Make underground world scale smaller with every level

[Harunobu]

So the HnH world is pretty large. As a result people have the option to avoid each other, except for a few key high q nodes and meteorites. These drive pvp conflict. Otherwise, players have to decide to besiege each other's base, which is a very costly and time-consuming endeavor. And if successful, may cause one town to quit playing.

However, the world is actually a humongous large place when you consider there are 8 underground levels. There are 9 underground layers/levels, so that means the actual size of the world is actually 10 times as large.
The risk of randomly encountering another person underground is way way smaller than on the surface. As a result, mining operation are kinda like opening your own pocket universes. While there is a cave system, most of the underground has to be mined out to actually connect up and make the underground traversal. Since this consumes a huge amount of metal for mining supports, as well as being labour intensive. This isn't done. And if it were done, it would just produce a vast largely empty maze system.

To drive conflict and pvp action, consider the following change: make the underground shrink by say 10 to 20 percent for every level you decent. This means that for every level you descent, you automatically get closer to your neighbours. And eventually this can bring you into contact or conflict. With this change at 20%, level 9 would be 1/5th the size of the surface world. And lore-wise it would also make some sense, since you are all digging towards the core of the planet, assuming the HnH world is a sphere. One can play around with the actual math, but I think doing it percentage-wise/exponential decrease in size would be the best option. There's alternatives by making the change kick in only at layer 2, or making layer 9 a dungeon (or adding a new layer 10 that is a dungeon that is actually quite small).

The devs would need some math to map each layer onto the one below, as it is no longer 1 to 1, but since mining holes and cave entrances are the only things that exist on both levels, it shouldn't be too challenging to code. Furthermore, making the world much smaller by removing a huge part of the underground void may be a server performance benefit.

Additionally, it would make anything that spawns on deeper mining levels somewhat more scarce.
If the lower layer gets too small and this makes it so that whoever gets there first gets all the rewards, then making things respawn could be a solution.

[Massa]

imagine the deep underground shortcut networks

we finna boutta look like the united states black budget building underground bases and roads out here spanning continents

[yym331]

And lore-wise it would also make some sense, since you are all digging towards the core of the planet, assuming the HnH world is a sphere. One can play around with the actual math, but I think doing it percentage-wise/exponential decrease in size would be the best option. There's alternatives by making the change kick in only at layer 2, or making layer 9 a dungeon (or adding a new layer 10 that is a dungeon that is actually quite small).

In the deepest layer of HnH, there are turtles, so it seems it's not a sphere.

[VDZ]

Fuck no. If you connect to a cavern (decent chance of that happening in my experience) you will often connect to other players already, and underground conflicts are pretty stressful. You need to rush to protect your ladder ASAP if it turns out to be in minimap range of a cavern to not get your mine hole bashed (and that can still happen if others notice within 24 hours), and the zero-sum nature of underground resources (any tile I mine is no longer available to you) strongly encourages hostile interactions underground.

While there is a cave system, most of the underground has to be mined out to actually connect up and make the underground traversal. Since this consumes a huge amount of metal for mining supports, as well as being labour intensive. This isn't done. And if it were done, it would just produce a vast largely empty maze system.

I used to do this. The main reason I don't do this anymore is that there's no need anymore, I just need a road to the closest Thingwall and can fast travel from there. (That's not an argument against Thingwalls; that change greatly improved the game.)

Also, if you want people to put more stuff underground, the best first step is to let people put cupboards underground again, or give a proper alternative. The introduction of decay and scarcity of trees underground forces me to live mainly aboveground nowadays with some underground presence, instead of mainly underground with a bit aboveground for crops and such.

[kaysaari]

So L8 roads = nether portals? Idk I think the world size is fine as it is; people who want to be around others find each other ez

[springyb]

imagine the deep underground shortcut networks

we finna boutta look like the united states black budget building underground bases and roads out here spanning continents

I know this is off topic, but I've had the chance to explore some of these abandoned tunnels that run underneath the city I live in. They were used to move mental patients around unnoticed, and to hide the insane experimental stuff they did to people as early back as the 70s/80s.