Lost Caves

The Lost Caves is an underground overworld biome added by YUNG's Cave Biomes. It is a hot, dry cave system of sandstone ceilings and cacti, and it is the only biome in the mod that has sandstorms, which slow the player down. The biome is one of the two cave biomes that the mod adds (the other is Frosted Caves). In Fear Nightfall it is a cave area where the dry-cave mobs of the pack (skeletons, husks, spiders, creepers) are joined by horror mobs from other mods, and where a unique burrowing mob, the Sand Snapper, lives.

Lost Caves does not generate on the surface. It appears only in the underground layer of hot climates, so a player reaches it by digging or through natural cave openings. Its sky, fog and water colours are used only inside the biome: the fog is orange (#c88027), the sky is blue (#6eb1ff) and the water is dark brown (#332c0a).

Description

Lost Caves has a dry, layered look. The floor and ceiling are built from sandstone families added by the mod: brittle sandstone ceiling patches, layered sandstone pillars and ancient sandstone surfaces (see Ancient Sand and Sandstone). Vegetation is sparse and fits the desert theme: cactus patches, prickly peach cactus patches, dead bushes and glow lichen set into the sandstone. Prickly vines hang from the ceilings. Mushrooms of the vanilla brown and red kinds also appear on the vegetal decoration step.

Water and lava springs appear in the biome, so a player may find both fluids in the same cave system. The ores match the vanilla underground set, with no biome-specific ores. The surrounding ground is lit by glow lichen, and the mood is quiet and dry until a sandstorm starts.

Generation

Lost Caves is placed in the TerraBlender overworld region at weight 3. Its climate parameters are a temperature of 0.55 to 1.0, humidity of -1.0 to 0.6 and continentalness of 0.3 to 1.0. The depth range is 0.2 to 0.9, so the biome sits underground rather than at the surface. The biome's in-game temperature is 2.0 and its downfall is 0.4, and it uses rain precipitation.

In Fear Nightfall the biome makes up about 3.5% of the cave layer at y=-30 and 0% of the land surface. Lost Caves competes with the hot and desert underground biomes of other mods and with any other hot cave biome. Lost Caves is not one of the biomes weighted 6× by the pack's horror weighting. The pack's horror weighting applies to Infested Caves and Frostfire Caves, not to Lost Caves.

Features

Lost Caves has these terrain features unique to the biome:

• Brittle sandstone ceiling patches, which hang brittle sandstone from the cave roof.
• Lost Caves surface replacement, which swaps the cave floor to the biome's sandstone blocks. It is placed twice.
• Layered sandstone pillars, which rise from the floor.
• Sandstone glow lichen, which is placed on the sandstone surfaces.
• Cactus patches and prickly peach cactus patches. The prickly peach cactus is the one unique plant of the biome. It produces Prickly Peach fruit.
• Prickly vines, which hang from the ceiling.

Dead bushes spread through the biome as a vanilla patch feature. Lost Caves also has vanilla monster rooms and deep monster rooms.

Mobs and structures

The biome's monster spawns are listed in the table below. They include vanilla cave monsters (spiders, husks, skeletons, creepers, endermen and witches) and horror mobs from other mods (such as the Necromancer, Nightmare and Dread Hound). The Sand Snapper is the only mob unique to the biome, and it spawns in the biome's ambient group. Bats and coal golems also spawn in the cave.

The biome's structure list includes vanilla mineshafts and many structures from other mods, such as remnant and ruin sets. The table below shows the structures and their loot.

Monster

Ambient

Water Creature

Water Ambient

Structures (101)

Mineshaft, Stronghold, Shrine Combat Tier 1, Shrine Combat Tier 2, Shrine Combat Tier 3, Shrine Combat Tier 4, Shrine Combat Tier 5, Shrine Tower, Crypt, Bunker, Ruin Town, Wild Ruin, Campsite, Fire Camp, Horse Campsite, Mine With Campsite, Barn, Duck, Haystack, Horse Pen, Shed, Wheat Grain Bin, Windmill, Wooden Wheat Farm, Floating Islands, Large Floating Island, Azelea House, Deepslate House, Diorite And Deepslate House, House, Lil House, Tall House, Warped House, Small Oak Lantern, Blue Stall, Cart, Cartographer Tower, Large Cart 1, Large Cart 2, Orange Stall, Pink Stall, Red Stall, Castle Ruins, Crystal, Log Ruin, Ruined Beacon, Small Ruin, Statue Ruins, Stone Pillars, Arena, Calcite House, Castle Ruin, Castle Tower, Diorite House, Large Tower, Nether Portal, Small Deepslate House, Small Oak House, Small Tower, White House, Leaf Hollow, Small Pond, Tree 1, Tree 2, Tree 3, Tree 4, Tree 5, Tree 6, Tree 7, Tree 8, Volcano, Diorite Tower, Large Warped Tower, Dead Tree Oak, Tree Monument, Bench, Cathedral, Gallows, Lamp Chest, Mushroom Pond, Paths, Pile, Railway, Small Oak Pond, Sunzi Gate, Villager Statue, Rare Well, Small Copper Well, Small Tower Well, Small Well, Stone Fountain, Well, Remnant Big Remnant 2, Remnant Big Remnant 3, Remnant Big Remnant, Remnant Bridge Remnant, Remnant Medium Remnant 2, Remnant Medium Remnant, Remnant Miner Hut, Remnant School Remnant, Road Sign

Sand Snapper

The Sand Snapper is a burrowing mob that digs into the sand and sandstone. It eats prickly peach cactus, which heals it, and after feeding it stays friendly for 3600 ticks. A Sand Snapper ignores cactus damage, so it can move through prickly peach cactus patches without harm. Sand Snapper loot is given from the archaeology table: one roll gives a hourglass or clock pottery sherd, an ancient armor trim template, a brick, an emerald or a stick, each with equal weight.

Sandstorms

Lost Caves has sandstorms. Each server level has its own sandstorm timer, and the timer runs in every level of the world, even where Lost Caves does not exist. The server settings are a time between sandstorms of 1200 to 2400 seconds (20 to 40 minutes), and a sandstorm length of 120 to 600 seconds (2 to 10 minutes). The /sandstorm start and /sandstorm stop commands control the storm manually. They need operator permission level 2.

During a storm, a player inside Lost Caves receives the Buffeted effect. Buffeted lasts 100 ticks, is refreshed while the player stays in the storm, and halves movement speed. It has no icon or particles. The storm also narrows the field of view and adds fog and particles on the client. The Sandblasted Corridors advancement is granted when a storm ends for players in the biome. No damage is dealt by the storm itself.

Tips

• Plan routes through Lost Caves around the sandstorm timer. A storm that catches you in the open slows movement by half, which makes fights and escapes much harder.
• Do not climb or walk fast through prickly vines. A player that moves through them at 0.003 blocks per tick or faster takes 1 damage.
• Prickly peach cactus hurts a player who touches it, or who interacts with it without holding an item. Use bone meal or tools from a distance, and eat Prickly Peach only if the health loss is acceptable, because eating it also hurts the player for 1 damage.
• Use a brush on suspicious ancient sand to find loot. Each successful brush damages the brush by 1.
• Expect a mix of vanilla cave mobs and horror mobs from other mods when exploring the biome's dark sections.