GUIDE 14

Caves

A finite, dark and dangerous underground world where prepared survivors can find iron.

A SEPARATE WORLD

Enter through a surface entrance

A cave can only be reached through a visible entrance on the surface. Walking through the normal world cannot reveal its interior: find the entrance and interact with it to enter.

Inside, the floor is stone and solid walls close the area. The black boundaries are impassable. A cave is finite, not infinite, and it cannot contain another cave. It has an entrance and an exit so you can return to the surface.

Older saves remain compatible. Older caves also receive the extra rooms while preserving their entrance room and progress. No new save is needed.

Two sizes: 3 or 5 rooms

Small caves (60%) have 3 rooms. Large caves (40%) have 5 rooms. The large format is also called “medium” in some game data.

Narrow, winding passages connect the rooms. Caves are finite and their layouts remain stable between visits. There is no shortcut from the final room to the entrance: retrace your steps to leave.

RESOURCES

Iron is underground

Caves mainly contain stone and iron ore. Iron is no longer a surface mountain resource: find a cave entrance, bring a pickaxe and mine the ore inside.

Bring the iron back to camp and process it in a forge to make ingots and progress toward iron tools. The cave is therefore an exploration and progression step, not only scenery.

LIGHT AND COLD

Bring torches

A cave is dark even when it is daytime on the surface. Visibility is better around the player but remains limited, so the whole room is not visible at once. Torches are portable and can be placed to light the route.

Prepare several before entering. Place them near the entrance, at branches, around ore and along the way back. One torch is not always enough for a safe expedition.

The temperature is about 4 °C colder inside a cave. It does not rain inside, even when it rains outside. During a storm, thunder can still be heard, but the flashes are weaker.

Wolves and lava slimes

Wolves stay in the entrance room: 2 initially and up to 4 in a small cave, 3 initially and up to 6 in a large cave. More can appear in dark areas of that room. The Werewolf does not appear in caves.

Room 2: up to 2 lava slimes, 9 HP each.
Later intermediate rooms: up to 3 slimes, 12 HP each.
Final room: up to 5 slimes, 15 HP each.

Every slime deals 8 damage per attack, with at least 3 seconds between attacks. They pursue at 120 pixels/second, slowing to 75 pixels/second within 120 pixels of the player.

Slimes awaken when you enter their room. Once active, they can follow you into passages and other rooms. Defeated slimes can respawn after 3 minutes when their room is active. Once all five final slimes are defeated and the chest is opened, final-room slimes no longer respawn.

Cobwebs, ore and the final chest

Wall corners can hold up to 3 cobwebs in a small cave and 5 in a large cave, where suitable spots exist. Move close and break one with a spear to obtain 1 string. Broken webs stay recorded after reconnecting.

The final chest contains 1 base bandage and 2–3 iron ore in a small cave, or 4–5 iron ore in a large cave. An extra reward can be a blueprint or classic lot; an iron pickaxe is not guaranteed. Remaining contents are saved; reconnecting does not refill it.

Added intermediate rooms target 1–2 iron deposits and the final room 2–3, plus 3–4 rocks per room where terrain allows placement. These counts describe deposits, not harvested ore items.

PREPARE

A simple expedition plan

Take a pickaxe, several torches, food and water.
Enter before you get too cold or hungry: a cave is not a casual walk.
Place torches at the entrance and branches so you can recognize the way back.
Explore the rooms and branches, then mine iron without filling your inventory with low-priority items.
Keep the exit in mind. To return, go back to the cave entrance/exit and interact with it.

Remember: caves provide iron, but they require preparation for light, temperature, combat and the return route.

Blueprints and final chests in 0.7.0

A final chest can add a bed, forge, salt extractor, meat dryer or shovel blueprint to its base loot. Recover the blueprint from its slot to learn it: opening alone does not unlock it, and no bag slot is required.

New final chests no longer guarantee an iron pickaxe. Already initialized chests retain their previous contents, including empty slots. A natural chest stays visibly open and does not refill on return. See blueprint probabilities and classic loot details.