What are the challenges involved in creating missions for caves? For example, finding people in outer-space and on the surface is relatively easy, but with caves the waypoint would be deep underground.
TL;DRCave missions are hard because procedurally generated spaces must fit the mission's context, be readable in the dark, and avoid cargo that can't leave; markers will likely point to cave entrances.
Gareth thinks that it comes back to context. If there's AI in a cave, they need to make sure that they're not in a place with a bunch of crates, so that there isn't a situation where the Player crawls through a tiny hole, but then the AI has a bunch of crates despite there not being any way that those crates could have gotten there. This is a problem that could occur because the caves will be Procedurally Generated. As such, they need to make sure that the nature of the connected rooms has an overall context and a flow that makes sense when you're in that space. For things like finding a missing person, they need to make sure that they're in a pit that isn't necessarily near the entrance of the cave, but could also be very far in, so there should be lots of different places that person could be in, and if they're dead on the floor, it shouldn't be near the entrance. As such, they need to make sure that the space that's been Procedurally Generated fits the context of the mission. Luke adds that in regards to the marker/waypoint specifically, they have to be careful anyway, such as not putting the marker on the actual missing person, because that just gives it away and removes the need to actually search or explore. It could also create a problem where you go to the marker, and then you're just on the surface looking at a marker that's underground with no clear way of how to get there, so they will most likely put the marker on the entrance to the cave, but it depends on whether or not finding the cave entrance without a marker is fun. Gareth adds that because the caves are naturally dark spaces, it's also important to make sure that the space is readable, that the Player(s) can understand where they've go to go - for example, if it's a cave that then becomes a cavern with no natural light source, it'll be unclear what you're looking at and about to step into. On top of this, again it'll be things like not spawning box/cargo missions where you can't actually get the cargo out of the cave - challenging situations like having to throw a crate before climbing up somewhere would be fine, but if you have to crawl into the cave for example, then there'd be no way of getting that crate out.