Now that we have caves, and flashlights, and more caves... Is this a Starbound x CHUD mashup? Oh yeah, and this looks awesome! Digging is going to be a lot more fun when there's things to find that don't end in "obblestone".
Will there be dungeons and special rooms generated underground with loot / enemies and whatnot? That would be real cool to have a lot of variation when caving, instead of just doing it for the ores. Caving never really appealed to me just because of the huge pain it was to get back, and how monotonous it was (in any sandbox game).
Yes, this doesn't replace the underground 'microdungeons' and different biomes and such, and we're working on adding more variety of those. Caves are only one (important) piece of the underground exploration.
That screenshot looks pretty neat. This looks like it will make cave exploration a lot more exciting. I hope that caves aren't made much more rare than what is shown in that screenshot. It looks perfect to me, no spots where you are forced to dig the caves out on your own, which is something I have found pretty annoying while playing this game.
This is fantastic, I've always thought spelunking in this game was kinda boring, but with the greater variability in size, structure and inter-connectivity, it should provide a much better experience. Being able to explore without constantly having to mine is gonna be great ^^. @metadept: Have you given any thought to how caves will work in ocean biomes? I imagine there will be a lot of flooding after generation.
I always love reading the technical explanations of how stuff works in the game. Especially when they're explained in nice layman's terms like this.
New cave generation is realy awsome and it means we'll have much more dangerous trips! But why not to add some hidden traps to make spelunking even more exiting? Imagine: you peacfuly digging ores, then you see a chest. You run to get the sweet loot, open the chest and... BAM! It explodes and sends you to heaven!
I think letting the caves this way is so awesome. This meets my explorer style. My brother is more like the digging style, he likes to dig. I think that when you make fewer caves bur in some spaces long caves will make the game so awesome. Maybe dwarfs!? huahuahuahu I just imaginating a type of radar that can tell how many pixels to the next air blob or to the next mineral. With a sound and not much explanation. This game is so nice! Hugs!
this is really impressive! I'm really glad you're making steps towards the connectivity of all the tunnels, and you're crazy smart. math like crazy! keep the long posts coming!
I hope the next step is to fill the caves with intersting things, from treasure to underground lakes to natural platforming sections to whatever else can be thought of to spice up the underground.
@metadept , wouldn't it be awesome if there was a way to disable this for certain planets? For instance, on a certain high-tier planet it is possible to run into a planet with an entire layer absolutely bored out and the rest of the planet solid. It's this kind of wacky stuff that would make a planet truly feel unique! Just a thought *shudders, remembering the days of the instakill pods from hell* No...not again...... ... .. . . .
Is it possible you will mix up the cave generation for different planet types? for example having tall drops in the caves in a toxic planet while having long flat caves for desert planets.
I like the idea of adding some new Dwarf-like NPCs and if they'll be added I want to see them in a dungeon or village where you can trade with their merchants to buy such stuff as pickaxes, ores, metall bars and weapons.