PC Exploration that was lost...

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minisith

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There is one main feature that I dearly missed and has my games feeling not as fulfilling. Caves. Some of the best exploring was in caves for the feeling of being trap in a small place below everything. It was a change of pace where when you finally had to come out of a cave or found an exit, experiencing the open sky after hours of not seeing it, maybe days, was a feeling like no other.

Is the cave system totally abandoned or is it going to be revived? The last I heard was they were adding it but with the bedrock level raised I do not know if the caves are still going to be a feature.

Give us back the cave system! My game is not the same as before when I could happen on a cave to jump down just to explore the tunnels or escape the hoard to get lost and hoping I do not starve to death.

 
I was just thinking this recently! My first ever game was on console and i found all kinds of caves in Random world. I didnt seem to find any in navesgame though.

 
I really miss this also. One of the best game-play experiences was in a deep a cave we needed to rescue a friend after he fell down by accident. Its sad that the developer remove more of the one unique thing about this game, the destructible world. They should build on it, came up with new ideas how to use it, instead they limit it and seem to be moving away from it. Soon they will be like any other survival game, and then they will lose against more well made games with better graphics.

 
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It’s not that they don’t want caves. They are optimizing and working on a new occlusion system that may solve the issues that were caused by caves. If it works out then there will be caves again and if it doesn’t there won’t be. Madmole has stated several times that he would like for there to be caves.

 
It’s not that they don’t want caves. They are optimizing and working on a new occlusion system that may solve the issues that were caused by caves. If it works out then there will be caves again and if it doesn’t there won’t be. Madmole has stated several times that he would like for there to be caves.
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Would love to see caves again, warts and all.

What ws the problem with them, Roland? Why remove them? What are they trying to fix?

 
The main problem was performance issues with players traveling faster in vehicles than the terrain could load. They have to be able have the world be stable for 8 players driving off in 8 different directions at maximum speed at the same time.

The problem is rooted in open interior spaces. The same problem occurs when you enter a town with lots of buildings. The open spaces within the buildings cause complex calculations that bog things down and make it hard for the game to keep up with players traveling at speed.

The new system is designed to fill up all the empty spaces with a filler block so that buildings and potentially caves register as one solid chunk of blocks with no interior spaces until the player gets close at which point the filler blocks disappear. That is gist of it at any rate.

 
The new system is designed to fill up all the empty spaces with a filler block so that buildings and potentially caves register as one solid chunk of blocks with no interior spaces until the player gets close at which point the filler blocks disappear. That is gist of it at any rate.
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Interesting. I still don't get why we do have cities atm but we don't have caves, if they are affected by the same problem. Also I would argue that cities are much harder to render and would impact performance much more.

 
I’m all for caves too, but really I don’t miss them enough to really care. The quality of experiencing the exploration of caves was minimal. There was never anything in them to give anyone a sense of awe. I was just happy to find some nitrate. Normally I am the kind of person who gets angry about things removed from the game. Maybe if they were better at least to the point where you could see some potential of them becoming impressive, I would be angry... but that just never happened for me with caves.

 
The original implementation in A11 was pretty impressive. They were complex, contained wights and other zombies and you could easily get lost.

 
The original implementation in A11 was pretty impressive. They were complex, contained wights and other zombies and you could easily get lost.
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Yeah see.. if I played A11, I would probably be mad at A12. I would have expressed my opinion, invested in arguments, and would have lost.

 
Yeah see.. if I played A11, I would probably be mad at A12. I would have expressed my opinion, invested in arguments, and would have lost.
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At least you would have been well calloused for A17... ;)

 
No matter even how someone liked the caves, maybe someone and really it didn't matter...

But if remove all from the game - will not play in what will be.

I can not remember what is really interesting for the gameplay added recently.

What? transport? is it interesting? this is in every other game enought, it's to get bored. In addition - the mini-bike has long been in the game.

What else? I really can't remember.... but i always remembering that now there are no caves...

New zombie intelligence? Everyone laughs at him, it's a shame... (all programmers are do mistake - but, this is even unacceptable to release outside the internal working build!)

The caves - were interesting feature.

I'd exchange all the transport for the caves that were in A11.

Even...perhaps....just if they removed all the transport, i would not be upset - it is was not needed. But it is unlikely that many can understand...Yes? ;)

 
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No matter even how someone liked the caves, maybe someone and really it didn't matter...But if remove all from the game - will not play in what will be.

I can not remember what is really interesting for the gameplay added recently.

What? transport? is it interesting? this is in every other game enought, it's to get bored. In addition - the mini-bike has long been in the game.

What else? I really can't remember.... but i always remembering that now there are no caves...

New zombie intelligence? Everyone laughs at him, it's a shame... (all programmers are do mistake - but, this is even unacceptable to release outside the internal working build!)

The caves - were interesting feature.

I'd exchange all the transport for the caves that were in A11.

Even...perhaps....just if they removed all the transport, i would not be upset - it is was not needed. But it is unlikely that many can understand...Yes? ;)
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Personally, I agree with you but vehicles are on the kickstarter goal list and caves are not. If we get caves it is officially bonus material that was never promised. If we don't get vehicles it is officially reneging on promised content that people anticipated when they pledged.

 
There is one optimization I would try, and that has to do with caves usually being under ground.

Their main structure is not visible from the normal terrain.

So caves should only load in when the player is near a specified area/volume of one of their exits (where it penetrates the normal hightmap terrain).

Caves are then invisible (replaced with a simple blocking replacement-mesh on the terrain) as long as the player is neither inside the generated "exit volume" and not inside a "player changed voxels" volume .. in case the players where digging around near the surface.

The world generation could also assure those caves not to generate near any POI, making it not compete with the performance needed for other structures.

Overall, densely populated cities (especially with large complex POIs) appear to be much more of a performance hog than cave systems.

 
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Overall, densely populated cities (especially with large complex POIs) appear to be much more of a performance hog than cave systems.
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Sure they are, but large, complex POIs are far more interesting and pertinent to the game than caves. I liked caves, too, but I'd rather spend the resources on POIs if given the choice.

Recommend exploring these filler blocks as something that is on/off based on sphere collider around the player. i.e. They're just solid black blocks, but they deactivate while within a player's cave collider. Let's say this cave collider is 25 blocks around the player; all filler blocks within 25 blocks of the player are disabled (allowing the player to move through them), while keeping the other filler blocks enabled even though a player is inside the cave.

This might also solve the issue where you see sunlight inside the cave. May be a little hacky, but hey, if it works...

Zombie behavior in caves would probably need to be sleeper so as not to conflict with the system.

POI filler blocks could be transparent so you can see through the whole building in much the same fashion. Effectively, this would "disable" the structural physics calculations while players were not actually inside the building exploring.

This may be what's already planned, though.

 
The original implementation in A11 was pretty impressive. They were complex, contained wights and other zombies and you could easily get lost.
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It's why, overall, A11 is my favourite version I think. The Caves system is fantastic in it!

If Caves do make a return, it'll be a massive boost to the game for me I reckon.

 
It's why, overall, A11 is my favourite version I think. The Caves system is fantastic in it!
If Caves do make a return, it'll be a massive boost to the game for me I reckon.
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Me too...as long as the broken leg bug doesn't come with it. :)

 
Me too...as long as the broken leg bug doesn't come with it. :)
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...I don't believe it has anything to do with performance and bugs...no...

i can't prove it because it could really be....but...i don't believe...

I think there's another reason.

 
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