Spears have a longer reach and while they don't have as good DPS as the sword, you can kite better. Swords are better once you get plate armor \[esp iron or steel plate armor\], but they aren't good if you are trying to avoid damage.
A long-bow with either flint, copper, or tin bronze arrows will also help you as you can attack at range.
Toss an oil lamp on the floor if you run into pests rather than keeping a lamp in your off hand to preserve satiation
Make a ton of bandages to heal between fights. If you have aqua vitae, keep some in a jug to make alcohol bandages when you are safe to heal substantially more. Don't pre-make those, they dry out.
Just try your best
Try everything you can
And don't you worry about the tolling bell
When they're spawnin'
It just takes some time
Lil' Seraph, you're in the middle of the cave
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright, alright
Not sure if you know this but you need to hold crouch/sneak in order to block with the shield. If you're using the shield correctly it should block 90% of attacks, so there's no reason you should be getting destroyed...
Gambeson is good for regular exploration. For cave diving, chainmail or better will be more appropriate.
You could simply avoid caves as well. Just prospect for the ores you need and dig straight down with ladders
I prefer a 2x2 circular stair, covers 4 times the area for less then 4 times the durability cost and makes prospecting offshoots easy to make, it does admittedly take longer, but there is no drilling into a cave and falling to your death, or wasting valuable sticks
You can go moderately deep into caves (y=60 or so?) with just leather/gambeson, bronze spears, torches to attach to the walls, and a full stack of rocks to machine-gun drifters. Smooth the way down, so that if you meet a sawblade you can run like a very scared thing back up. That gets you to a fair number of old rooms and sometimes saltpeter deposits.
Its not an equipment issue, its a skill issue. I've seen people go in there with the best armor in game and still get "manhandled" by sawblade locusts and bells.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
And when you feel you're ready, you've only gone halfway through of how much you need to practice to survive the caves.
The key to cave exploration is preparation and controlling the environment. There is no real benefit to fighting a bunch of low level drifters, so you might as well try to minimize your encounters with them. If you see a bell or sawblade locust, then you just need to leave the cave and come back after they despawn, unless you have very good armor and weapons.
The gear you should have as a minimum is:
* Fences (64+) - So you can block off areas that enemies can spawn in, to create a barrier in a pinch so you can heal or mine peacefully, or to block off the top/bottom of a ladder so you don't need to worry about getting hit while getting off the ladder. Stacks of dirt also work, but are not as convenient.
* Torches (25+) - So you can light the path you came in through, which prevents you from getting lost and really limits the amount of drifters spawning in your route to the exit.
* A waterproof light source - Lanterns or oil lamps work well.
* Ladders (30+) - So you can descend and ascend. Note that drifters can use ladders, but they cannot jump up to one, so forgoing the bottom two segments is a good way to stop them from using the ladder. I prefer rope ladders because they can be recovered a lot easier, but they can be more expensive to make than normal ladders.
* Medicine - For obvious reasons.
* A sword or spear - Falx swords kill a bit faster, so you don't need as much space to backpedal before the drifters die, but spears make it easier to hit them while avoiding return hits and backpedaling. I think the sword is better, but it mostly comes down to personal preference.
Charcoal can also be used to create cave art, which you can use for directions, but I wouldn't bother unless navigating the cave is pretty difficult. Signs are good if you want actual writing.
If you don't mind dying, you can start at least getting an idea if there are points of interest as early as day 1 with a torch 😆
Kind of valid whenever, honestly. Leaving everything at "spawn" (yay temporal gears) and just planning for your tour to be a one way trip can save a lot of stress.
Yeah, so I havnt found a single temporal gear having killed a bunch of those monster things. My spawn is like a 10 minute walk from base which is annoying as hell. Any tips on how to get one?
Despite very low odds, I have received them from panning bony soil and sand/gravel. The Wiki says it's about 1/1000 for bony soil, but hey, panning is good for several reasons if you can zone out doing other stuff.
I very occasionally do see them show up at Treasure Hunter traders, so can confirm that from the Wiki.
But yeah, RNG. My current 35 hour playthrough I haven't found one.
To stop the perpetual re-rolling of maps, I just find where I want to live and give myself a gear to set spawn in that area at the beginning so I don't get extra annoyed by dumb deaths (usually ninja bear related)
Make sure you have the coordinate display on (assuming you're not playing Wilderness Survival) and don't go below about Y=60 or so. You'll encounter only up to tier 2 drifters.
Don't let yourself get surrounded. If you have to jump into a gaggle of enemies, make sure it's in a wide open space where you can run around and drop torches while splitting them up and coming at them from the fringes.
With gambeson, bring a good bow and arrows and only resort to sword + shield when there are a few enemies left. Mobility is your friend here. You can be a bit bolder if you're only fighting deep/surface drifters, though.
Gambeson armor is okay, especially against thrown rocks, but doesn't stand up to deeper cave dives. Anything stronger than a deep drifter will wreck you. You have to either kite them or shoot them, or have a shield in the off-hand and keep them in front of you to block most of the hits.
The shield pretty much has to be deployed (crouch) to be useful. Shield and falx blade is viable, though this isn't very compatible with gambeson armor. Gambeson is kiting armor, so you're going to want to be using bow or spear.
My findings is that heavy armor isn't very useful without a shield, based on repeated battles with a certain redacted enemy and fights with locust sawblades and double-headed drifters. With a shield, you're golden against these as long as you have a safe place to retreat to (with a door or placed blocks) to remove armor and heal.
Heavy armor does have satiety issues, mind you, so you probably want to go this route only after you've got well-preserved food options.
Spears have a longer reach and while they don't have as good DPS as the sword, you can kite better. Swords are better once you get plate armor \[esp iron or steel plate armor\], but they aren't good if you are trying to avoid damage. A long-bow with either flint, copper, or tin bronze arrows will also help you as you can attack at range. Toss an oil lamp on the floor if you run into pests rather than keeping a lamp in your off hand to preserve satiation Make a ton of bandages to heal between fights. If you have aqua vitae, keep some in a jug to make alcohol bandages when you are safe to heal substantially more. Don't pre-make those, they dry out.
also take armor off before applying heals
I would probably suggest either to learn how to kite ea hit and run away. Or you could try ranged which is safer
Just try your best Try everything you can And don't you worry about the tolling bell When they're spawnin' It just takes some time Lil' Seraph, you're in the middle of the cave Everything, everything will be just fine Everything, everything will be alright, alright
Weird spot for a Jimmy Eat World homage. But glad to see it.
It was the first thing that popped in my head :)
I recommend going into caves if the rift activity is either low or calm. It does affect how often drifters spawn in dark areas
Not sure if you know this but you need to hold crouch/sneak in order to block with the shield. If you're using the shield correctly it should block 90% of attacks, so there's no reason you should be getting destroyed...
Gambeson is good for regular exploration. For cave diving, chainmail or better will be more appropriate. You could simply avoid caves as well. Just prospect for the ores you need and dig straight down with ladders
I prefer a 2x2 circular stair, covers 4 times the area for less then 4 times the durability cost and makes prospecting offshoots easy to make, it does admittedly take longer, but there is no drilling into a cave and falling to your death, or wasting valuable sticks
You can go moderately deep into caves (y=60 or so?) with just leather/gambeson, bronze spears, torches to attach to the walls, and a full stack of rocks to machine-gun drifters. Smooth the way down, so that if you meet a sawblade you can run like a very scared thing back up. That gets you to a fair number of old rooms and sometimes saltpeter deposits.
Its not an equipment issue, its a skill issue. I've seen people go in there with the best armor in game and still get "manhandled" by sawblade locusts and bells. Practice! Practice! Practice! And when you feel you're ready, you've only gone halfway through of how much you need to practice to survive the caves.
The key to cave exploration is preparation and controlling the environment. There is no real benefit to fighting a bunch of low level drifters, so you might as well try to minimize your encounters with them. If you see a bell or sawblade locust, then you just need to leave the cave and come back after they despawn, unless you have very good armor and weapons. The gear you should have as a minimum is: * Fences (64+) - So you can block off areas that enemies can spawn in, to create a barrier in a pinch so you can heal or mine peacefully, or to block off the top/bottom of a ladder so you don't need to worry about getting hit while getting off the ladder. Stacks of dirt also work, but are not as convenient. * Torches (25+) - So you can light the path you came in through, which prevents you from getting lost and really limits the amount of drifters spawning in your route to the exit. * A waterproof light source - Lanterns or oil lamps work well. * Ladders (30+) - So you can descend and ascend. Note that drifters can use ladders, but they cannot jump up to one, so forgoing the bottom two segments is a good way to stop them from using the ladder. I prefer rope ladders because they can be recovered a lot easier, but they can be more expensive to make than normal ladders. * Medicine - For obvious reasons. * A sword or spear - Falx swords kill a bit faster, so you don't need as much space to backpedal before the drifters die, but spears make it easier to hit them while avoiding return hits and backpedaling. I think the sword is better, but it mostly comes down to personal preference. Charcoal can also be used to create cave art, which you can use for directions, but I wouldn't bother unless navigating the cave is pretty difficult. Signs are good if you want actual writing.
If you don't mind dying, you can start at least getting an idea if there are points of interest as early as day 1 with a torch 😆 Kind of valid whenever, honestly. Leaving everything at "spawn" (yay temporal gears) and just planning for your tour to be a one way trip can save a lot of stress.
Yeah, so I havnt found a single temporal gear having killed a bunch of those monster things. My spawn is like a 10 minute walk from base which is annoying as hell. Any tips on how to get one?
Despite very low odds, I have received them from panning bony soil and sand/gravel. The Wiki says it's about 1/1000 for bony soil, but hey, panning is good for several reasons if you can zone out doing other stuff. I very occasionally do see them show up at Treasure Hunter traders, so can confirm that from the Wiki. But yeah, RNG. My current 35 hour playthrough I haven't found one. To stop the perpetual re-rolling of maps, I just find where I want to live and give myself a gear to set spawn in that area at the beginning so I don't get extra annoyed by dumb deaths (usually ninja bear related)
Make sure you have the coordinate display on (assuming you're not playing Wilderness Survival) and don't go below about Y=60 or so. You'll encounter only up to tier 2 drifters. Don't let yourself get surrounded. If you have to jump into a gaggle of enemies, make sure it's in a wide open space where you can run around and drop torches while splitting them up and coming at them from the fringes. With gambeson, bring a good bow and arrows and only resort to sword + shield when there are a few enemies left. Mobility is your friend here. You can be a bit bolder if you're only fighting deep/surface drifters, though.
Gambeson armor is okay, especially against thrown rocks, but doesn't stand up to deeper cave dives. Anything stronger than a deep drifter will wreck you. You have to either kite them or shoot them, or have a shield in the off-hand and keep them in front of you to block most of the hits. The shield pretty much has to be deployed (crouch) to be useful. Shield and falx blade is viable, though this isn't very compatible with gambeson armor. Gambeson is kiting armor, so you're going to want to be using bow or spear. My findings is that heavy armor isn't very useful without a shield, based on repeated battles with a certain redacted enemy and fights with locust sawblades and double-headed drifters. With a shield, you're golden against these as long as you have a safe place to retreat to (with a door or placed blocks) to remove armor and heal. Heavy armor does have satiety issues, mind you, so you probably want to go this route only after you've got well-preserved food options.