Caves

Caves are located in the fighter part of the menu. Caves have Descriptions (maps) that vary in Rarity(size, rooms) Base Depth(starting depth), Max depth(how far you can go), Rooms, Width, and Height. Caves are used to let your fighters find more specialized loot instead of dungeons, which only produce relics. The goal of a cave is to find more helpful loot than you would typically find anywhere else, ranging from stats, monster stats, wootz, materials, a special currency called "Diamonds", and shattered fighter gold.

To get descriptions, you need to do actions. By default you will get a description every 8000 actions, but this number can be reduced through the archaeology upgrade. The rarity of the descriptions follow the standard rarity chances. The starting and finishing depths depend on your current max dungeon depth, where it is used in the formula as follows:

 Ending Depth

The numbers round to the nearest integers, and the possible starting depths ranges from 1 to 20. Every depth between the min and max has an equal chance of being selected.

Entry into a cave costs relics. The cost starts at 200k relics if the depth starts at 1, and increases by another 200k for every level until depth 5. The cost increases by 400k from depths 6-10, 600k relics from depths 11-15, 1m relics from depths 16-20, and finally 2m relics from depths 21-25.

**To start a Cave you need a cave description. Hit actions and then hit Enter. Pressing Cancel cave does not only take you out of the cave but you lose everything you earned while in the cave. The only way to leave with your loot is to find the leave cave stairs.**

When every square is found and gone through the cave description is completed and the cave history will populate rewards that go into your inventory.

**Are you able to queue a path as well any benefits to actively watching?** Choosing where they go you can avoid mobs and try to hunt loot.

**Green is a tile that has been cleared, red is Monster, white is You, Yellow is Standard loot, Blue is next tile you move to.** You can change the colours in the settings, or buy a skin from the premium store which will replace the outlines of special tiles with an icon. This is useful for when you want to manually avoid and search for certain tiles.

You can manually do path optimization or fiddle around with leaving/going deeper and movement types, You can also speed up how fast the fighters move through the Carpet upgrade in your house. The deeper you go, the harder the mobs will be to beat.

As soon as the exit is visible, you can leave the cave as long as you are not in a fight.

The exit will be stairs going up. Deeper is stairs heading down. Treasure looks like anything else like the throne or statues.

Once you find stairs down and click Go Deeper, there is no going back for unexplored treasures in the previous depth.

## **Tools and skills**

All upgrades that act as multipliers to integers follow normal rounding rules. For example, if one upgrade had 20% and was multiplied to 3 rolls, then `3 * 1.2 = 3.6`, which is rounded to 4.

* **Archaeology** increases the drop rate of cave descriptions. The base drop rate is 8000 actions, which both party and regular actions count. 1% of archaeology equals to `8000 / (1 + 0.01) = 7921 actions`.
* **Brush** increases the number of rolls on the loot table in a single treasure. It acts as a direct multiplier to the number of rolls. This means that if a treasure tile rolls 10 times, and a player had 10% brush, then they would roll `10 * (1 + 0.1) = 11` rolls.
* **Trowel** increases the chance of doubling the number of treasures on a floor. 1% of the trowel means that there is a 1% chance of getting twice the number of treasures in every room of one floor.
* **Scouting** increases the fighters' visibility range in a cave. Higher depth levels require higher scouting for the same effect in low depth levels. The effectiveness of the boost decreases by 2.5% every depth the fighters goes down by. 1% of scouting means that there is a 1% chance to see 1 extra tile ahead in all directions.
* **Backpack** increases the number of rolls on the loot table for every loot tile. It acts as a direct multiplier to the number of rolls. This means that if a loot tile rolls 4 times, and a player had 100% in backpack, then they would roll `4 * (1 + 1) = 8` rolls.
* **Knife** increases the number of rolls on the loot table for every mob tile. It acts as a direct multiplier to the number of rolls. That means that if a mob tile rolls 5 times, and a player had 10% in knife, then they would roll `5 * (1 + 0.1) = 5.5 => 6 (rounded)` rolls.
* **Torch** increases the total depth you can dive per cave description. The formula is as follows: `newMax = (max - min) * torch + max`. 100% of the torch means that if you had a description with 6 to 10 depth, then the new max would be `(10 - 6) * 100% + 10 = 14`.
* **Map** increases the average size of every level in the cave description. The percentage acts as a direct multiplier to both width, height, and the number of rooms. With 10% in map, and a 100x15 sized map with 5 rooms, the new dimensions will be `100 * (1 + 0.1) = 110` and `15 * (1 + 0.1) = 17` (rounded). The number of rooms will be `5 * (1 + 0.1) = 6` (rounded).
* **Spade** is the chance to increase the rarity of the description by 1 when a description drops.
* **Compass** increases the chance for a boss mob to spawn. The % boost is additive.
* **Sieve** increases the chance of dropping equipment from treasures and boss tiles. This boost works in the same way as the couch boost.
* **???** is a mysterious boost that was added as a secret hunt in patch 1.7.2. When it triggers, it will increase the World Boss credit spent bar by 1. The exact mechanism for triggering this boost has not been discovered.

## **Cave Settings**

#### **Default mode**

If your mode is set to:

* **Rush depth:** Fighters will go down in depth as soon as they find the stairs.
* **Focus loot:** Fighters will focus moving to treasures and loot piles as soon as they can see them.
* **Focusing mobs:** Fighters will move to mobs as soon as they can see them.
* **Clear all:** Fighters will not care about what tiles are there and they will attempt to touch them all.

#### **Other Settings**

* **Min depth increase %hp:** Fighters will not increase in depth if their total average % health is lower than the input.
* **Min %hp:** Fighters will instantly leave the cave when possible if the total % of health is lower than the input.
* **Closest Tile Max:** Fighters will increase in depth if possible if the closest unexplored tile is above the selected input.
* **Closest Tile Max Type:** Toggle when closest tile max should work.
* **Max Depth Fighters:** Fighters will not increase in depth if the depth is above your selected input (setting of 10 will clear 10 and leave, not pushing to 11).
* **Max Boss Difficulty:** Fighters will not fight the boss mob and will skip it if the level is higher than the number saved in this setting.

## **Loot**

For every treasure, mob, or loot tile that your fighters travel to, you will get a certain number of rolls on the loot table. The number of rolls on the table depends on the type of tile and the floor depth of the cave. The amount of resources you roll on the table will always depend on the current depth of the cave. The deeper your fighters go, the greater the amount of loot drops. The ratio of rolls is 8.5 : 6 : 2 : 1 for boss : treasure : mob : loot.

**If your fighters die, you will lose 50% of all your loot found (rounded up). You will never lose any fighter equipment.**

### Treasure tile

Treasure tiles are by default shown with no outline and an icon of a fountain, statue, or throne. There is one in every room and the number of treasures in a room can be increased with the Trowel upgrade. Each treasure will always drop at least one diamond.

Every treasure tile may roll on the loot table at least six times. The number of rolls depends on the current depth of the cave. This number may be increased through the Brush upgrade. There is a base 2.5% chance to roll a piece of equipment for every treasure tile. This chance decreases by 5% for each depth the fighters increase.

### Mob tile

Mob tiles are by default shown with a red outline on a tile. When a floor is generated, there is a 5% chance to spawn on a tile in corridors and a 20% chance to spawn on a tile in rooms. These chances are increased by a multiplicative 2.5% per rarity of the description. There is also a chance that the mob tile will turn out to be a trap tile, injuring your fighters instead and dropping no loot. There is also another tiny chance that the tile can be a boss mob, which is higher levelled but gives the same loot as treasures. Every mob tile will have a level, and upon reaching this tile your fighters will start a battle (provided that it's not a trap). The fight will proceed as if it was a regular dungeon battle, but the critical hit counter for your fighters is carried over from the previous battle. Your fighters will also carry over their health from the previous battle. The only way to heal is through travelling through a healing tile or by the use of fighter equipment with heal/round or heal/move attributes.

The level of the regular mobs on each floor depends on the current depth. The level is calculated to be from a range of `100*depth` to `(100*depth)+50`. In depth 1 only, mobs range from level 1 to 20.

Upon defeating the mobs on the tile, you will be able to roll at least once on the loot table. The number of rolls depends on the current depth of the cave. The number of rolls on the mob tile will always be equal to or greater than the number of rolls on the loot tile. This means that the number of rolls scales better than loot tiles.

#### Boss Mobs

Boss mobs are a special variety of mobs that have an approximately 0.69\*sqrt(420)/1337/5\*3 (or roughly 0.635%) chance to spawn instead of a regular mob tile. Their level is 25~75 levels stronger than the max level of the floor's mob. Upon defeating the boss, it will drop an amount equal to treasure tiles, along with a guaranteed diamond drop and chance for gear.

### Loot tile

The loot tile is by default shown with a yellow outline on a tile with the label of "random loot". When a floor is generated, every reachable tile has a 10% chance to spawn a loot tile and is further increased by 2.5% per rarity of the description. Every loot tile will roll on the loot table at least once. The number of rolls depends on the current depth of the cave. This number may be increased through the Backpack upgrade.

### Loot Table

For every drop, there will be at least one roll on the same loot table. The amount of resources one can roll on the loot table depends on the current depth of the cave. The deeper depths will produce more from one roll.

This table estimates the rarity of each drop. Actual chances for each resource has not been disclosed.

Notes: Treasure and boss tiles always drop a diamond, but mob and loot tiles also have a small chance to roll a diamond on the loot table.

t3 and t4 homestead resources frequently have their chances adjusted. The estimated rarity may not always be accurate.

## **Fighter items**

Fighter items are a nice addition that help both the Caves and your Dungeons. Each fighter can only hold one item. With a mixture of Rarity and Modifiers you can boost your fighters' abilities. They follow the same properties as player equipment when it comes to rarity and rolling for tiers.

They only drop from treasure tiles and have a chance according to the following formula: `2.5% * (0.95^(depth - 1)) * (1 + couch)`. The chance of dropping a piece of equipment reduces when fighters are deeper.

## Tips and Tricks

* Always have 1 "tank" fighter and the rest as damage dealers, as long as they have DPS equipment. Tank in this case refers to the role of the fighter, not the class. Damage dealers are often referred to as "DPS".
* For tank gear, this is the attribute priority: Healing + Defense is essential > Dodge > All Attributes > Health
* For DPS gear, this is the attribute priority: Damage > Hit > Crit >= All Attributes
* A safe, foolproof build for the tank is to have enough defense to negate a mob's regular attack (1x of the mob's damage), enough health to take one or two hits from a critical attack (1.5x of the mob's damage), and enough dodge to prevent critical attacks and end the fights in 25 rounds or less (3x of the mob's hit).
* To match the build above, damage dealers must have enough hit + dmg in them to end a fight in 25 rounds or less. Unfortunately, there is no absolute ratio. Use the leftover gold to equally distribute hit and damage to all DPS fighters. As a suggestion, have enough damage to kill the first mob within 20 hits, have 50% hit rate on it, and enough crit to take half of the first mob's health off.
* There is a strategy where players attempt to find as many diamonds as possible, netting them significant amounts of gold on the market. To follow this strategy, upgrade trowel and table, do not upgrade candlestick. Only run less than rare rarities for descriptions.
* If one wants to become stronger, candlestick is the one you want to upgrade. At high levels of candlestick, knife, and great depths, caves will produce more homestead materials than your homestead. This strategy should only be attempted once depths 15+ can be reached.
* Do not run higher rarities (magical+) at low depths. They take far too long for little reward, and are more profitable to sell to other players who are more invested into fighters and caves.