Geologically accurate caves, karst regions and more geology

[Nicola Belotti]

Caves in real life generate in soluble rock such as limestone (and trevertine), dolomite, marble, gypsum and quartzite (kinda rarely tho). Extensive cavities and tunnels can also be found in lava fields and volcanic regions (which are often old lava channels below the surface). Cavities in insoluble or igneous rocks (andesite, granite, peridotite, shale and so on) in real life are limited to tectonics thus forming more or less deep gashes and vertical cracks that don't tend to extend horizontally. Adding rock-specific cave formation would be amazing and would make cave exploration more interesting. 
Dreaming of a more geologically accurate game I'd also suggest with the objective of developing accurate caves, to add a few more rocks (limestone conglomerate, dolomite, dolomite conglomerate, pure limestone, gypsum, quartzite, calcite). Adding more soluble rock types would also mean the possibility of big **karst regions**, highlands or mountain ranges that present the possibility of greater cave explorations than other regions.
I'm going to list some other related ideas below:
- Long complex caves (vertical and subhorizontal) would spawn just in limestone, travertine, limestone conglomerates, dolomite, dolomite conglomerate, gypsum, marble and quartzite.
- Big vast caves would spawn just in karst regions (similar to the ones found in Slovenia IRL)
- Long but subhorizontal caves would spawn in basalt and volcanic regions
- Vertical ravines would spawn in every rock, possibly being also a connection between different cave generation areas (e.g. a vertical ravine in granite leads to a deeper marble extended cave system)
- Speleothems would just be made of  calcite and spawn with more or less frequency based on the rock the cave is in
- To compensate the now more accessible lime, this substance would generate in a variation of limestone and dolomite (pure limestone, pure dolomite) that, when broken, drops limestone and dolomite rocks and **calcite** that, when cooked, gives lime.

Edited April 6 by Nicola Belotti

[Bruno Willis]

4 hours ago, Nicola Belotti said:

To compensate the now more accessible lime,

I think lime speleothems would just be a good improvement. I don't think there would be any problem with lime being easier to access, as long as you're willing to dip into the caves.

And welcome to the forums! I love these suggestions so much. I think if vintage story used caves like these it would feel much more interesting to go caving. They'd feel that much more alien and unwelcoming, and have good contrast to the underground ruins. 

 

[Nicola Belotti]

 

7 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

And welcome to the forums! I love these suggestions so much. I think if vintage story used caves like these it would feel much more interesting to go caving. They'd feel that much more alien and unwelcoming, and have good contrast to the underground ruins.

Thanks, I've been playing VS for like 300 hours now (which I know it's not a lot but I see myself playing this for years to come) and man I love it soo much, and already love this community too.

Developers looking for suggestions and trying to take inspiration from nature is what I love to see. Geology in this game is already amazing and for me (a geologist and IRL caver) is always pleasurable to deal with.

But yes, realistic caves would make me go caving a lot more than now. Now it's fine and caves are kinda nice to explore to find ruins and collectibles, but caves structured as I mentioned in the post (if feasible) would make the exploration mighty interesting and always unique.

Of course I'm dreaming and this probably in terms of coding might be undoable, but I took a shot anyways.

[Bruno Willis]

2 minutes ago, Nicola Belotti said:

But yes, realistic caves would make me go caving a lot more than now. Now it's fine and caves are kinda nice to explore to find ruins and collectibles, but caves structured as I mentioned in the post (if feasible) would make the exploration mighty interesting and always unique.

Of course I'm dreaming and this probably in terms of coding might be undoable, but I took a shot anyways.

Yeah, I've written about it in the past too, that current caves are fine, but they feel like they're designed for seraphs to walk through. I do think more realistic caves would really shine with the inclusion of climbing gear though. I like using rope ladders to get around, but it doesn't feel realistic. I don't know much about solo climbing with ropes, but I feel like it would really make caves more exciting if we had a system for that, as well as realistic cave formations.

5 hours ago, Nicola Belotti said:

Caves in real life generate in soluble rock such as limestone (and trevertine), dolomite, marble, gypsum and quartzite (kinda rarely tho). Extensive cavities and tunnels can also be found in lava fields and volcanic regions (which are often old lava channels below the surface). Cavities in insoluble or igneous rocks (andesite, granite, peridotite, shale and so on) in real life are limited to tectonics thus forming more or less deep gashes and vertical cracks that don't tend to extend horizontally. Adding rock-specific cave formation would be amazing and would make cave exploration more interesting. 

I think tying the types of caves to the type of stone would be the easiest way to make a big exciting difference to cave generation, and would really add to your sense of place in game. You'd get used to your local cave types, and be unprepaired in other stone types. 

I love finding those big, stepped cliffsides that are propped on a diagonal, looking geological. It would be really satisfying if the caves in those sorts of formations didn't just pockmark it with holes like Swiss cheese. If the caves formed as wide cavities following the same diagonal as the rest of the rock formation, I think that'd look excellent, and make good base locations.

[Nicola Belotti]

38 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I do think more realistic caves would really shine with the inclusion of climbing gear though. I like using rope ladders to get around, but it doesn't feel realistic.

Yes but actually "rope ladders" have historically been used a lot (in cave exploration especially) since they are more walkable without complicated gear such as ascenders and descenders, so that's kinda realistic, in its way. Of course no-one ever saw a climber pillar up with a lot of cubic meters of dirt haha, but rope ladders are fine to me. The possibility to deploy ropes and use them to climb or descend would be an interesting thing nontheless.

38 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

You'd get used to your local cave types, and be unprepaired in other stone types. 

This would be an amazing effect I didn't think about, and also makes me think of different types of cave generation also in relation with latitude with smaller caves in high latitudes and bigger wider caves in the tropics.

38 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I love finding those big, stepped cliffsides that are propped on a diagonal, looking geological. It would be really satisfying if the caves in those sorts of formations didn't just pockmark it with holes like Swiss cheese. If the caves formed as wide cavities following the same diagonal as the rest of the rock formation, I think that'd look excellent, and make good base locations.

Indeed, that would be amazing too, and very very beautiful. Dreaming of accuracy it would be crazy to design stratification in certain limestone types and make the caves develop along strata weakness points, but that migt result in bad cave generation, so sticking to rock-specific cave generation might be the way.

Edited April 6 by Nicola Belotti

[Bruno Willis]

1 hour ago, Nicola Belotti said:

Yes but actually "rope ladders" have historically been used a lot (in cave exploration especially) since they are more walkable without complicated gear such as ascenders and descenders, so that's kinda realistic, in its way. Of course no-one ever saw a climber pillar up with a lot of cubic meters of dirt haha, but rope ladders are fine to me. The possibility to deploy ropes and use them to climb or descend would be an interesting thing nontheless.

I had no idea rope ladders were such a reasonable and realistic choice, that's epic.

[PineReseen]

Realistic caves sound pretty cool, I think I'd prefer ravines over random very deep holes across the landscape (Is that even realistic? Do entrances to caves only a few metres wide just pop outta nowhere somewhere in the geologic history of Earth in real life?)

It also seems pretty nice to have different caves associated with different rock types, so the player knows what to expect based on some prospecting.

But PLEASE, I NEED the limestone spelothems. I'm not gonna travel 5000 blocks every single time I want to make a significant amount of leather (If I ever could find any limestone), and from what I have heard, granite rock itself doesn't really dissolve in water.

[Nicola Belotti]

1 hour ago, PineReseen said:

Is that even realistic? Do entrances to caves only a few metres wide just pop outta nowhere somewhere in the geologic history of Earth in real life?

Sometimes they do actually, not this often tho hahaha. They are called sinkholes and they form when the ceiling of a cave collapses or something creates a void below the surface. Some other sorts of deep vertical shafts as the one we see in game occur in real life too, but they are the result of erosion of small cracks and tectonic forms so they look more elongated than the ones we see in-game, that look more like sinkholes.

Here's a photo I took of a vertical shaft in Presolana (a mountain in Italy). This shaft goes down a long way (about 200 m) and then starts extending horizontally forming walkable tunnels along an old surface discontinuity in the rock.

Caves in real life do not pop into existence randomly, but instead they form slowly along pre-existing weakness surfaces (cracks from tectonics, strata, chemically weak rocks, geologic contacts) and then collapses so the shapes are often times elongated and narrow instead of wide and chunky.

Of course making extremely realistic caves would not be ideal since the results would be a pain to walk into, but I think taking inspiration from some realistic shapes would make explorations a lot more interesting.

[River Oak]

23 hours ago, PineReseen said:

Is that even realistic? Do entrances to caves only a few metres wide just pop outta nowhere somewhere in the geologic history of Earth in real life?

The cenotes of the Yucatan are another example. Basically lots of holes in the ground that lead to aquifers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenote

[PineReseen]

22 hours ago, Nicola Belotti said:

Sometimes they do actually, not this often tho hahaha. They are called sinkholes and they form when the ceiling of a cave collapses or something creates a void below the surface. Some other sorts of deep vertical shafts as the one we see in game occur in real life too, but they are the result of erosion of small cracks and tectonic forms so they look more elongated than the ones we see in-game, that look more like sinkholes.

Here's a photo I took of a vertical shaft in Presolana (a mountain in Italy). This shaft goes down a long way (about 200 m) and then starts extending horizontally forming walkable tunnels along an old surface discontinuity in the rock.

Caves in real life do not pop into existence randomly, but instead they form slowly along pre-existing weakness surfaces (cracks from tectonics, strata, chemically weak rocks, geologic contacts) and then collapses so the shapes are often times elongated and narrow instead of wide and chunky.

Of course making extremely realistic caves would not be ideal since the results would be a pain to walk into, but I think taking inspiration from some realistic shapes would make explorations a lot more interesting.

I always thought sinkholes were bigger than that, like this:

But I guess it does make sense that sinkholes would also refer to ones formed by erosion, chemistry, etc. as you mentioned that'd be way smaller.

32 minutes ago, River Oak said:

The cenotes of the Yucatan are another example. Basically lots of holes in the ground that lead to aquifers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenote

That's interesting. There's no water in the in-game sinkholes every time I fall into them though  (Also they're supposed to form in limestone bedrock? Maybe if they're ever added they'd be a good sign of limestone.)

[Nicola Belotti]

1 hour ago, PineReseen said:

I always thought sinkholes were bigger than that, like this:

They can also be smaller, depends on the extension of the voids below the surface responsible of the collapse and the material in which they happen. They can also be small and very deep like the holes we already see in game. Karst sinkholes have a variety of shapes, dimensions and explanations. Some of them also form as the dirt atop of a chemical erosion area starts filling the voids left by the dissolution happening below, so no caves there.

In addition to what I said last time I leave the horizontal maps of two caves showing different types of karst shapes.

 

 

2 hours ago, River Oak said:

The cenotes of the Yucatan are another example. Basically lots of holes in the ground that lead to aquifers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenote

Adding cenotes too would be crazy and imagine the amazing explorations you could do in underground systems like those.

1 hour ago, PineReseen said:

Maybe if they're ever added they'd be a good sign of limestone

Reading the surface shapes to deduce the presence of certain rocks underground would go hard and bring the geology part of the whole game to a level no game has ever reached imho. 

[Bruno Willis]

On 4/8/2026 at 10:15 PM, Nicola Belotti said:

I leave the horizontal maps of two caves showing different types of karst shapes.

Caves like these would be so good. They look like they'd be amazing, interesting challenges to explore.

If I can pick your brain a bit, what do you know about the shapes of caves forming in harder stones like granite? I'm guessing they're less common than karst style caves in limestone?

[Nicola Belotti]

2 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

If I can pick your brain a bit, what do you know about the shapes of caves forming in harder stones like granite? I'm guessing they're less common than karst style caves in limestone?

Cavities in other types of rocks (even harder rocks as granite, peridotite, gabbro, rhyolite or any kind of rock, for that matter) are possible but extremely rare. They are called "corrasional caves" or "erosional caves" and they originate, as the name says, by progressive physical erosion of weakness points (faults, fractures). They are typically not very large or long and are very rare in normal settings. Common types of erosional caves are the ones you can find on coastline cliffs (carved by the ocean) and in deserts ("eolian caves" which are carved by the sand carried by wind), these types of caves are typically very big but they do not extend for more than a few meters inside the mountain or the cliff face. 

There are some strange cave phenomena in claystone too but even those are rare and not very extensive in length or width, plus they happen just in very particular situations in the presence of unconsolidated rock.

Caves can also form between big fallen blocks and detritus, but of course they are small and do not extend in bedrock.

Other types of caves are ice caves in big glaciers and those would be great if added to the game too.

At this page you can find some photos: http://www.goodearthgraphics.com/virtcave/erosional_caves/erosional.html

Translating this in VS world generation I'd suggest:

- Every rock must be able to generate deep ravines and cracks in every circumstance;
- Limestone must be able to generate extensive caves of different shapes and forms (similar to the ones we have in-game now) with lots of speleothems and, on the surface, generate sinkholes. The lower the latitute, the bigger the cave diameter. Length of cave systems should be randomized.
- Claystone should sometimes present small, medium-lenghth caves especially in lower latitudes and deserts;
- Basalt must be able to generate long and straight tubes with lava more likely to spawn in them;
- In deserts and coastline cliffs there should be the possibility for medium to big cavities to generate, but they must not be extensive in length

[Nicola Belotti]

I also think that rock-specific caves might be able to generate strange shapes along the contact surfaces between different rocks like extended flat surfaces or interrupted cavities. That would be amazing to see too, and would be realistic aswell. There are caves in Sardinia that extend vertically in limestone and when they reach the underlying granite layer start branching towards the sea on horizontal paths above the granite surfaces, and that looks kinda strange to see, but perfectly explainable.

[Tj Pepler - Critcher]

This is a cool and important topic so I don't wan't to derail but just touching on the rope ladders discussion I have been trying to work on climbing stuff lately and I have a newish release of grappling hooks. But would people prefer a rope ladder, that seems like it would be much easier to actually use   I want to make something that fits the game properly!