Cave Update: Remastered (Minecraft's Caves get Even Better!) 1.18+

Video Guide Covering Everything!

Remember to Enable Experimental Gameplay! 

Hey everyone, The Big Onion here. Since the last release, I have touched up, altered, or completely overhauled pretty much every aspect of this addon, hence the remastered part of the title. This is partially why it has taken like... almost two years for this update to come out. There's also the fact that every new update Mojang has pushed out over the past year or so has added some kind of game-breaking bug that I had to fix. ...seriously, developing this addon has driven me a little bit insane...  Sooo, at the expense of my time and sanity, I hope that you all enjoy this new update!

For those of you that are unfamiliar with this add-on, it is a vanilla-friendly, survival overhaul with a focus on, well, caves! It adds several new cave biomes... sub-biomes... and unique structures to find while underground. Additionally, there are new ways to traverse caves, light up hard-to-reach places, and mine large areas. There are a plethora of new mobs as well including many hostile monsters, tameable pets, and even mine-able cave crawlers. However, perhaps the coolest part of this add-on is the returning Spider Boss, now featuring an updated design, fully fleshed-out attack patterns, a new, more fitting boss theme written by me specifically for this add-on, and several pieces of unique loot to aid you in your adventures. Plus, there's an easy-to-use, creative mode item that spawns pretty much everything in the add-on, allowing you to easily see everything for yourself.

A Small Glimpse at Everything

Currently, there are 3 new underground biomes; Arid Caves found underneath deserts and badlands, Overgrown Caves found underneath jungles and savannas, and Frigid Caves found underneath tundras and inside mountains.

Arid Caves are comprised of a unique type of stone called desert stone. It can be mined with any pickaxe. All ores that generate in Arid caves are a special desert variety. A bit of a disclaimer; unfortunately, every pickaxe mines these at the same rate. As far as I know, I can't change this until Mojang allows me to, ...but I don't think It's too big of a deal right now. Just maybe bring some TNT or a mining potion if you plan to break a lot of desert stone.

 This add-on also features several decorative variants that can be crafted at either a crafting table or stonecutter. You can also find these blocks naturally in the unique variants of dungeons that spawn in this biome.

If you go to the deepest parts of the world, all deepslate is replaced with a special desert variant called flamestone.

Overgrown Caves

Here, we have Overgrown Caves. These are one of the more unique caves and a personal favorite of mine. They feature large amounts of Compacted Soil, perfect for growing mushrooms. Large patches of moss, as well as roots, grass, and bushes, can be found growing all throughout these caves. Additionally, a new ore can be found in the soil called the Guano Deposit. These are great for acquiring large amounts of guano, which can be used in a whole manner of things, such as making gunpowder, bonemeal, and brewing into a miner's potion. Guano is also dropped by bats every so often, like with chickens and eggs. 

Additionally, these biomes are home to Honeyslime Nests. I'm not sure why I originally added Honeyslimes, but I thought they were cool enough to bring back even if they are a really strange idea...

Spider Nest Sub-biome

Spider Nests can generate in pretty much every overworld cave type and offer unique rewards and challenges. The ground around them is covered in many layers of spider webs and spider eggs. Additionally, you can find all kinds of treasures hanging from webs on the ceiling. You just have to be brave and find a way up there. Just, uh, maybe bring a diaper as you will often find spiders descending from the ceiling...

Slime Chunk

While Slime Chunks are technically vanilla, there normally is no real indication of where the slime chunk begins or ends. But now, the ground is covered in a thin layer of slime wherever they can spawn. Additionally, I made the ceiling drip slime periodically. It's a subtle detail, but It's, uh, honestly one of my favorite parts of this add-on...

Underground Shacks

Inspired by a cut feature in the Caves and Cliffs update, Underground Shacks are another thing you may find underground in your adventures. They are similar to dungeons, except without the mob spawner. They have similar loot to dungeons, but with the added bonus of a unique chest variant, you can take with you. You can't make double chests out of these, but they do look pretty stylish. Just be wary, as things may not always be as they seem with them...

Exploration Items

While the new cave generation added in Caves and Cliffs is amazing, it can make things difficult to explore. This is where Grappling Hook Crossbow comes in. It's a craftable tool that allows the player to swing from any block to escape danger or reach otherwise inaccessible areas. It's enchantable and can be crafted from copper.

If you'd like a more in-depth look at the grappling hook, I've already made a separate video covering it. Even though it's a standalone addon in that video, it's also included in the Cave Update as well without having to download anything extra.

But, moving on, sometimes the problems you have while caving require more... explosive answers. With the previously mentioned guano-based recipe, gun powder is more abundant than ever. And, with all this gunpowder, you can now craft individual sticks of TNT. They are a throwable item that ignites once it lands on any surface. And once ignited, it acts just like a smaller version of the block of TNT.  If you want to mine something on either a wall or the ceiling, you can craft the slimy stick of TNT. These will attach to any surface they're thrown onto. Not only are both sticks of TNT very good for mining, but they can also be used offensively as well. Just be sure to only use them in places you don't mind blasting craters into...

Mobs

Glow Worms

Glow Worms are rare, tameable mobs found in every overworld cave. You can tame them with either red or brown mushrooms and they can be bred with glow berries. They can spawn in 5 different normal variants and one super rare 6th variant. If you feed a tamed Glow worm either type of mushroom, it will burp out some glow goo. You can use glow goo to throw like a snowball and temporarily light up hard-to-reach areas in caves. Any entity hit with a glow goo ball will be splashed with goo and begin glowing for a brief time. You can actually coat yourself with goo by throwing it at the ground or by drinking a potion of gleaming. It is brewed by mixing an awkward potion with glow goo. This can also be extended with redstone like a normal potion.

Cave Crawlers

Cave Crawlers have probably seen the most drastic changes to their design and behaviors since the last update. They are essentially walking ore veins that can vary greatly in size. They have a huge number of variants including every ore and major stone type as well. At first, you may reflexively use your sword to take them down, but their stone armor resists all attacks and will reduce incoming damage by around 80%. Well, all attacks except for pickaxes. They will, in fact, deal bonus damage and occasionally knock off bits of ore with each attack. Each tier of pickaxe will have a higher and higher chance to knock off ore, with Diamond and Netherite Pickaxes having a 100% chance to knock off ore every hit. They won't just sit there and let you hit them, however. The smallest crawlers will flee from you, while the larger ones will fight back. If you're lucky enough to find the largest of them, don't underestimate it's ability to destroy ya life...

Undead Miner

Talking about destroying ya life, let's get into the hostile mobs of this add-on. Perhaps the most common monster included with this add-on is the undead miner. They are often found wielding low to middle-tier pickaxes and can hit pretty hard as a result. They have a chance to drop their pickaxe, their gold helmet, or a random ingot, as well as commonly dropping a few bones. They're not too difficult to fight by themselves, but they can pose a significant threat when in numbers. 

Cave Creeper

Next up, we have the cave creeper. Where normal creepers are dangerous because they destroy blocks, cave creepers are dangerous because they create blocks. When they explode, they fill the surrounding area with a unique type of stone block in an attempt to suffocate the player. This stone takes much longer to mine than normal stone but will break itself within about a minute. This means that, unlike normal creepers, these ones won't actually grief your world when they explode. I've always personally kinda hated that...

Mimics

When you're exploring underground shacks, be wary. You'll never know when one of those fancy chests will actually turn out to be a mimic. These guys are a lot less unfair than they used to be. They are weak to fire damage and will drop loot comparable to that of their respective chest type.

Brood Spider

Perhaps the most powerful non-boss monster in this add-on is the Brood spider and her spiderlings. They are found in most underground biomes and are most common around the spider nest sub-biome. Their design has changed slightly with this update now including animated spiderlings on their abdomen. Additionally, with every hit they take, they have a chance to fling spiderlings at you as a distraction. Not really the best parenting technique, but what can you do... They also drop all their remaining spiderlings on death as one last attack. As for their loot, they commonly drop string and spider eyes (as usual for spiders) as well as several spider eggs and the occasional spider heart. The spider heart can be eaten to both give you good and bad effects. Somewhat like a less good golden apple. They are farmable though, if you can stand hanging around spider nests that is...

Spider Egg

These can be broken for easy access to string and other materials, but may also release several spiderlings in the process. These eggs can also be sheared and then placed by the player wherever they wish. They play a jiggling animation every so often and may make a very cool addition to your builds.

Boss Mobs

Spider Queen

Here we have the Spider Queen. The spider queen has 275 HP and can deal between 6 and 10 damage per hit depending on whether it is a light or heavy attack. To summon her, you will need a spider heart and 4 spider eggs to craft the Spider Queen Egg. Before you do this, however, I would recommend at least wearing iron or chain armor, having a diamond or iron sword, possibly some ranged weapon, and definitely a shield. A shield is very helpful for melee combat because, even though her attacks are slow, they do have a lot of reach. But, with the proper skill and timing, you can reliably block them and save yourself from a lot of damage. Be mindful though, she has a variety of other attacks besides her two melee attacks that you have to watch out for. She can shimmy and shake and cover the battlefield with spiderlings. They have a very low targeting range (only a couple of blocks), but they'll gang up on you if you try to plow through them. She can also fire a projectile web attack toward you. It doesn't do damage directly, but it will slow you down tremendously if you get caught in it. On the bright side, you can break these webs instantly and they despawn over time, so you don't need to clean anything up. Despite that, this attack is still pretty dangerous, especially when you're on low health. Her last move is her digging ability. She will periodically hide underground and re-emerge a few seconds later in a different location. Depending on how the fight is going, this can give you some precious time to heal or run away. Though, she also has the chance to spawn a group of lesser brood spiders to aid her.

When defeated, the Spider Queen will cause every spider she spawned to flee. For the loot she drops, the queen spawns several unique boss items. For the main items, she can drop a special sword called the Web Weaver (Which has both a melee and ranged attack), or a ranged weapon called the Spider Slinger (which launches groups of hostile spiderlings that attack everything in sight for a few seconds). The Spider Queen also has the chance to drop two bonus items; the spider queen mask and a music disc that plays the boss theme. The Spider Queen Mask is essentially an unbreakable helmet designed to look like her head. (Or more accurately, her Cephalothorax. That's the anatomical term for a spider's head-chest thing. Like, their head is their chest, it's weird...). The music disc acts a little differently from normal music discs. For some reason, even though Mojang gave us a music disc item component for custom items, it doesn't actually work. So, this music disc can just work everywhere like a boombox or something... 

Also, I think it's worth reiterating; Her boss theme song is royalty-free and was written by me for this add-on. So you will have no issue having it play in any videos you make on this. With that said, you can still choose to disable it with the command "/function disable_music" if you'd prefer there to be no music.

One Last Thing Before Downloading!

There are two versions of this pack; The more detailed version and the simplified version. The detailed version requires downloading an extra resource pack which is also available here (https://www.mediafire.com/file/tv799umqw71x2o2/geometry-fix.mcaddon/file) and the simplified version doesn't. This extra pack allows the game to render all the cool-looking hangey-offey bits on the spider and slime blocks. However, this "fix" is apparently still broken on realms and will probably eventually be patched to stop working in normal worlds too, which is why this simplified version exists. So, if you don't mind potentially redownloading the pack in the future, pick the more detailed version. If you don't want the hassle, pick the simplified version. ...or you could download both just to be safe. They actually don't conflict with each other.