Micro Dungeons/Cave System Logic & Balance

This is kind of a two part thread.

In regards to the micro dungeons, how exactly will their logic work? In Armagon's last blog post he mentions that most micro dungeons won't be as easy to spot as the one in the screenshot he posted. Which to me, means they will be surrounded by more blocks and away from cave systems. Seems to me it'd be more logical that you'd find structures/mico dungeons along natural caves, seeing as to how someone had to dig there in order to build it.

Now, I do notice a teleport in the screenshot, so at least the logic of traveling between the micro dungeon and the surface/ship is there. That's good.

Right now the cave system is very poor in my opinion, with natural caves being way to small, and zero cave systems that delve deep into the planet. Personally I'd like to see some larger cave systems that connect more caves horizontally, and a few major cave systems that go all the way down to the bottom.

Basically it's a balance issue for me between exploring and mining. Sometimes I want to feel like an adventurer/explorer. You get that feeling by exploring natural caves. Other times I like to mine and make my own path. As of right now, however, it's all about digging, digging, digging. Having played the nightly builds and having to deal with the new zero ore on the surface thing, it's starting to feel like much more of a grind. I didn't feel this as much (even with the poor cave system) before the ore spawning was changed since I didn't always have to go down if I didn't feel like mining.

I hope they are able to implement some features or tweak some things to give us a good explore to mining balance. I'd much prefer to explore natural caves and then mine toward ore veins I see.

Any thoughts? Better natural cave systems (deeper, larger, etc?). Micro dungeons attached to natural cave systems? Fine as it is?

 

I'd also like to see better caves that are longer and go deeper underground. It would also be nice to have more reasons to explore, because at the moment it just feels like I'm exploring to find more decorative items.

 

Not to mention, making things easier to explore underground would be reason enough alone for a lot of people to explore. Right now I'm having a hard time wanting to explore the underground because I'm sick of digging so dang much.

 

What i got from the easy to spot comment that he mentioned, was that the terrain will blend better with most; making it less likely to be noticed at first. Not that there will be more distance to travel.

As in colors. The pic showed a clash of colors in terrain and dungeon, where it would be easy to notice. My guess is that most will blend with the colors of the terrain. Also could mean some could be biome specific... Whom is to say.

I do agree the cave system does need a bit of work, and looks like they have been improving it more from a past post. So at least it is going in the right direction in my opinion.