Newbie questions - winter duration, mobs spawning inside base, how to spot animals, caves

[Human17]

Hi all,

Newbie player here. 60 hours into the game and am just coming out of my first winter (it's mid March). Few questions:

1. What's a normal winter duration? It's my first game with default settings and it's been snowing for close to 6 months. Basically 6 months with short days and no crops. It's pretty rough! Just barely hanging on, especially that I made some agricultural mistakes before
2. Is there a way to prevent mobs from spawning inside the base? I've got LOTS of light everywhere, but they still sometimes spawn inside my base when there's lots of rift activity, which is crappy. A few times they would spawn right in front of me, which was deeply unsettling.
3. Is there a trick to spotting animals? It's really hard to see wolves and bears among all the vegetation or snow and half the time they end up getting a jump on me and attack me from behind, without a sound, which is super scary and also hard to survive
4. Lastly - how do you deal with caves? I've got some natural fear of caves and combined with randomly spawning mobs, it makes for a HORRIFYING experience. I know that's where all the good stuff is, but I find myself dreading going inside

Some screenshots of my base for refence:

 

Thanks!

Edited May 2, 2025 by Human17

[Vykintas]

hey, to answer some of your questions:

1. winter duration depends on where you put your base. I put it more south so i have like 3 months of winter. But if you put it more north it can be a lot more. I think the best you can do is get a green house and grow crops like carrots with -10C resistance to cold.

2. Couldn't tell you about spawning. But after the last 2 updates i saw that mob spawning is more broken, because in my base they started spawning all the time even tho its lit.

3. Clear the vegetation. Thats the only advise that i can give you. And use headphones. You can hear wolf sounds if they are nearby.

4. I just run and hope for the best with lanterns and always make sure that i have an easy exit. But i know people get a but load of torches and just spam them.

[Thorfinn]

Solid answers from @Vykintas. Expanding a bit:

1. Yeah, looks like you have mostly pines. That suggests maybe you are somewhere north of central temperate. If the ground was snow-free when you started, it should be gone by sometime in April, latest. though you may not be able to plant quite yet.

2. Spawning will probably be fixed soon, but I don't think you are lit up well enough anyway. Torches only protect a 7-block radius, oil lamps are 4, IIRC. (I don't use them, as they are basically worthless.)

4. I mostly skip caves. I'll take a peek inside, maybe a bit more,  but only really go into those near very-high and greater ores that I want. The way caves cut through almost guarantees that the ore body will be mostly gone. That's fine for tin, where you don't really need very much, and for the coals, and iron, because they are massive, but at default settings, I don't find it worthwhile  to chase all but the very best readings. Caves are also a good place to be using headphones.

[Vratislav]

ad 4): I mostly skip caving until I have high-quiality armor (like at leas iron chain). During the bronze age, I usually just explore shallow caves around the base a bit just to check for resonators or easily accessible underground ruins with mid-tier loot (i play with BetterRuins mod). In some gameplays I was pushed to do caving of shallow caves with propick to search for resources like sulfur, coal or galena when I needed bigger amounts of them. For deep mining (deep copper, tin, iron and late game ores), I just make around 100 meters of rope ladder as early as I can and dig vertical shafts. This is almost monster-free method, also veins I find get some residual skylight if close to the shaft. 

Probably not necessary to add, but don't turn cave-ins on if claustrophobic  

[HalfAxd]

For what it's worth...

1.  Move South or out of higher elevations

3. After moving South but before creating your new base... burn all the vegetation in the nearby area... easy and fun to watch

4. Take a bunch of torches and a stack of dirt when going into caves...   run in and plant torches as you go...  if a drifter spawns and there is room, avoid it and plant more torches...  run around like this and light up as much as you can...  retreat out of the cave and deal with anything that follows...  go far enough away (32 blocks?) and they should de-spawn...  The light you left in the cave should keep them away when you go back in.

If you hear bowtorn either find a corner to get around or build a quick column of dirt to hide behind...  if it's just one/two bowtorn together, rush them after they shoot at you... 

If the cave splits off into many branches you can seal off a branch with dirt to save for later...  you can even use a door if the cave is important enough... 

Caves can be fun to explore!

[LadyWYT]

On 5/2/2025 at 7:00 AM, Human17 said:

What's a normal winter duration? It's my first game with default settings and it's been snowing for close to 6 months. Basically 6 months with short days and no crops. It's pretty rough! Just barely hanging on, especially that I made some agricultural mistakes before

It depends on what latitude you chose to settle in. On a default start, you'll start in the temperate climate zone, so assuming you settled down close to spawn(and not too far north or south) winter should start around late October/early November and last until late March/early April.

On 5/2/2025 at 7:00 AM, Human17 said:

Is there a way to prevent mobs from spawning inside the base? I've got LOTS of light everywhere, but they still sometimes spawn inside my base when there's lots of rift activity, which is crappy. A few times they would spawn right in front of me, which was deeply unsettling.

Depending on the version you're playing on, the mob spawns could be due to a bug. There's been issues with monster spawns in 1.20.8 and 1.20.9. Otherwise, it could be that the room is too big/not cluttered enough for how you're trying to light it. Lanterns are probably the best light source overall, as they are quite bright, have a large area, and are relatively easy to acquire. Torches are the next best option if you don't access to lanterns; if you break them and put them back every so often, it will reset the burnout timer on them. In regards to oil lamps...while they do provide light, they aren't very effective at preventing monster spawns. If you're relying on oil lamps, it's best to build small.

Cluttering rooms with decoration and storage is a decent way to cut down on potential spawns as well. Same concept applies to opting for smaller rooms instead of larger ones. There's nothing wrong with large rooms or lots of wide open space, but it does leave a lot more space for things to potentially spawn(especially during temporal storms, where normal rules don't apply).

On 5/2/2025 at 7:00 AM, Human17 said:

Is there a trick to spotting animals? It's really hard to see wolves and bears among all the vegetation or snow and half the time they end up getting a jump on me and attack me from behind, without a sound, which is super scary and also hard to survive

I think it's mainly something you learn from experience. Wolves like to howl, so if you hear howling nearby it's a good idea to stop and examine your surroundings. Bears unfortunately don't make as much noise, but since they're bigger they're a little easier to spot. As a general rule, it's a good idea to not blindly venture into thick bushes or other places that visibility is very limited. It's also a good idea to pause every once in a while and examine your surroundings for potential threats; even if you don't find any threats, you might spot something else of interest that you might have missed otherwise.

On 5/2/2025 at 7:00 AM, Human17 said:

Lastly - how do you deal with caves? I've got some natural fear of caves and combined with randomly spawning mobs, it makes for a HORRIFYING experience. I know that's where all the good stuff is, but I find myself dreading going inside

Personally, I don't venture into caves unless I'm looking for ruins and have iron armor or better. Prospecting and digging mineshafts via ladders is a much better way to acquire ore than exploring caves, and while ruins are interesting there's also nothing that's really needed from them. Ruins are mostly a way to acquire cosmetics and pieces of lore(tapestries, books, scrolls), and while they do sometimes have useful resources, it's nothing that can't be acquired elsewhere in larger amounts.

For exploring the underground, it's also important to note that the deeper you go, the more dangerous it gets. It's partly why I recommend iron armor--iron is relatively easy to acquire, and tough enough to withstand most beatings. The limited visibility and space underground also makes it easy to get cornered, so you may want to bring some materials along to block off passages as you explore. I'd also keep an eye on the rift activity--higher rift activity means more monster activity underground, so it's best to keep your exploring to calm(or otherwise low activity) days.

Last but not least, if it's still a bit too much even with the steps taken above, there's no shame in just switching to creative mode temporarily to explore the underground. Nothing can bother you while you're in creative, and the mode will also allow you to easily clear an area of monsters and light it up before switching back to survival for a more peaceful looting experience. Once you're done looting, you can switch back to creative, clean up any of the lighting you wish to, and carry on exploring.

[Human17]

Amazing info guys! Thanks so much for such detailed responses! 

I barely managed to survive the winter - eating lots of bushmeat and anything else I could get my hands on by the end. My food stocks just managed to last until proper spring kicked off and I could forage once again. Caves and wild animals really freak me out, so I took your advice and started avoiding caves if I can help it and also building roads in the main directions in which I explore. Travelling on those is safe and extremely quick, so the effort in building said roads ends up being mostly worth it I think!

I also finally was able to find Zinc and Bismuth, so I finally have bronze tools, which will hopefully start me off on the path to Iron!

Thanks to exploration and also kicking off a bee colony nearby, I was able to get some more lanterns built and lit up my base quite a bit better. Funnily enough, I get more monsters spawning inside my main building than outside now. I do believe that it's because of the abovementioned oil lamp issue and lots of empty interior space. I might have to bite the bullet and get some lamps indoors as well, although I do prefer the ambience of the oil lamps to be honest!

It's a pretty amazing game I have to say. So many things to do and so much exploring. I got the Farseer mod from ModDB, which makes exploring much more scenic and pleasant too. All that being said, it's pretty unforgiving. Even with leather armor and bronze weapons, getting jumped by a single wolf could be deadly. Same goes with running blind through a heavily forested area and falling down a mineshaft. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I assume it will. I'm not looking forward to losing all of my gear, amour, etc in the process.

[Maelstrom]

Until you want to make iron or steel armor, gambeson is the way to go.  Tier 2 protection and the penalties are pretty low.  

About the only reason I go cave diving is to find translocators to extend my ability to explore further from my home, and maybe find deeper deposits of quartz which have higher likelihood of having silver and gold in my experience.