquakes also destroy walls so if you have for example chest full of rocks surrounded with walls as a protection against slimes you need to run out of camp when earthquake hits - its not fun repairing them all the time

good input about earthquakes will include it .

38 minutes ago, t0panka said:

- with worm waves you just need to learn their simple attack pattern and after that you can kill all 5 of them at once (1by1) or just befirend spiders, lobsters, pigs to kill them for you, bunnies (maybe pigs too?) will agro them automatically so just lure them to your bunnie village. Also worms will aggro on almost anything imo so if you dont have experience just run to some other mob or just run away

I did include lobsters and pigs for protection against worms however lobsters and pigs won't kill them they can TANK them for you pigs are weak against them but considered an ok protection and lobsters will go into permanent rock state once the worm did enough damage into it .

[Serph]

2 hours ago, Snowhusky5 said:

a few corrections to OP:

Willow has 150 sanity, not 100

No, Willow has 120 sanity, not 150 or 100.

Why everybody keeps sayingg it wrong? It's like only 2 or 3 people ever played Willow around here.

 

[t0panka]

1 minute ago, Healfree said:

Ruins is a totally optional area , however saying you need to know about ruins to survive cave camping is like saying you need to know how to kill a moosgoos to survive spring .. that is a dead wrong thought .

ruins is part of caves so you are excluding one huge part of the world ... and also it is not about survive but about camping

that's totally a personal preference and as an inexperienced player would you rather him fight a hound or a depth worm ? 

worms TOP is 5 ... dogs TOP is whatever the number but a lot more than 5

Morning in cave doesn't function as a normal morning their function is completely different than morning so I secluded that to avoid misunderstandings  ( i.e if you build a pigs house in the dark they will never leave their home even if it's morning outside just like permanent dusk and night ).

This is just not true. Pigs will still go out of their houses. I build pig house few days ago in ruins and pigs went out without problem. Also bunnies are still going in/out of hutches because of dusk/night/morning.

compared to outside they are MUCH faster regrowing .

Hmm didn't know about this ... i have to test it later. Thanks for info tho

I personally destroy their homes for a quick resources as a head start, ton of boards , ton of fur , ton of food and besides what do you need the bunnymen for after you destroy lets say 8 houses ? carrot and meat ? I'd rather go for a big batch of boards , fur , food in the start .

You didn't live in caves long enough probably because bunnies are the BEST resource for food, protection. farming, etc.

With this "new" forums i don't know how to quote properly so i had to do it this way

[Snowhusky5]

@t0panka @Healfree, about the mushrooms, their regrowth is based on rain, and caverain happens pretty often, so mushrooms will regrow faster in caves.

I was under the impression that explosions couldn't start earthquakes in DST, but after looking at the code I see I am indeed wrong. Do you know if gunpowder / slurtle slime is guaranteed to start an earthquake every time?

 

[werlpolf]

45 minutes ago, Snowhusky5 said:

Do you know if gunpowder / slurtle slime is guaranteed to start an earthquake every time?

I ve looked up in the past. Every quake has the following time until it starts (components.quaker.lua)

nextquake = function() return TUNING.TOTAL_DAY_TIME + math.random() * TUNING.TOTAL_DAY_TIME * 2 end,

2 days are 480 and 3 days are 720.

A slurtle explosions deals 300 (tuning.slurtle_explode_damage) on that value. Means, if the next quake is going to happen in 480 seconds(?) you would need to explode 3 2 slurtles.

But the slurtle slime and the slurtle hole do only 50 dmg(?) as I can see.

[Snowhusky5]

1 hour ago, werlpolf said:

I ve looked up in the past. Every quake has the following time until it starts (components.quaker.lua)

nextquake = function() return TUNING.TOTAL_DAY_TIME + math.random() * TUNING.TOTAL_DAY_TIME * 2 end,

2 days are 480 and 3 days are 720.

A slurtle explosions deals 300 (tuning.slurtle_explode_damage) on that value. Means, if the next quake is going to happen in 480 seconds(?) you would need to explode 3 2 slurtles.

But the slurtle slime and the slurtle hole do only 50 dmg(?) as I can see.

Ah, I didn't see that particular line of code, although I did look around in quaker. So I guess gunpowder doesn't do enough damage to guarantee a quake, unless you explode 3.6 of them, at 200 damage each, but it will make the next quake come a little less than a day sooner. Also, if I calculated correctly, there are 30 ticks per minute,  because 1 day is 8 minutes/240 ticks, so 200 ticks is just under 1 day.

[Learner]

@t0panka I have firsthand experience that farms grow in caves. Every time I've gotten the manure to make a farm down there, I've done so. In one particular case, where I completed a 2nd farm beside the first, I ended up realizing that a farm requires direct light from the ceiling to grow. If it's on the fringes of the light radius, it doesn't grow. Basically, I got to witness 1 farm that did grow, and 1 farm that didn't, and they were right next to each other!

Also, in regards to the differences between hounds and Depth Worms (in this particular case, we're a character with a normal damage modifier, and spears)... each (regular) hound takes 5 hits to kill with a spear. The elemental ones take 3.

A single depth worm takes 27. Bear in mind that they're not even easily stun-locked, and are burrowed in the ground for some percentage of the time. They're also not vulnerable to ice staffs or sleeping effects.

What about damage? Well, at most, we can have 10 hounds per player. Normal hounds do 20 damage, and elementals do 30. If we have normal hounds (because the elementals show up at chance), then that's 200 potential damage if all 10 attack (and were all normal hounds. Frankly, it'd be a much harder wave if we only got normal hounds). We remove 20 of that damage for every 1 hound we can kill with 5 fairly easy hits.

1 Depth Worm can deal 75 damage, and we can get up to 3 PER PLAYER for each wave. 3 Depth Worms will equal 225 damage. Depth worms also do not chase you for very long unlike hounds which means leading them into mobs that agro against them is out of the question (and also means that unlike that group of 10 hounds that you can spread across the map, the worms are focused on a certain area). They typically stay close to their point of origin (it's not even a matter of them not being able to keep up, they will turn their butts right back around if you try to lead them too far), and are not very active when going after mobs. Because they can also return to a dormant underground state, they're protected from attack and aggression until something gets THEIR attention.

In short... depth worms are much much worse. They'll usually just gank you, because they rarely display an understanding of the concept of 'single file' or '1-at-a-time' like hounds do... and if you're living in the caves with another player, you're going to get these things in even larger numbers. Basically... while you'll manage if you get stun-locked by a few hounds... letting the same happen to you by these things is going to be the near-death of you.

Let's also not forget that these things are better at being silent killers. It's easier then you might think to not hear their digging and burrowing. Also, because they'll sometimes just immediately start going for you the moment you return to their area, you can't use their lures to help you remember if there was still one at any particular place. I've in fact had an occasion where I've been led to think that I just killed the last one, only to remove my armor, and be jump-scared by another one that was waiting by surprise.

Don't. Ever. Underestimate. Depth Worms.

[t0panka]

@Learner cool about those farms ... didn't know that ... well i don't use them at all and usually im camping in ruins so when there is that tiny light near bunny hutch i will use it for flowers and beeboxes since that is much better use of that space for me

About worms your "math" is really logical but still i feel its easy to kill 3 worms (did Klei change the TOP from 5 to 3? O.o) than to kill 10 hounds because yes you are getting them almost "one by one" but i don't know much about that wave of 10 hounds since i alway have big ass trap field for them at that point of game but you can't "reset" and synchronise hounds like you can worms so they are doing the "first" attack all at once and you can kite them really easily.

Also as i said before bunnies are the best resource in caves and we always have them near cave base so just go stand near few hutches and worms have no chance = carrots, meat, monster meat, bunny puffs, glow berries AND shinning bunnies hopping around after eating glow berry .)

[Learner]

@t0panka I don't see how you reset Depth Worms. When I fight a Depth Worm, usually after the first bite, I can get a hit or 2 in, after which it'll be stun-locked and resurface so I can get 3 or more hits in, while the 2nd bite/the follow-up is simply just that, an attack. It'll try to bite, and hit or miss, return to the soil and wait for the next attack. Basically, as the wiki explains... Depths Worms will always follow the same attack pattern: attacking once, followed by a brief resurface, then a second attack followed by no resurface. It is possible to get 4-5 hits in after the first attack, during the initial diving and subsequent surfacing.

Depth Worms are a breeze to fight 1-on-1 because of that, but once you get more then 1, it just becomes harder because typically, that resurfacing issue combined with stun-lock delay/hastening throws them off sync very easily: the first hit you land after their 1st bite interrupts their attack recovery animation, and immediately begins their resurfacing animation. Now they're thrown off sync, so one worm starts their first bite sooner (aka the time to strike), while the 2nd worm plays leap frog and comes a sec later to punish you if you try to hit them at their most vulnerable moment, and I like my fights to be flawless.

1 worm is 15-30 seconds. 2 worms is 2-4 minutes. 3 worms can be anywhere between 10 seconds of running, or 6+ minutes of running & fighting.

One last thing regarding Depth Worms: they burrow! That means they're immune to most traps!! That's the big key difference between hounds and Depth Worms! You can pass off a few hounds on some unfortunate creature, lead them through a field of traps, or strand the wave across the map, but those Depth Worms have to personally handled by something.

Anyhow, my typical camping location is almost always near stairs. (Usually, it's not very close to any Bunny Hatches. I don't know why, but it seems to be the typical outcome. I tried to live near a single one, but it kept being inconvenient so often that it just made health management a hassle.) Anyhow, that's because not only do the sunken forests near the stairs provide the most trees, grass and sticks (which are easily transplanted, sure), and not only do those stairs provide an easy escape option (usually to my convenience somewhere near a surface camp that I'm welcomed at), but frankly those surrounding areas around the stairs usually have multiple ceiling lights with good coverage, and that makes all the difference.

In my opinion, rabbits are not the 'most important resource' unless you main Wigfrid or something... which I don't. She's my least used character. Woodie is a close 2nd. For comparison, my 3rd least used character is Wes. Besides, Wigfrid players do not show typical player behavior for caves because right from the start, they... like on the surface... almost always have their Battle Helmets equipped rather then Mining Helmets like most other sensible people do, especially for ruin exploration. Seriously, if a player was using Wigfrid and was following their 'Battle Helmet is law' rule, how would they light up a fight in the ruins without resorting to a resource costly fire, a lantern, or a magical yellow-gemmed item? You can't trust those Splumonkey jerks, shadow hands will be all too pleased to steal your fire the moment your sanity allows them to, and we can't assume that the player sanity will remain full, even if they prepared for a real trip, which typically go deep and take lots of time. And for me, sanity management is either a matter of bringing a few easy to obtain mushrooms. For Wigfrid, they'd have to either sleep in the ruins, or prepare days in advance with lots of jerky. (This is why I don't see Wigfrid as a good character for ruins exploration.)

If we're all being honest here, the lofty title of 'most important resource' either belongs to mushrooms, or to light bulbs instead.

Frankly, I despise the fact that rabbits eat glow berries because it's such a waste! They're also inconvenient if meat or meatballs is typically your primary source of hunger (which seems to be always if I don't have bacon and eggs, or a stack of blue mushrooms instead). I get more food from Moleworms then I do from rabbits.

Anyhow... in my opinion... 1 imprisoned bird, 1 spider nest (and time which equals moleworms) is worth more to me then 5-10 potentially angry or rage-inducing rabbits.