Addon: Cave Update

 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.

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Underground Shacks 

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. 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 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

 

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.

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 

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.

 

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. They are weak to fire damage and will drop loot comparable to that of their respective chest type.

 

Brood Spider 

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. 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.

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.

 

Boss Mobs

Spider Queen 

The spider queen has 275 HP and can deal between 6 and 10 damage. 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.

You can still choose to disable it with the command "/function disable_music" if you'd prefer there to be no music.