Ideas to improve my cave base.

[loled]

Hi i want some tips to improve my dst cave base plan. 

I reroll a server with my girlfriend after running 200 days on another one.

We play with endless, she plays wigfrid, i play wickerbottom. Generally i am good with leading the duo, so i do the planning of food, and resources and i prefer to let her scout and fight, while i i tell her what we need to do on the next 10-20 days.

So the plan is.We live in a "natural way", so we avoid disturbing the balance of nature. I prefer renewable methods in everything and build bases for perpetual growth. More specifically, caves are the fort.

Everything we want to preserve we put it there. A stock of grass/twigs/trees/pig houses/spiders/farms some tech machines and random fire pits around, are build so the place is safe enough. The plan is, underground we dont do ANYTHING risky. (like big fires, or making charcoal). So even if a nuclear blast happens in above, in caves the life goes on. In summer we always go down, and sometimes in others seasons too.

Last time we were 3 people, so we didnt need a big base, (because someone would to the labor of doing something every day, like 1 does the base keeping and the rest scout, so we switch every 4-5 days)

Now i am thinking of a more passive income base. It needs some time to be build, but has low maintainance afterwards, (or at least, high reward).

So, the cave base.

Around fishing ponds, light flowers, grass and twigs. I plant maximum 2 spider nests close. Fish and spiders can be used for meatballs, fish sticks, or bacon (when i will have the bird)

20  Drying racks. When i farm birds with books, i dont get more than 40-45 morsels. So in 2 days i have all jerkies we will need for quite a time. Gradually i will have a total of 30 drying racks. More will have little functional meaning and more like "big and prestigious base".

16 Pig houses. So we can kill 4 pigs everyday should we need, and the new pigs will spawn before we run out.

10-15 farms. Well i will use them for my own dragonpies.Wigfrid  cant eat them.

I have tried bee boxes but i dont get any honey in caves. (a year passed, with the flowers next to the beebox, nothing happened)

 

So we have jerkies for heal and sanity, fish, for a steady supply, of bacons/fishsticks/jerkies, the common plants needed, pig houses, for bigger recipes/jerkies and pig skins (since we dont need helmets, we will just use them to hire more pigs, make more houses, or give pig king for gold), farms to heal me, so wigfrid can have the meat she wants.

What am i missing?

[Arlesienne]

Wait a second, how do you get pigs to spawn in the caves? It's constantly nighttime for them (so they don't leave their houses). Or am I wrong?

The same with bees. If you put the apiary away from the base, however, several screens away, the game should switch to the simplified honey production rate of one honey per day or something similar.

I would clearly go for tents as they help with sanity. With spiders, they will be renewable. Also, lots of traps near spiders so that you can farm their glands, meat and silk. Catch one bird on the surface, it will be enough. If you spot a sleeping one at night, place a bird trap next to it for a certain catch.

Rabbit hutches are useful if you want to farm meat for big jerkies, but remember bunnymen will be aggressive to those with meat in the inventory. The same for fish and eggs. 

[DarkXero]

3 hours ago, Arlesienne said:

Wait a second, how do you get pigs to spawn in the caves? It's constantly nighttime for them (so they don't leave their houses). Or am I wrong?

They rely on light. When a new day starts, pigs check for the light level near they house.

So if you have pigs near cave stairs, they will behave like pigs on the overworld.

Same thing for flowers. In the dark, they perish. In the light, they survive.

[Arlesienne]

11 hours ago, DarkXero said:

They rely on light. When a new day starts, pigs check for the light level near they house.

So if you have pigs near cave stairs, they will behave like pigs on the overworld.

Same thing for flowers. In the dark, they perish. In the light, they survive.

That would mean Loled has to set up his or her base right in the initial cave. I am uncertain if this is the case. Base-moving may be required. And what about the full moon mechanics? Will the pigs go back to their houses at dusk if the sinkhole light is still there?

[Clwnbaby]

Here you go.  I love an opportunity to share this

 

[DarkXero]

6 hours ago, Arlesienne said:

And what about the full moon mechanics?

Full moon doesn't appear in caves.

6 hours ago, Arlesienne said:

Will the pigs go back to their houses at dusk if the sinkhole light is still there?

Yes.

[loled]

While i have no signs of beeboxes working in caves, pig houses are just fine.

I though today, that maybe i could add a source of sustainable berry farm. 1 berry to pig= 1 manure= 4 berry uses. Net profit is 3 berry uses.

So if i transplant 40 berries, I must keep the 1/4, so 10 berries.The rest goes for usage. 30 berries /3 = 10 times fillers for meatballs.=9 or 8 days for both players. If i use 1-2 times the book, we have food (hunger wise) for the whole season.

[Arlesienne]

The apiary, if away from the screen, with flowers and light, ought to work, though one honey per day at most. As per the wiki...

Even though Caves have their own day and night cycle and are in a permanent summer, Bee Boxes built underground will not spawn Bees. This is true even if the Box is built in a place where natural light can be found. The same applies to the Ruins since it is considered a permanent night there. However, if the Boxes are far enough from the player, the simplified model of Honey production will take over and Honey will be produced at a rate of 1 per day, in both Caves and Ruins. If the Bee Box is then harvested, the bees will emerge and engage the player. When they disengage, they will behave, as on the surface, according to the time of day (i.e. stay out and visit flowers or return to the box).

This is why the apiary must be far from the camp.

[CameoAppearance]

The wiki's talking about singleplayer caves, which are set up differently (ruins are integrated into the DST caves instead of being their own level). You may still be right about the bees though.

[loled]

Turns out, i was away for a longer time than i should. Apparently there is "disease" that makes one of the books almost useless.

I will check wickerbottom, a bit more, else i will just switch to the next maxwell (for me at least)

[TheOracle]

The main thing about disease is when you transplant things between overworld and cave when one has a different variant resource (ex: surface has twiggy trees and you transplant saplings from cave to surface, they will become diseased). I heard putting savannah turf under places where you plant grass will help protect it, though. Also the spiky 3 leaved berry bushes you sometimes find in pig villiages seem to not get diseased if you find them, so they are safe to move around.

You also don't need to use your berries on pigs for manure, if you grab a lot of lightbulbs or lichen (there are usually big areas of them at the start of the ruins), you can feed those to pigs for manure, or just let them turn to rot since they have a quick spoil time. If you werepig one of the pigs and drop a few stacks of lightbulbs, it will rain manure.

I have kept bee boxes fine in caves before, just make sure both the bee boxes and flowers are in the light pools. Flowers wither and bees sleep in total dark spots.

Maxwell in a cave base sounds a bit annoying, his workers will be 1 shotted by falling rocks in earthquakes.

[Arlesienne]

But Maxwell will have the easiest time in the caves when it comes to sanity. Nobody has to use puppets. Earthquakes can be avoided or turned off.

[AnonymousKoala]

17 hours ago, loled said:

Turns out, i was away for a longer time than i should. Apparently there is "disease" that makes one of the books almost useless.

I will check wickerbottom, a bit more, else i will just switch to the next maxwell (for me at least)

Not really useless.

Grass can be saved from disease. Juicy Berry Bushes should also regrow thanks to applied horticulture(the book I assume you referred), twiggy tree saplings will grow into twiggy trees I assume, and I'm not sure, but maybe it even works on the Grass Gekkos' tail.

[RayramAB]

Bees actually do come out in caves on their own accord, I've personally seen it, and have witnessed them produce honey at the normal rate even though our cave base is fairly close to them. They must be placed under a sunlight area though. As for pigs, recent updates have allowed them to come out of their houses even in darker areas away from sunlight.

[loled]

Nice idea with lightbulbs for manure.

Well, on bees, i have yet to see one out of box (yes i have flowers)

[Arlesienne]

When I get more time, I will test it for you.

[TheTraditionalGentleman]

On 5/9/2016 at 0:15 PM, DarkXero said:

Full moon doesn't appear in caves.

Yes.

Wait a minute. So if full moon doesn't happen in caves, could I, as Woodie, retreat to the caves before full moon hits and just wait it out down there???

[TheOracle]

9 minutes ago, TheTraditionalGentleman said:

Wait a minute. So if full moon doesn't happen in caves, could I, as Woodie, retreat to the caves before full moon hits and just wait it out down there???

Yes. One of my friends played Woodie in our games together and would do that quite a bit to avoid becoming a beaver.

[TheTraditionalGentleman]

11 hours ago, TheOracle said:

Yes. One of my friends played Woodie in our games together and would do that quite a bit to avoid becoming a beaver.

O:    so there is a cure! 

[Nickolas2600]

first off i suck at base building but secondly. I WISH I HAD FRIENDS THAT GOOD WITH ORGANIZATION. When I play with friends its chaos.  

[loled]

Tell me about it. I have 3 fridges of food and my pal is at the base, starving to death.