Hey ElfieTheEspeon, thanks for the update - and I love that you’ve fully walled off your village with spike walls ha! Sounds like a proper fortress.
On crystals - they’re pretty rare in the overworld right now. They only spawn as mineral outcrops in mountain, volcanic, tundra, and desert biomes, so if you started in plains/forest/glade, it’s totally possible there just aren’t any nearby. That’s something I definitely want to improve.
The crystal miner is actually a Tower Defense mode worker, not an adventure mode NPC. So if you’re seeing something wandering in circles in adventure mode, it’s probably just a normal farmer-type NPC and not anything crystal-related. There aren’t crystal-gathering NPCs in adventure mode at the moment but I plan to change this. it's really a balancing issue as crystals should be special.
Dungeons currently don’t respawn once cleared. This is to avoid balancing issues and also immersion issues where I am trying to make the world feel more inhabited and real, so if you make a choice or do something, it has a persistent effect, with often far reaching consequences. Your best crystal sources right now are dungeon chests from floor 2 onward (about a 20% shard drop chance), plus enemies like golems and crystal bats in rocky/mineral biomes.
For other settlements - the world is huge (40K x 40K), so they can be pretty spread out. Check your world map (M), and keep an eye out for waystones, signposts, and NPC rumors since those can all help point you toward nearby towns and villages.
Wayfarer’s Whey not bringing companions with you is a bug - they’re probably stuck wherever you used it. I’ll get that fixed so party members teleport properly.
Expandable minimap is a great suggestion - noted.
Raids spawning inside walls is also a known issue as I mentioned in the other comment. Right now they spawn 14-18 tiles from your campfire and only check if the tile is walkable, not whether it’s inside your defenses. I’m onto it right now with the next patch . In the meantime, since raids always come from the same direction, moving your home campfire can sometimes shift where they spawn.
Keep building though - your base sounds awesome! I'll be working hard to resolve these issues and perhaps make some conceptual changes to spawning of crystals and also dungeon resets for people who want to just become the Bane of their local dungeon hahha