I've gotten to the iron tool age once or twice in this game, sheerly through prospecting and peaceful surface-dwelling and farming and all that. I get the feeling though, that the underground is a frontier I am supposed to be conquering at the same time, sort of like the ruins in DST. throughout all my gameplay, I have really only ever went into proper caves once or twice, but quickly became extremely unnerved and anxious, and got out of them before I forgot the way out. I can only assume, based on video game rules, that if caves exist, then there is likely things in them to find and loot.
But... I am scared. I have a very faulty internal hard drive. It is very, very, easy, almost a reliable occurrence, for me to instantly lose my way in similar (at least in vague shape) caves in 3D games like Minecraft or Astroneer. This would be not-that-big of a problem, if the enemies in this game did not seem so imposing. In my experience, even the surface ones seem to do damage enough to 3-4 shot me and they attack pretty relentlessly.
Is there any way to deal with them effectively, or to make them less damaging? Is it just a matter of being super quick with an iron falx?