Talk:Skull Cavern - Revision history

imported>Margotbean at 17:31, 13 March 2026

2026-03-13T17:31:00Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:31, 13 March 2026
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	:Ooh, obviously Margotbeans would be the one to answer whether this should be added and where, but I just wanted to jump in to say thanks for pointing this out! Really interesting! I have definitely noticed those sorts of phenomena in passing just by playing a lot of Skull Caverns, but not enough to notice specific patterns or determine if it was anything other than coincidence. Very cool! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 20:44, 12 March 2026 (UTC)		:Ooh, obviously Margotbeans would be the one to answer whether this should be added and where, but I just wanted to jump in to say thanks for pointing this out! Really interesting! I have definitely noticed those sorts of phenomena in passing just by playing a lot of Skull Caverns, but not enough to notice specific patterns or determine if it was anything other than coincidence. Very cool! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 20:44, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
			::It feels like implementation details that are too much for the average user. Probably too much for anyone not equipped to read the source code themselves. [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 17:30, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>ChloeCat: /* Special floor spawns */

2026-03-12T20:44:59Z

Special floor spawns

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:44, 12 March 2026
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	Is this worth adding to the page? If so, where would be a good spot for it?[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 19:41, 12 March 2026 (UTC)		Is this worth adding to the page? If so, where would be a good spot for it?[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 19:41, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

			:Ooh, obviously Margotbeans would be the one to answer whether this should be added and where, but I just wanted to jump in to say thanks for pointing this out! Really interesting! I have definitely noticed those sorts of phenomena in passing just by playing a lot of Skull Caverns, but not enough to notice specific patterns or determine if it was anything other than coincidence. Very cool! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 20:44, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>ChloeCat: /* Shrine of Challenge Continued */

2026-03-12T20:42:14Z

Shrine of Challenge Continued

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:42, 12 March 2026
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	:Because of this I think it is much better to have the wording be "increases the average number of monsters spawned on each floor." or "Increase the chance of monsters spawning", with at most having a note in the reference that during the initial level population as it goes tile by tile it increases the chance for a monster to spawn on a tile that is not a stone or ladder by 2%, which is also affected by other factors that affect monster spawning rates. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)		:Because of this I think it is much better to have the wording be "increases the average number of monsters spawned on each floor." or "Increase the chance of monsters spawning", with at most having a note in the reference that during the initial level population as it goes tile by tile it increases the chance for a monster to spawn on a tile that is not a stone or ladder by 2%, which is also affected by other factors that affect monster spawning rates. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

			::Ooh, very interesting analysis! Since I hadn't looked at Stardew's code before this, I was unaware of all those additional factors. Totally see what you're saying now. Thanks for laying it all out! I do agree with you about putting the less specific wording, given the complicated spawning mechanics. Personally I like the idea of having the reference note, and then the subset of people who are curious to hear more about the "additional factors" or however it's worded might think to check the talk page and can read this more detailed discussion! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 20:41, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

	== Special floor spawns ==		== Special floor spawns ==

imported>JackBlack69: /* Special floor spawns */ new section

2026-03-12T19:41:02Z

Special floor spawns: new section

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:41, 12 March 2026
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	:Because of this I think it is much better to have the wording be "increases the average number of monsters spawned on each floor." or "Increase the chance of monsters spawning", with at most having a note in the reference that during the initial level population as it goes tile by tile it increases the chance for a monster to spawn on a tile that is not a stone or ladder by 2%, which is also affected by other factors that affect monster spawning rates. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)		:Because of this I think it is much better to have the wording be "increases the average number of monsters spawned on each floor." or "Increase the chance of monsters spawning", with at most having a note in the reference that during the initial level population as it goes tile by tile it increases the chance for a monster to spawn on a tile that is not a stone or ladder by 2%, which is also affected by other factors that affect monster spawning rates. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

			== Special floor spawns ==

			While looking through the code for some slimes, I found something I had never noticed before. In MineShaft.getMonsterForThisLevel after first checking for dino areas and dark areas (mummy floors), the next check is <code>if (this.mineLevel % 20 == 0 && distanceFromLadder > 10f)</code>. This means any floor that is a multiple of 20, that is not an infested or dino or mummy floor, will only have bats spawning far from the ladder, i.e. the only non-bat monsters spawning will be close to the ladder. Then further down it checks <code>if (this.mineLevel % 16 == 0 && !this.mustKillAllMonstersToAdvance())</code>, so any floor that is 8 more than a multiple of 16 (as 120 is 16*8 - 8 and this is using level, not skull cavern level), which is not an infested or dino or mummy floor, will only have bugs.

			Is this worth adding to the page? If so, where would be a good spot for it?[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 19:41, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>JackBlack69: /* Shrine of Challenge Continued */

2026-03-11T22:04:57Z

Shrine of Challenge Continued

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:04, 11 March 2026
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	Went ahead and edited [[Monsters#Dangerous Monsters]] as well to note these changes. Btw, did not change Skull Cavern page about this stuff specifically since I don't think shadow snipers, spiders, or putrid ghosts spawn there anyway! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)		Went ahead and edited [[Monsters#Dangerous Monsters]] as well to note these changes. Btw, did not change Skull Cavern page about this stuff specifically since I don't think shadow snipers, spiders, or putrid ghosts spawn there anyway! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

			:Firstly, while the number in the code does give a +2%, that isn't directly the chance to spawn the monster. the number itself is problematic because of stone spawning first. The stone spawning chance (ignoring modifications) is between 10 and 30%.
			:So if we ignore barrels and just focus on stone and monsters, that 2% chance is actually 2% of a chance between 70% and 90%. That gives a 1.4% to 1.8% chance increase per difficulty level. But if it isn't a valid spot for a stone, and barrels can't be added, then it is a 2% chance.

			:Then as well as that, there is also what it means to be that increase, where the current wording is vague. It isn't an overall chance for a monster to spawn, but a chance per square.
			:Onitially I thought this can be addressed as rewording to something more like "Chance of a Monster spawning on an empty square increased by 2% per difficulty level". But that is also problematic because monsters are checked before items, so it would need to be on a square that is not occupied by a stone, barrel or static ladder. But even that still isn't completely correct for 2 reasons, one is that after populating the level with everything else, the last thing to be added are ore clumps meaning there is a chance for that tile to have been a monster, but that check failed so it ended up as an ore clump.

			:But the other more complicated impact to both the wording and the number, is that after the main level population where it goes square by square, it checks if there are more than 35 stones, and if so does more complicated processing. For every 35 stones it will randomly try to get a stone from the list of objects on the level. If that random attempt succeeds, it then considers a square region around the stone (not quite centered on it, and with a side length of 2-6 squares with 2 being half as likely as the other options). It will iterate through that square and remove every stone there. In addition to removing the stone, if it is far enough away from the starting ladder, there is a 10% chance per region that it will try to spawn a mosnter there with a 12% to do so for a given tile it is iterating over giving a total chance of 1.2% per tile, with this entirely unaffected by difficulty.
			:This complicates the wording used, as now even saying an empty square doesn't work. e.g. if you have monsterChance and stoneChance artifically set to 1, for most levels you end up with large regions without anything, because there was originally a stone, and this last process wiped it out. Likewise, you can have the monsterChance set to 0 and still have monsters spawn because this process spawns monsters indpenendent of that chance.
			:And the idea of working out the overall chance and seeing how it changes it is far too complex as this is a simple check of 35 stones, meaning it depends on the level size and how many of those squares can have a stone.

			:Because of this I think it is much better to have the wording be "increases the average number of monsters spawned on each floor." or "Increase the chance of monsters spawning", with at most having a note in the reference that during the initial level population as it goes tile by tile it increases the chance for a monster to spawn on a tile that is not a stone or ladder by 2%, which is also affected by other factors that affect monster spawning rates. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>Margotbean: Text replacement - "Monsters#Dangerous_Monsters" to "Monsters#Dangerous Monsters"

2026-03-08T17:50:40Z

Text replacement - "Monsters#Dangerous_Monsters" to "Monsters#Dangerous Monsters"

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:50, 8 March 2026
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	Okay, did my best to express those shadow sniper, spider, and putrid ghost exceptions nicely. Let me know what you think. I also made a bug report on the forum - I imagine shadow snipers and putrid ghosts are meant to have the hardcoded dangerous monster status, like spiders do. [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)		Okay, did my best to express those shadow sniper, spider, and putrid ghost exceptions nicely. Let me know what you think. I also made a bug report on the forum - I imagine shadow snipers and putrid ghosts are meant to have the hardcoded dangerous monster status, like spiders do. [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

	Went ahead and edited [[Monsters#~~Dangerous_Monsters~~]] as well to note these changes. Btw, did not change Skull Cavern page about this stuff specifically since I don't think shadow snipers, spiders, or putrid ghosts spawn there anyway! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)		Went ahead and edited [[Monsters#Dangerous Monsters]] as well to note these changes. Btw, did not change Skull Cavern page about this stuff specifically since I don't think shadow snipers, spiders, or putrid ghosts spawn there anyway! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>ChloeCat at 02:33, 8 March 2026

2026-03-08T02:33:04Z

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	Okay, did my best to express those shadow sniper, spider, and putrid ghost exceptions nicely. Let me know what you think. I also made a bug report on the forum - I imagine shadow snipers and putrid ghosts are meant to have the hardcoded dangerous monster status, like spiders do. [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)		Okay, did my best to express those shadow sniper, spider, and putrid ghost exceptions nicely. Let me know what you think. I also made a bug report on the forum - I imagine shadow snipers and putrid ghosts are meant to have the hardcoded dangerous monster status, like spiders do. [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

			Went ahead and edited [[Monsters#Dangerous_Monsters]] as well to note these changes. Btw, did not change Skull Cavern page about this stuff specifically since I don't think shadow snipers, spiders, or putrid ghosts spawn there anyway! [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>ChloeCat at 02:18, 8 March 2026

2026-03-08T02:18:04Z

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	Most of the above is more directed at discussing code with JackBlack, but Margotbean, would love your opinion on if I were to reformat the Skull Cavern and The Mines pages a bit to make a bullet-point list of the toggled effects. As in, below the bullet list of effects that stack, I could make a list of "these are all the effects of being above difficulty level 0 that don't stack", like the monster spawn boost on specific floors and the changes in certain monsters' appearances.		Most of the above is more directed at discussing code with JackBlack, but Margotbean, would love your opinion on if I were to reformat the Skull Cavern and The Mines pages a bit to make a bullet-point list of the toggled effects. As in, below the bullet list of effects that stack, I could make a list of "these are all the effects of being above difficulty level 0 that don't stack", like the monster spawn boost on specific floors and the changes in certain monsters' appearances.
	[[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 01:22, 8 March 2026 (UTC)		[[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 01:22, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

			Okay, did my best to express those shadow sniper, spider, and putrid ghost exceptions nicely. Let me know what you think. I also made a bug report on the forum - I imagine shadow snipers and putrid ghosts are meant to have the hardcoded dangerous monster status, like spiders do. [[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 02:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>ChloeCat: /* Shrine of Challenge Continued */

2026-03-08T01:22:39Z

Shrine of Challenge Continued

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	::Please don't leave this for me to parse out, understand, and add to the wiki! [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)		::Please don't leave this for me to parse out, understand, and add to the wiki! [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
	:::I was more leaning towards it's too complicated, so lets not put the exact numbers, and instead keep it more vague as "increases moster spawn rate" and at most have the ref say something like "Increases the base chance by 2%, which is then modified further by later stages of the algorithm". But wanted to see what ChloeCat said first. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 23:15, 7 March 2026 (UTC)		:::I was more leaning towards it's too complicated, so lets not put the exact numbers, and instead keep it more vague as "increases moster spawn rate" and at most have the ref say something like "Increases the base chance by 2%, which is then modified further by later stages of the algorithm". But wanted to see what ChloeCat said first. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 23:15, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

			Great points! Thank you for adding squid kids, and for that spider change - you're right that since they don't spawn at danger level 0 anyway, it wasn't particularly helpful to point out the 30% partner chance that never actually applies lol. I was not aware that certain monsters had a higher base difficulty level - great catch! I can see that in the code now that you've pointed it out. I think I can reword the bullet nicely to account for that - let me give it a go. Also a nice catch on the galaxy soul / gem thing - I can add that too.

			With the spawn chance increase, you're absolutely right that there are a ton of factors at play, but I do think it's true that there IS a 2% increase per difficulty level. Not positive on that, so please do correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems like that does come into play regardless of other factors, so I think it's okay since this section is only about the effects from difficulty levels - we aren't saying things like monster musk are no longer relevant. The multiplication by ~.66 from levels 40-80 in the mines is one of the flat toggle checks, so doesn't really belong in the bullet list (since it's described as "While this mainly acts as a toggle between the normal Skull Caverns (difficulty 0) and the "dangerous" Skull Caverns (difficulty > 0), there are some effects which stack"). I do think we should include it somewhere, though. Maybe a separate bullet list of the toggle effects that don't stack. That could help clean up the pages a bit too, especially The Mines - I noticed some of the effects of dangerous mode are a little bit scattered throughout the page. Might be better to have them in one bullet list like that. But basically, the 2% spawn chance increase still seems correct to me, although it might still be useful to add more details about other effects on that chance. What do you think?

			Not sure how to better word the radioactive ore thing. Hmm. I'll think on it.

			Most of the above is more directed at discussing code with JackBlack, but Margotbean, would love your opinion on if I were to reformat the Skull Cavern and The Mines pages a bit to make a bullet-point list of the toggled effects. As in, below the bullet list of effects that stack, I could make a list of "these are all the effects of being above difficulty level 0 that don't stack", like the monster spawn boost on specific floors and the changes in certain monsters' appearances.
			[[User:ChloeCat\|ChloeCat]] ([[User talk:ChloeCat\|talk]]) 01:22, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

imported>JackBlack69: /* Shrine of Challenge Continued */

2026-03-07T23:15:11Z

Shrine of Challenge Continued

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:15, 7 March 2026
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	:[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:11, 6 March 2026 (UTC)		:[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:11, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
	::Please don't leave this for me to parse out, understand, and add to the wiki! [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)		::Please don't leave this for me to parse out, understand, and add to the wiki! [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
			:::I was more leaning towards it's too complicated, so lets not put the exact numbers, and instead keep it more vague as "increases moster spawn rate" and at most have the ref say something like "Increases the base chance by 2%, which is then modified further by later stages of the algorithm". But wanted to see what ChloeCat said first. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 23:15, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:15, 7 March 2026
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	:[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:11, 6 March 2026 (UTC)		:[[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 22:11, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
	::Please don't leave this for me to parse out, understand, and add to the wiki! [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)		::Please don't leave this for me to parse out, understand, and add to the wiki! [[User:Margotbean\|margotbean]] ([[User talk:Margotbean\|talk]]) 00:39, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
			:::I was more leaning towards it's too complicated, so lets not put the exact numbers, and instead keep it more vague as "increases moster spawn rate" and at most have the ref say something like "Increases the base chance by 2%, which is then modified further by later stages of the algorithm". But wanted to see what ChloeCat said first. [[User:JackBlack69\|JackBlack69]] ([[User talk:JackBlack69\|talk]]) 23:15, 7 March 2026 (UTC)