Spelunking: a comprehensive guide

Overview

dos and don’ts for spelunking

Before We Begin…

I am not the best Don’t Starve player, nor am I claiming to be the best. The strategies in this guide are based on statistics and my experiences with these mechanics and strategies applicable in other similar situations.

long story short, please don’t go crazy with the hate if any of these strategies are horribly wrong or If I missed anything.

What to Bring

of course you need some stuff, duh. before we go over strategies we should build our spelunkers “toolkit”. keep in mind you have a default of 15 inventory spots, plus eight (with a backpack) plus nine (with chester) plus one head slot and one tool slot. this means an average player should have 34 slots to store things in. the maximum would be 43, 15 plus 14 from a krampus sack plus 12 from shadow chester plus one head and one tool slot, but this is hard to aquire, so we will assume you only have 34 item slots.

Nessecary: the following items are essential to the players survival, or are extremely helpful in almost all situations.

1. light source. a miners hat is good, as it can take the head slot and is easily attainable before setting foot in the caves. if you have already obtained glow berries, a lantern is highly preferable due to its ability to provide light while dropped, but actually does not have a larger light radius, as some believe. remember that the lantern’s light radius decreases with its durability, so keep it topped off!
   

   as you can see, both items have the same light radius.

   if playing reign of giants, you could use a morning star, as this also doubles as a weapon, however its durability will run out quicker (6 minutes for morning star vs. 7 minutes and 48 seconds for the miner hat and lantern) so that should be kept in mind. whatever you decide, torches are NOT a good option due to their small light radius and VERY short lifetime (1 minute 15 seconds). willows lighter (unique to willow) can be used, but should only be used in safe areas if no other light is available due to the tiny light radius. WX-78’s overcharge could be used, but is difficult to aquire and cannot be turned off to save durability. multiple light sources can be brought, but will take extra inventory slots.

2. campfire and/or fire pit. these can be stored to free up inventory (you can “store” most placeable buildings by left clicking to craft it, then right clicking when the building hologram is displayed over the cursor. see my other guide “How to Not Starve” for more information), though at least one slot will be necessary to carry fuel. in a pinch, materials exist underground to make a campfire/fire pit.
3. armor. underground creatures hit HARD. helmets can be equipped to save inventory (unless using a miner hat as a light source) armor should be kept in the inventory (NOT in the backpack) for equipping when entering combat. gear of standard tier (log suit + football helmet) at least should be brought. shadow tier gear should not be used, as sanity drain is already enough of a problem in caves.
4. pick and axe. gold if possible. other tools are not required.
5. some food item. this is a no brainer, but the food should have a long spoilage time. jerky is a good option due to its ease of access, especially to rabbit/pig farmers, and extremely long spoil time (20 days) and its health and sanity restoration. however it counts as a meat item and thus will cause bunnymen to attack, so it should be stored in chester. meatballs have a large hunger restoration (62.5) and fairly long spoilage time (10 days) but again, is meat. in terms of non-meat items, dragonpie has a large hunger restoration (75) and long spoil time (15 days) but dragonfruit is hard to get, requiring the player to own and operate at least one farm, and eating this in RoG DLC may cause overheating. you could also bring pumpkins (37.5 hunger, 10 days spoilage) but again with the farms. one option for RoG players is trail mix (12.5 hunger, 15 day spoilage) and although it has low hunger restoration, it recovers a lot of health. no matter what you choose, keep in mind if you need meats to make it, keep it in chester to prevent bunnymen attacks, and also keep in mind that spoilage time should be considered half of what it really is (because a food becomes “stale” at 50% freshness, restoring less stats and no sanity). chester can be turned into ice chester (if not using shadow chester) to slow spoilage time.
6. a weapon. spears will do, but a tentacle spike is better. again, shadow gear is not advised.
7. some health restoring items. spider glands can be found, but some should be carried if you have to avoid a fight. healing salves and honey poultices are very good for healing, pierogi can be brought for health AND hunger as it restores 40 health and 37.5 hunger and spoils in 20 days, but counts as meat.

Reccomended: the following items are very helpful, but can be skipped if the player can’t or does not wish to craft them.

1. an extra meelee weapon, for emergencies.
2. logs, grass, twigs, rocks, and flint for crafting stuff you may need (keep in mind this will take 5 inventory slots)
3. extra armor.
4. some sanity restoring item. a tam o’ shanter is useful for on-the-go sanity restoration, but cannot be used in conjunction with the miners hat unless in other sources of light. garlands are not reccomended, taffy can be used due to long spoilage time (15 days) but will damage the player when eating. cooked green caps can be used, but spoil quickly and hurt the player. raw and cooked blue caps can be eaten in conjunction to restore all three stats. keep in mind though, that most crockpot foods restore some sanity when eaten.

optional: these items provide a small amount of help, or are only helpful in specific situations

1. a torch, or willows lighter. not to be contradictory, but these items can be useful for lighing a fire to destroy spider dens or provide light in a pinch.
2. gunpowder, to trigger an earthquake (WARNING: this can be dangerous)
3. rocks, gems, or other minerals to tame rock lobsters (watch out for slurtles).
4. a sewing kit to repair clothing (only if using tam o’ shanter for sanity regen)
5. carrots, to tame bunnymen.

To Recap…

you will need some light source (1 slot), armor (2 slots), a weapon (1 slot), food (1 slot), health item (1 slot), pick and axe (2 slots) and a campfire and/or fire pit (1 slot for fuel). you will want a sanity item (1 slot) an extra weapon (1 slot) extra armor (2 slots) and the 5 core resources (up to 5 slots). you might want a torch (1 slot), gunpowder (1 slot), minerals (1 slot), a sewing kit (1 slot), and carrots (1 slot). that means if you bring absolutely everything with you, and have a standard inventory size (34 slots), you will have 11 slots empty. however keep in mind that 9 of these are in chester, and could be lost if he is killed. also remember that 8 of these are a backpack, which could be lost, so it would be best to only bring 17 of the items.

but before you go loading up on extra food or tools or something, remember you need space to fit stuff you gather. expect to fill at least 3 slots (glow berries, light bulbs, and gems dropped during earthquakes).

Now, For Strategy.

it is now finally time to talk strategy! in the caves, darkness is everywhere. so light is very important. be sure to equip a light source at all times, and be ready to refuel when necessary. in the dark, sanity is also a problem (hence why you brought a sanity restoring item) so remember to keep that up. use the campfire and fire pit to stop and recover.

its best to avoid unnecessary fights. it’s okay to take out spider dens that are in the way. cave spiders are hard to deal with and should only be attacked if absolutely necessary.

rock lobsters are good allies if you need to initiate a big fight. feed them rocks or gems to befriend them. keep in mind that they are slow and will follow you up to the surface and may wreak havoc.

bunnymen will attack you if you are carrying meat. it is best to check anything with a spoilage time and judge if it is meat. when in doubt, look it up or just assume it’s meat. the deerclops eyeball and guardian horn count as meat items even though they do not have a spoilage time. bunnymen will not attack chester even if he carries meat.

put the eye bone in the backpack. this means when you equip armor, chester will be left behind instead of being dragged into dangerous combat. in general, the further away chester is from hostile stuff, the better.

watch out for depth worms! they are the hounds of the underground, and will attack periodically. they are invulnerable exept when attacking, or during a short animation, but are still visible. be careful.

earthquakes are a regular threat. the screen will shake noticeably, then your character will comment on the rumbling.

then the screen will shake violently for several seconds straight, and rocks will fall from the cieling. these will hurt you until they stop bouncing, so watch out! each rock is preceded by a small shadow on the ground, so you can use that to navigate safely. keep calm and make sure you are in a well lit area. you can pick up the rocks that dont shatter, but earthquakes also will make slurtles and snurtles leave their dens and eat the rocks.
they spawn from spiky lump things that look like giant cactuses (vaugely) and they drop some valuable stuff. slurtles will attack you if you carry rocks or minerals and there are none around.

cave spiders and spitters are dangerous. they can hide and absorb damage and attack from a distance, respectively. their “spilagmites” need to be destroyed by mining with a pickaxe. thats why you brought one.

another threat underground are batilisks. these hostile bats live in rocky biomes with stalagmites, and periodically drop guano, the same way beefalo drop manure.

batalisks are not too hard to deal with, as it only takes one hit from a tentacle spike to kill them, so a fight against one should not be too hard

there are many light sources you can find underground. these include mushtrees,

light bulbs,

the occasional hole in the cieling letting sunlight through,

and glow berries, obtained from killing depth worms.

glow berries can be dropped on the floor to emit a tiny amount of light, or eaten by the player (or fed to a follower) to make him/her/them glow for 90 seconds.

one interesting thing you may find underground are giant tentacles, or tentapillars, dotting swamps. these giants spawn baby tentacles to help them fight, but are defenceless themselves. killing these can get you valuable loot, and will also cause an earthquake. some items are limited to a certain number per day across all big tentacles. after a while, big tentales will come back, making them renewable.

by far the most interesting thing you will find underground is……… dead ends. okay, maybye not interesting, but certainly plentiful. most bare rocky paths lead to a dead end, but some dont. while caving, you will find dead ends in all shapes and sizes.

its important to pay attention to the map so you dont retrace your steps down a dead end and waste fuel.

What Should I Get?

of course you came down here for a reason! there are many interesting goodies in a cave, but by far the most important thing to get is the snurtle set. thats the shelmet and snurtle shell armor. the armor allows you to hide like a bush hat and absorb all inflicted damage AND make enemies lose interest after a time. these armors are also very durable, with a combined durability of 1800. to compare, the standard set has a combined durability of 900. this means you can take double the damage before the armor breaks. the shell set also has a total of 94% dmage absorbtion. meaning getting hit with 100 damage will cause you to only take 6, vs. the standard set’s 84%. the only better armor is the thulecite armor which has a 99% absorbtion. apart from that, a lantern and some glow berries should be all you need to aim for. mushrooms are abundant underground, so feel free to pick a peck!

one last thing to find, the ruins sinkhole. it looks exactly like the sinkhole that brought you to the caves, but plugged with orange rock. the ruins sinkhole leads, predictably, to the ruins. deeper than the caves, and far more dangerous. perhaps we will explore the ruins another day.

And Last…

I would like to reiterate that I suck at this game. in fact, I died shortly after taking the screenshot for the cave spiders (which thankfully happened to be the last one I needed to take). the stats I used in this article were taken from the wiki, I did not memorize them. this is not what you HAVE to do to go into the caves, but it is recommended for starter players. feel free to only follow a few things in this guide, or just ignore it completely. I would also like to say that I DID “cheat” and use the console commands to give me items. thats why the day count is so low and my unlocked recepies are so few. the main reason I did this was to get what I needed to make this guide without going through the whole survival thing.

I am completely open to suggestions and constructive criticism. feel free to point out flaws in my strategies, point out spelling/grammar errors, or suggest additions.