SomeGuy

Thank you! Had no idea this kind of issue existed. I appreciate the insight!

I am playing on singleplayer, so latency can't be it. My PC is a mid-end gaming PC and my processor is an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core, though I'm not sure if CPU load is the cause. I've encountered this phantom damage issue 3 times in 100 hours and it has exclusively happened when going up or down shafts, at least in my experience. This was the first time I checked the damage log for what happened though (note: the first two times had the same conditions, aka nominal hunger, temporal stability and no enemies nearby), as I hadn't thought of doing that the first two times. Got the idea from this thread after I went searching for if others had encountered this issue as well. It is a rather strange issue, as fall damage should only be happening when falling from a sufficient height, yet sometimes the game seems to issue fall damage when climbing ladders in shafts. The first time I encountered this issue was quite a few weeks back, but I do recall it rather well. I was prospecting for tin and found a chunk with a good reading for it, I then started digging my 1x1 shaft and used rope ladders to go down. I dig 3 to 4 blocks, put down ladders, go down and repeat. But when I was around 15 to 25 blocks deep, mining down as usual and then I get damaged 3 times in rapid succession (around 0.25 - 0.50 seconds in between). My hunger was fine, temporal stability was high and there were no enemies in the shaft (I block the top with a fence and I hadn't dug into a cave). As I was still new (and terrified of the underground haha), I panick and immediately leave the shaft and find a new place to dig. At the time, I thought I accidentally broke 1 block into a cave and a locust got in, but there was no locust light and I hadn't actually opened a cave either. Was quite the experience though, gave me a good scare lol. The second time I don't remember very well, as I only got damaged once and I just kept mining as usual. But the third happened yesterday, so I recall it well. I was prospecting for iron and found a chunk with a good reading, so I proceeded to dig my shaft and go down until I found the deposit. I was around 50 to 60 blocks deep, enough for my temporal stability to slowly start depleting, but things were going well. I had dug into some quartz and found gold, but kept going down as the iron was my goal. I eventually got a high reading for magnetite and kept digging down and using the propick every 5 blocks down or so to see if the reading got better - it did! I got a very large reading and directly hit the disk shaped deposit. I was now at the bottom of my shaft (rope ladders going the whole way down of course) and was just about to dig the iron on the wall, until I get damaged out of nowhere. I quickly climb up my ladder, panicked, thinking a drifter spawned in the dark or something (even though I had a lantern on my offhand keeping things lit and the walls were covered by ladders and there were no openings on the shaft walls, meaning drifters could not spawn) but then I get damaged again while going up the ladder. I quickly continue my way up and block the ladder - after which, I get my bearings and open the shaft. I go down, yet find no creature or opening, I get damaged once more while going down my ladder. I check my hunger and temporal stability, but both are nominal. Then I realize it is another instance of phantom damage, just like the last 2 instances. I then go searching for answers and stumbled into this thread - which lead to me opening my damage log and seeing that it was gravity damaging me. Naturally, I was a bit perplexed by this, as I had not fallen at all, since I was on a ladder the whole time. Strange times aye.

Hi! Very late reply, but I encounter this same issue sometimes when mining deep underground in 1x1 shafts with rope ladders. Sometimes going down/up with them you will at random get damaged even though hunger and temporal stability are nominal and no enemies are nearby. I opened my damage log and the game said I was damaged by gravity, even though I had not fallen at all and was climbing down a ladder slowly. Turns out there is no scary mystery creature, just a gravity bug