Cave worm help please

[Lailantie]

So I'm not a very good player, open world easy mode is what I could handle so far. I play on Olympus, have a nice wooden house and I'm currently level 15.

I found two caves, built a little shelter with sleeping bag and campfire next to it, but I never managed to get rid of the cave worms.

First of all, they look different than in the letsplay I watched on youtube. They are quite distant and I only see their outlines in light blue, and it is hard for me to spot where their mouth is.

In addition, the guy in the video only had to go one or two steps into the cave for them to appear, so he can easily jump out of the cave sidewards after shooting. I have to go way more steps into the cave, so I can't get into safety so quickly.

I wear a complete leather shield on my body, have bone arrows and the only bow I can unlock so far. I shoot in stealth mode to make more damage and after some googling I built wooden walls in the cave as a shield, which was nonsense, as two spits of the worms destroy the walls.

Sometimes I hit the mouth and get a number of over 200 damage, but this won't kill a single worm. The second shot usually only gives me 50 damage, and often enough I don't manage to get out of the cave quick enough so they hit me. When I finally thought I had killed the right one (seemed to disappear into the ground) I focused on the left one, and after a while there was another one to the right, in the spot where the other disappeared.

I made some anti poison remedies, but my health was dropping so quick when all three of them hit me that I almost died in spite of the remedies.

Is it just that I'm not good at challenging situations (I get way too excited) or can't aim well enough or I'm not fast enough, or is there something else I could do to finally get some iron?

Thank you all!

[gridhound]

Just have to side step the venom, they are triggered by distance. going into stealth won't help. bone arrow are fine, make sure you put points into the long bow. So once you take them down. you can heal if need be before you advance. But need to do it in the cave, once you leave the cave and come back in they will respawn

[Lailantie]

Originally posted by gridhound:

Just have to side step the venom, they are triggered by distance. going into stealth won't help. bone arrow are fine, make sure you put points into the long bow. So once you take them down. you can heal if need be before you advance. But need to do it in the cave, once you leave the cave and come back in they will respawn

Thank you for your advice. I didn't know they respawn once I quit the cave. The cave entrance is quite narrow so it is hard to escape. One spit almost fills the entrance. And also, it looks different than anything I saw on youtube. I always have three at a time, no matter how slowly I walk in, and they are quite far away. Maybe I'll do some level ups and see if I can get a better bow.

[Pach]

You do not get stealth bonuses fighting the worms. It's better to NOT stealth, and try to dodge their attacks.

You can also hide behind a natural part of the cage (the stalagmites) to shield from damage. Don't stand too close, as there is a "splash" effect".

Food (meat especially) restores health. Eat meat if you are being health drained (also use those poison remedies you had).

Note where the worms spawn. There are a finite number of worms in each cave. For example, there could be 7 in that cave. But if you kill the ones up front, and back out, the ones in the back of the cave "move up" to the front locations. This makes it seem like they respawn every time you leave the cave, but not quite. If you go in, and kill the first 3 you see, then back out, kill them again, and repeat, eventually, there will be no more... EXCEPT...

...All the worms will respawn each in game day. So if you do not kill them all in one day, they will all be back the next day.

But it's possible to clear all the worms out and then go mine in the cave for a day.

You can also just run up to them and stab them with knife or spear, but that can be dangerous if there are more behind them.

[Flyingbox]

An arrow to their faces works. Skip stealth--not happenin'. Just mind the area of effect from the splash and keep your stomach full of things that would boost health if you tend to get caught a lot.

Angle too---make it to where the angle between you and the worm is as parallel to the ground as possible so that their spit will effectively go past you when you strafe.

[Kor Phaeron]

You can also hop over the poison ball they spit at you. As long as the angle of the shot has a clear path behind you you should be able to avoid the splash damage as well. And as stated above, depending on the cave size there are only so many worms in the cave. Small caves only have 1-3, and I think 9-10 is the most I've encountered in larger caves.

[Lailantie]

Thank you all. I took a break from the cave worms and did some base building and unlocking the long bow. I'll try again tomorrow when my frustration will hopefully be gone :)

[Empathise]

Originally posted by Lailantie:

Thank you all. I took a break from the cave worms and did some base building and unlocking the long bow. I'll try again tomorrow when my frustration will hopefully be gone :)

Craft a torch and bone knife. Eat something to increase your stamina (berries, watermelon, prime meat is best)

Run into the cave until the first worm spawns, should not be very far, stab it in the face a few times to kill it, run out

Repeat until all worms are dead, the rest of the worms will spawn in that same spot, keep killing them there. If more than one spawns, ignore the others, kill the closest one, run out.

[Lailantie]

The iron age has begun. I did a mix with longbow and running up to them and killing with my knife. I finished around 5 and then found I hadn't brought enough food. And then I got stuck in the cave wall, and after unstuck I didn't find the entrance again :P

So I ran home. Got some food and went there again. Low and behold, the ones I killed did not respawn. Only deeper in the cave there were another three. And then I was done and with that tiny bit of stamina I got everything I could get with my stone pickaxe. I placed a box near the entrance and put everything in there what I could not carry.

Now the most interesting part. The next day I went back to get the remainders from the box, and the cave worms still did not spawn. That was some major surprise. I'll go back with my iron pickaxe and see if I can get the platinum.

Thank you all for your help, this was more difficult than killing a bear with a bone knife. Which I have done two times, almost dead myself, but surviving :) (I'm on easy mode, cheers aren't necessary. ;-)

[Majik_Plays]

Good job on taking out your first cave, and killing bears with a knife, the easy strat for bears is to jump towards them and to the right or left, with some practice, you can do this, whip around and let an arrow or sometimes 2 loose. Eventually you get to a point where bears don't hit you at all. Javelins are even better if you can nail the arch on the throw.

[Misty Rookstown Corona Killah]

Worms are easy once you learn how they work. First dealing with them can be a pain until you do. Some things to keep in mind.
1: They spawn in the same spots consistently and they do come back after a time.
2: Go for head shots only.
3: Their attacks are area attacks so if it hits close by their attacks will hit you as well.
4: Their AI for shooting is dumb. They will fire even if they don't have a proper line of sight. So you can move to the side and use a stalagmite or a rock between you and the worm for cover then move back to take the shot.
5: Building inside a cave can be problematic for long term. I might build outside the cave for long term. But for short term put your bed near the entrance away from the worms and so you can get out.
6: Never log out of the game while inside a cave.

[Spaceminnow]

Originally posted by Pach:

You do not get stealth bonuses fighting the worms. It's better to NOT stealth, and try to dodge their attacks.

You can also hide behind a natural part of the cage (the stalagmites) to shield from damage. Don't stand too close, as there is a "splash" effect".

Food (meat especially) restores health. Eat meat if you are being health drained (also use those poison remedies you had).

Note where the worms spawn. There are a finite number of worms in each cave. For example, there could be 7 in that cave. But if you kill the ones up front, and back out, the ones in the back of the cave "move up" to the front locations. This makes it seem like they respawn every time you leave the cave, but not quite. If you go in, and kill the first 3 you see, then back out, kill them again, and repeat, eventually, there will be no more... EXCEPT...

...All the worms will respawn each in game day. So if you do not kill them all in one day, they will all be back the next day.

But it's possible to clear all the worms out and then go mine in the cave for a day.

You can also just run up to them and stab them with knife or spear, but that can be dangerous if there are more behind them.

Originally posted by Lailantie:

So I'm not a very good player, open world easy mode is what I could handle so far. I play on Olympus, have a nice wooden house and I'm currently level 15.

I found two caves, built a little shelter with sleeping bag and campfire next to it, but I never managed to get rid of the cave worms.

First of all, they look different than in the letsplay I watched on youtube. They are quite distant and I only see their outlines in light blue, and it is hard for me to spot where their mouth is.

In addition, the guy in the video only had to go one or two steps into the cave for them to appear, so he can easily jump out of the cave sidewards after shooting. I have to go way more steps into the cave, so I can't get into safety so quickly.

I wear a complete leather shield on my body, have bone arrows and the only bow I can unlock so far. I shoot in stealth mode to make more damage and after some googling I built wooden walls in the cave as a shield, which was nonsense, as two spits of the worms destroy the walls.

Sometimes I hit the mouth and get a number of over 200 damage, but this won't kill a single worm. The second shot usually only gives me 50 damage, and often enough I don't manage to get out of the cave quick enough so they hit me. When I finally thought I had killed the right one (seemed to disappear into the ground) I focused on the left one, and after a while there was another one to the right, in the spot where the other disappeared.

I made some anti poison remedies, but my health was dropping so quick when all three of them hit me that I almost died in spite of the remedies.

Is it just that I'm not good at challenging situations (I get way too excited) or can't aim well enough or I'm not fast enough, or is there something else I could do to finally get some iron?

Thank you all!

From my experience, the character has to defeat the initial spawn that the character sees.
If the character retreats and then reenters the cave the same cave worm spawns may happen.

If three cave worms spawn and the character defeats two of them and then retreats;
three cave worms may spawn again upon reentering the cave.

Try to clear all the cave worms in one go with a good supply of anti poison paste.

After a while, cave worm encounters may become easy for you.
When they spit, try to dodge it while running at them because dodging backwards only bumbles into their poison AOE damage.

[Misty Rookstown Corona Killah]

Actually when you kill a worm and leave and go back in one of the worms that would have spawned further back will spawn in the first worms position until they are all gone. But after a day or so they will all respawn

[AJH16]

Sounds like maybe you don't have a torch in your light slot. If you don't have light, caves are a pain (and this used to be how the game worked when you had to choose between a light and a weapon, which SUCKED unless you had multiple people. Fortunately they now have a light slot you can use to be able to use a torch and a light and it makes things far easier.

It becomes even easier if you can get a better bow and better arrows. Long bow + bone arrows and then after clearing the first cave, upgrade to flint arrows with some of your iron and it will become much easier quickly. By the time you get up to the workshop bows, even stone arrows will make short work of cave worms on normal and bone arrows will one shot them on hard with the top workshop bows, making cave worm trouble a thing of the past.

I do generally recommend the workshop bows as early on as you can. They offer a fantastic advantage and would be third on my list of workshop items to get (after the air and water holders).

[Lailantie]

I have a torch and a good bow and all that :) I realized that I simply can't dodge. I need all my focus and brain to see the worms, aim and shoot before they spit (or run up to them with my knife and kill them before they spit) so that I don't seem to have any brain cell left to check which worm is spitting when and where. At times three of them spit at the same time. And the cave I was very narrow towards the entrance, so going sidewards only helped once. Even when I ran out the spit hit the entrance and changed direction and still hit me. This is why I never play fighting games. I can deal with animals heading for me and I can deal with melee fights, but this one is really challenging. I am still tense today from the worm fights yesterday. Either I learn it or I play without metals or I quit, that's my current options.

Thank you all for your help.