Minecraft: Caves & Companions

Minecraft: Caves & Companions is a major content update to the popular 2011 sandbox game Minecraft developed by Ghostrealm Studios as their take on adding content to the game. As the name implies, the update primarily focuses on both underground content and pets.
==Caves==
Minecraft's underground world has long been neglected. Aside from the addition of fossils in the Frostburn Update in 2016, underground content has mostly been the same since the Adventure Update. Caves & Companions intends to change this and provide a wealth of new underground content.
===Amethyst: An Ore With Natural Properties===
While iron, gold and diamond serve as materials for equipment, lapis lazuli as a dye and an enchanting tool, redstone and nether quartz for machines, emeralds for currency, and coal for fuel, amethysts, a new addition, have more natural properties. Spawning around the same layers as gold but less frequently, and requiring an iron pickaxe to mine, the ore takes some time to find. Amethyst itself is intrinsically tied to the natural world, and is capable of being used to form items with ties to animals.
===Exotic Caves: Full of Ore===
Special exotic caves can now generate in the world, packed to the brim with a single type of ore and encouraging the creation of specialized mines. However, these caves are quite rare (and get rarer the more rare the base ore is, so you won't find diamond-filled exotic caves most of the time) and need to be hunted down. Alternatively, you can finally use cookies for something worthwhile: feeding them to bats so they point you towards these caves!
===Dungeons: Sprawling Mazes===
Not to be confused with the structure previously known as a dungeon (which has been renamed to a monster den), the new mossy cobblestone-formed dungeons in Caves and Companions are more akin to sprawling mazes, often dominating much of the underground world. They're an uncommon structure and much larger than strongholds. The rooms are full of treasure, spawners, and of course monsters. However, perhaps the most intimidating part of the dungeons is best saved for its own section...
===The Spider Mother: Beast of the Dark===
Within every dungeon, there's always a spider egg within a large cuboid room. Break it, and the Spider Mother will leap from the ceiling, beginning a boss fight. Intended to be an early-game fight before the player visits the Nether, the Spider Mother is weaker than the Ender Dragon, but is smarter in some ways, challenging players mentally rather than physically. It will often crawl on the walls and ceiling of the arena, shooting webs to ensnare you, before leaping at you from afar. Even if you get past the webs, the Spider Mother will lay an egg to spawn a cave spider to aid her. The fight is gruesome, but if you defeat the Spider Mother, you gain the Ore Vision status effect, which gives ore a glowing effect and allows you to dig for it when you wouldn't normally be able to see it.
===Other Underground Changes===
*Spiders no longer spawn below layer 40, with cave spiders taking their place. Any monster dens around those layers that would spawn regular spiders are also changed to spawn cave spiders.
*A new Prospecting tool enchantment has been added, which gives tools a chance to automatically smelt the item they mine, and conflicts with Silk Touch. Perfect for iron and gold!
*Small mining camps can be found underground, which consist of a chest with a few pickaxes and blocks, and a bed near said chest.
==Companions==
Dogs, cats, and parrots. Minecraft's three pets. While dogs are good for hunting, cats scare off creepers and phantoms, and parrots imitate mobs, their uses have been limited nowadays. This is where the "Companions" part of Caves & Companions comes in, providing some much-needed adjustments to pets.
===Pet Attributes===
Whenever you tame an animal, they now have several statistics that can be viewed once you obtain a Pet Whistle. This makes no two animals the same.
*Personality is similar to that of pandas and dictates how they act.
*Speed determines their average run speed.
*Loyalty is how loyal the pet is to you. This is raised by simply walking with them as well as fighting alongside them in the case of wolves. More loyal pets regenerate health faster. Goes up to 100.
*Favorite Foods are a special attribute that dictate your pet's favorite food. Feeding it to them will restore more health than normal.
===The Pet Whistle: Manage Your Animals===
The new pet whistle item is the key to controlling your pets, and is crafted as shown.
When you right-click on a pet with the Pet Whistle, it allows you to do several things.
====Pet Compendium====
The Pet Compendium is a list of every pet you've tamed and their current traits.
====Movement====
The Pet Whistle allows for movement patterns to be adjusted for your pet in several ways:
*Sitting: The pet will sit still. Can be done without the whistle by just right-clicking.
*Following: The pet will follow you, being sure to avoid any lava, falls, or harmful blocks.
*Wandering: The pet will wander around within a six block radius, with the center being defined as their current position prior to setting the command.
*Hunting: Only available for dogs, the Hunting option has them attack any mobs on sight within a six block radius with the same exceptions as their normal attacks.
*Scouting: Only available for parrots, the Scouting option has them flying twenty blocks above you and providing a view of the area above. More details below.
====Tracking and Taming====
Dogs and cats have unique functions unlocked by the Pet Whistle. By using mob drops, they can be set to track down or scare away specific mobs as described below.
*Dog tracking has them look around for the nearest mob of that variety, barking when they have one in sight. It has a limited range of twenty blocks.
*Cat scaring has them set to scare away a particular mob in the place of them usually scaring away creepers. Phantoms are always scared away.
*The following items are needed to track/scare mobs, and those that aren't listed can't be tracked. They're consumed upon activation
**Bats: Cookies
**Mooshrooms: Red or brown mushrooms, depending on the variety you're looking for
**Chickens: Raw chicken, cooked chicken, or eggs
**Cod: Raw or cooked cod
**Cows: Raw beef, steak, or milk
**Horses/Donkeys/Mules: Leather
***Tamed horses will not be tracked/scared.
**Foxes: Sweet berries
**Pandas: Bamboo
**Parrots: Feathers
***Tamed parrots will not be tracked/scared.
**Cats/Ocelots: String
***Tamed ocelots and cats will not be tracked/scared
**Pigs: Raw or cooked porkchops
**Rabbits: Raw rabbit, cooked rabbit, rabbits' feet, or rabbit hides.
**Sheep: Wool, raw mutton, or cooked mutton
**Salmon: Raw or cooked salmon
**Squid: Ink sacs
**Turtles: Scutes
**Tropical Fish: Tropical Fish
**Villagers: Emeralds
**Pufferfish: Pufferfish
**Polar Bears: Ice
**Wolves: Bones
***Tamed wolves will not be tracked/scared.
**Spiders/Cave Spiders: Spider eyes
**Endermen: Ender Pearls
**Zombie Pigmen: Gold nuggets
**Blazes: Blaze rods
**Creepers: Gunpowder
**Drowned: Nautilus shells
**Guardians: Prismarine shards
**Evokers: Ominous banners
**Ghasts: Ghast tears
**Magma cubes: Magma cream
**Phantoms: Phantom membranes
***Scaring away phantoms with cats is redundant as they already do so.
**Pillagers: Crossbows
**Ravagers: Saddles
**Shulkers: Shulker shells
**Skeletons: Arrows
**Slimes: Slimeballs
**Vindicators: Iron axes
**Witches: Glass bottles
**Zombies: Rotten flesh
With these enhancements, dogs and cats have a greater purpose in both finding and diverting mobs. Want to send zombies towards a particular area? Or do you want to gather more gunpowder to fuel your elytra? This new function can help with that easily.
====Eagle Eye====
When parrots are sent to scout, their sights can be seen via the Pet Whistle, providing a view of the area below. This is great for seeing what's around you as well as getting some nice screenshots.
====Teleportation====
You can easily teleport any of your pets to you right away with the Pet Whistle.
====Enchantments====
The Pet Whistle can be enchanted, and said enchantments also provide enhancements to your pets.
*Companionship (max level is III) makes it so that your pets gain Loyalty quicker as long as you have the Pet Whistle in your inventory.
*Ferocity (max level is III) increases the damage dealt by wolves. Doesn't stack with Generosity or Warning.
*Generosity (max level is III) increases the likelihood of cats bringing you rare items after sleeping. Doesn't stack with Ferocity or Warning.
*Warning (max level is III) increases the range from which your parrot can detect sound. Doesn't stack with Ferocity or Generosity.
===Animal Totems: Revive The Fallen===
It's always heartbreaking when your pet dies. Whether it be a plunge into lava, dying in battle, or a big fall, it happens. Fortunately, the new Animal Totem item alleviates this. These rare items can be found in various structures as well as the new Dungeons, and when used allow you to revive a single fallen pet.
===Pet AI: Smarter than Ever===
Pets as a whole are much smarter now, making sure to avoid throwing themselves in front of you, avoiding large falls and lava pits, and running away when at low health.
===Other Pet Changes===
*You can only attack your own pet if you sneak while doing so.
*Wolves now have multiple colors depending on the biome. While snowy taigas retain the classic grey, forests have brown wolves, regular taigas have dark grey wolves, and giant taigas have light brown wolves.
==Miscellaneous Additions==
*Gold items now have triple durability when used in the Nether, to encourage their usage there. In addition, gold swords deal slightly more damage than diamond swords in the nether, and gold armor has better protection in the Nether.
==Trivia==
*The creation of Caves & Companions was prompted by 's rediscovered love of Minecraft.
Category:Updates
Category:Fanmade Minecraft Updates
Category:Ghostrealm Games
Category:Minecraft (series)