Living in the Caves

[Mencken]

While I have had bases in the caves they were strictly for practical purposes, either right next to the pseudoscience station for crafting (and a quick teleport jump to fuelweaver which I always find on the same level) or as resting/recuperation spot elsewhere in the ruins.   My approach to caves has always been about harvesting thulecite, gems, etc., it was just a road trip for goodies.    

 

A few days ago I stumbled upon a cave base and helped out with outfitting it, in the process I learned quite a bit and also appreciated it much more.    It is quiet in there, you only have depth worms to worry about and the supply of food is just endless (base next to huge mushroom tree biomes).    I think my next solo project will be a cave base.

[MondayNight]

Try a Sunken Forest biome for natural light (can make Bee Boxes that function properly, Advanced Farms - mainly for Dragonfruits - if you fancy them in a personal server with more longevity) close to green and/or blue mushtree forests.

Or Wilds biome, right at the liken area entrance to inner Ruins where a lot of Lightbulb plants grow - for a sufficient amount of time with natural light (also provisions for your Lanterns/Miner Hats and Mush Lights) - here you need Starcallers for farms to function (rather expensive, but on personal servers can be maintained via efficient DF and FW farming/ruins regen); example of such Wilds setup I did recently on an Endless dedicated server:

You can also clear a Cave Marsh of spiders and tentacles - those are very well lighten up spaces - and base there.

Bunnymen villages also provide brighten natural areas similar to mentioned above Marshes (although on a smaller scale), you can clear them (rebuilding later in a design that best suits your bunny-farming needs) and place your functional core base there.

 

Yet you can pretty much set "home" anywhere in Caves if you wanna challenge yourself/are into hardcore survival stuff.

[Mencken]

Good tips, so the stars must always be on? How do you have a wigfrid with 400 health?

[fimmatek]

32 minutes ago, Mencken said:

How do you have a wigfrid with 400 health?

They play WX, you can check at the bottom of the picture. They wear that evil skin, that's why it's so difficult to spot it on the cobbleroad!

[Rellimarual]

I’ve based in the lightfield as a challenge on public servers. For a while I even set myself the restriction of never going above ground after day 5. You do need a tam, but I managed to trade with the surface dwellers who had an extra tam for some moggles. I had the idea that if were a long term deal, I could also trade light berries to refuel the moggles for stuff like hounds teeth and beefalo wool to make carpet. I also had the dream of opening a sushi bar outside the ruins, serving unagi to weary travellers passing through.

BTW, this works best with Wig, who can counteract the constant sanity drain by killing things, especially spiders, until you get enough drying racks set up.

[Sinister_Fang]

1 hour ago, Rellimarual said:

BTW, this works best with Wig, who can counteract the constant sanity drain by killing things, especially spiders, until you get enough drying racks set up.

Maxwell is another good choice. You don't even need to worry about sanity most of the time.

[MondayNight]

7 hours ago, Mencken said:

Good tips, so the stars must always be on? How do you have a wigfrid with 400 health?

Crops seem to grow even without light, but wither right when are suppose to pop into final fruit/veggie form - a Dwarf Star prevents that. However farms down there, in Wilds biome for example, are just a challenging (and costly) alternative of getting Dragonfruits for the heck of it/very niche thing to do (you can setup more productively said farms under shafts of natural light specific to Sunken Forests or Cave Swamps; also Fishsticks via liken-area ponds and Pierogi are more efficient - yet need the 2s munching animation, which can be hazardous in certain situations, as opposed to eating Dragonpies).

Like fimmatek pointed, I was playing a Triumphant-skinned WX.

[Sinister_Fang]

28 minutes ago, xxVERSUSxy said:

Crops seem to grow even without light, but wither right when are suppose to pop into final fruit/veggie form - a Dwarf Star prevents that.

I've seen people carefully place fireflies before building their farms before. That seems a heck of a lot easier to maintain then a dwarf star. No player input required. Although I'm not sure how well it works. I've never actually tried it myself. Seems like it would do fine if you're not constantly walking over them.

[MondayNight]

If one stands in base most of the time - a Cave non-shafts light camp - one could test that and see if actually effective and in what capacity (tier 1, 2 or 3 fire, proximity etc) for definitive info. Yet, again, one will need a lot of burning material to do so, and the efficiency of it all comes into question. Would be interesting though, epistemically, to do such a test.

[evantropia]

19 hours ago, xxVERSUSxy said:

Try a Sunken Forest biome for natural light (can make Bee Boxes that function properly, Advanced Farms - mainly for Dragonfruits - if you fancy them in a personal server with more longevity) close to green and/or blue mushtree forests.

Or Wilds biome, right at the liken area entrance to inner Ruins where a lot of Lightbulb plants grow - for a sufficient amount of time with natural light (also provisions for your Lanterns/Miner Hats and Mush Lights) - here you need Starcallers for farms to function (rather expensive, but on personal servers can be maintained via efficient DF and FW farming/ruins regen); example of such Wilds setup I did recently on an Endless dedicated server:

You can also clear a Cave Marsh of spiders and tentacles - those are very well lighten up spaces - and base there.

Bunnymen villages also provide brighten natural areas similar to mentioned above Marshes (although on a smaller scale), you can clear them (rebuilding later in a design that best suits your bunny-farming needs) and place your functional core base there.

 

Yet you can pretty much set "home" anywhere in Caves if you wanna challenge yourself/are into hardcore survival stuff.

Awesome base