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[Aeon Blue]

Do cave beasties spawn at the edge of caves, or can they spawn anywhere?

I want to know because I plan to dig straight into a cave at embark and want to know if it is possible to wall off a safe area inside. That would be thwarted if crundles and other things could spawn inside, though.

[Sphalerite]

Creatures only spawn at the map edge.

[Psieye]

You are talking caverns not caves. Caves are surface holes that are home to semi-megabeasts like giants or ogres. Caverns are what you breach when you dig down several z-levels. By the way, some cavern mobs can fly over simple walls so be prepared to either build a roof or wall all the way to the ceiling.

[Mister Always]

In caves, noone can hear you scream.

[cancel.man]

You are talking caverns not caves. Caves are surface holes that are home to semi-megabeasts like giants or ogres. Caverns are what you breach when you dig down several z-levels. By the way, some cavern mobs can fly over simple walls so be prepared to either build a roof or wall all the way to the ceiling.

While in real life I'd be annoyed by this explanation of terminology preference minutia, this is dwarf fortress where all intricacies are serious business. So good on ya for this explanation of cave vs. cavern

Also note that flying cave beasties loooove to come up through that up/down staircase shaft you dug into the top of the cavern then abandoned because it didn't reach all the way to the floor. Make sure you wall that off before a giant bat finds his way into your sleeping quarters and kills all the children 3 seasons after you forgot about the dig. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything...

[elpizo]

im doing that right now, i dug down to a magma pool and im building my fortress around, fun part is that theres magma crabs, the magma pool is right next to the edge of the map and i have only 1 soldier, also im on a evil biome so im getting harpied and ogres sometimes

[Dorfus]

You are talking caverns not caves. Caves are surface holes that are home to semi-megabeasts like giants or ogres. Caverns are what you breach when you dig down several z-levels. By the way, some cavern mobs can fly over simple walls so be prepared to either build a roof or wall all the way to the ceiling.

While in real life I'd be annoyed by this explanation of terminology preference minutia, this is dwarf fortress where all intricacies are serious business. ...

It's not terminology preference - they are two logically distinct entities. It's not an intricacy that caverns are sealed underground and caves are surface holes - it's a difference. It's like the distinction between a brook and a river - the two are not the same and do not behave the same way, despite both relating to water.

[Aeon Blue]

You are talking caverns not caves. Caves are surface holes that are home to semi-megabeasts like giants or ogres. Caverns are what you breach when you dig down several z-levels. By the way, some cavern mobs can fly over simple walls so be prepared to either build a roof or wall all the way to the ceiling.

In that case, I didn't know there were caves in this game. 

Also note that flying cave beasties loooove to come up through that up/down staircase shaft you dug into the top of the cavern then abandoned because it didn't reach all the way to the floor. Make sure you wall that off before a giant bat finds his way into your sleeping quarters and kills all the children 3 seasons after you forgot about the dig. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything...

Yes, I've learned this lesson the hard way. On the other hand, I was excited to find that I could essentially dig straight to the bottom with little danger as long as I plugged everything up.

im doing that right now, i dug down to a magma pool and im building my fortress around, fun part is that theres magma crabs, the magma pool is right next to the edge of the map and i have only 1 soldier, also im on a evil biome so im getting harpied and ogres sometimes

That's a cool idea. I'm going to try that.

[cancel.man]

In that case, I didn't know there were caves in this game. 

Play in Adventure Mode. You'll spend lots of time trying to find the entrance to some random dragon's damn cave- typically a single ramp  on the side of a mountain surrounded by hundreds of ramps and pretty much indistinguishable. It was searching for cave entrances that encouraged me to stop playing Adventure mode...

It's not terminology preference - they are two logically distinct entities. It's not an intricacy that caverns are sealed underground and caves are surface holes - it's a difference. It's like the distinction between a brook and a river - the two are not the same and do not behave the same way, despite both relating to water.

I bet you're one of those people who knows the difference between lava and magma, meteors and asteroids, etc. aren't you?