Also, with concrete numbers you see how useless diamond mining in fact is. Less then 1 out of 1000 blocks is diamond. If you want to make diamond pickaxe, you need to expose 3660 blocks. With a mining efficiency of 4 you need to mine 915 blocks to get 3 to make a pickaxe. Assuming you used a diamond pickaxe for that you only have 0.11 durability of your pickaxe left. Mining diamond for the sake of mining with a diamond pickaxe. Yo dawg, i herd you like mining diamond, so we put a diamond in your diamond, so you can mine while you mine
With an efficiency of 4, that is true. However, the true efficiency of a good mine isn't 4 as you can indirectly see more blocks due to deposit size. So you can get efficiencies between 4 and 8.(Depending on how much deposits you miss.)
On a side note, using iron picks seems to be very inefficient as the decreased rarity of the ore(compared to diamond) does not make up for the decrease in durability. And that's without taking speed into account.
On a second side note, the placing of torches isn't mentioned anywhere. If you're taking click-mining into account, it seems strange that torch placement isn't. I think you'll save far more time knowing exactly how far they can be apart and how to place quickly, then perfecting mining techniques.
Also, you'll be far more efficient if you mine instead of hanging round the forums. :wink.gif:
If you assume that ores come in deposit size, then you also have to assume that the overal chance to find a deposit is quiet low. Or just try to calculate it yourself. Mining with an iron pickaxe is even more ineffecient. You dont find enough iron to get craft a pickaxe. If you mine with 14 iron pickaxes till they are gone. Then from all the iron you can find you only can craft a miserable 11 iron pickaxes.
No, I'm not talking about the chance of hitting a block of a deposit. I'm talking about the fact that a deposit found can have blocks that reside outside the area that 4 efficiency takes into account. This is also mentioned in the original guide.
So the actual area you are searching in is larger then the area you can see. As only one block of a deposit needs to be within the seen area. From that you have to withdraw the deposits in the blind area you miss when no block of it resides in the seen area.(Also mentioned in the guide.) So while you won't hit all the deposits in the unseen area(would be efficiency 8 I think), you will hit the majority due to the average deposit size.
This means that doing efficient branch mining @ 12-17 will on average net you just under double the diamond that you use.(Diamond picks.)(Only taking branches into account, not the main hallway or the path to the mine.)
Suggestion: Use another service for images. Your post is very interesting, but missing basically all images because of photobucket bandwidth limit was exceeded is... annoying...
Maybe, just maybe, you should move all this knowledge to the Minecraft Wiki?
I am pathetic a working on wiki's. Maybe it's because I haven't really tried before, but I feel scared editing stuff on the wiki. I still have plans to cut back on the various different mines (e.g, remove information on open pit, strip and grid mines to give a clearer idea on what is best), and the thread is still considered under construction, so it may change randomly from time to time.
Oh, and that bandwidth thing is annoying. I've looked all over imgur's sight, and I can't find any place where it talks about a bandwidth cap, so I'll switch there indefinitely.
How about this way, where full coverage is easily obtained?
By placing the tunnels 1-below and 1-above the main corridor, you can easily have a floor every 4 blocks. The only concession is that the 1-below tunnels need to have 1 block chipped out from the top of their entrance, for access.
I agree with you Ice, and I was trying to make a video on it today.
Just as a test, I made this video here on click mining. Is it good enough? Was it informative? You tell me.
It is far higher quality than the thumbnail, so don't worry about that.
Featherblade, this takes a step back from the actual corridor patterns, but I've found the following method to work extremely well, and it cuts down on transport time significantly:
From the top down:
The Cobblestone blocks indicate digging 1x1 (head-height) so you don't have to count blocks or worry about botching the pattern..
Go down one floor (3 z-layers) and then off-set the same pattern:
When you leave the mine, just dig the straight path back:
Do this pattern between levels 11 and 19, and then, to increase your iron and coal reserves, do vertical mining from the top down. Because of the network of corridors at the bottom floors, you can mine downward with whichever density you prefer, with an easy route back up, and no worries about falling into a pool of lava. This is my magic combo.
Let me know what you think. If it is worthwhile, I can make a quick video of the pattern in action.
Those extra 3 you are saving from each time are a little useless, as if you discover an ore deposit, or have to run back, you'll be wiping out more than half the blocks saved anyway.
A few blocks saved is better than no blocks saved, but I think that if you have two parallel corridors, you'll end up eventually just mining those saved blocks, making it indifferent to practice over just mining straight down each section.
Hehehe, and with the vertical mines down, that Is what I was thinks of doing later is matching up diagrams so that the vertical mines line up with the horizontal branches. Then you can knock out the pillaring time and just walk to the nearest boatovator. I believe a vertical docking hub has the same purpose, and probably could be outlawed by using the branches themselves as the dock.
~~~
Made a new video, this time on vertical transport.
Again, the quality of the video is better than shown on the thumbnail. I'm also sorry that it was night, but the best video happened to have been during night time. I am also sleepy, so I made dry jokes :X
The key idea is that, rather than doing a plain branch pattern where you have to back-track after each branch is finished, doing a zig-zag pattern allows you to continually mine "forward" (i.e. no back-tracking) but have an extremely short transport back to your mine shaft. The longer you make each section of the zig-zag, the greater your efficiency is. If you calculate based on tool durability, it would be relatively simple to plan your zig-zag, so that you return to your "transport path" after x number of y-type pickaxes have broken. If you have a stone pickaxe, for example, you can mine 32 segments of standable space (1x1x2), so with a zig-zag width of 3, your maximum zig-zag length *per pick-axe* is 10.
Here is the use case:
You have 1 stone pickaxe.
You are mining north from your primary mineshaft; this means your primary transport tunnel will run north-south.
Start by mining North for 4 steps. Turn left and mine West for 10 steps. Turn right (facing North) and mine 4. Turn right again (facing East) and mine 10. Your pickaxe is almost out, it can only clear 3 more steps worth of stone. Turn right one more (facing south), and mine 3 steps. Your tunnel opens back onto your mineshaft, and your pickaxe has 3 blocks-worth of mining left (assuming you start from new) Through this pattern, you never once walked back onto a square that you had already mined, except for your mineshaft itself.
Now extend that a little bit:
You have 3 iron pickaxes (a combined total of 387 strokes, according to the minecraftwiki). This means your zig-zag length can be 27. Do as above and follow this pattern:
1) Mine North 4 steps
2) Turn left and mine West 26 steps
3) Turn right and mine North 4 steps
4) Turn right and mine East 26 steps
5) You are now parallel to your North-South transport tunnel, turn left to face North and start from step 1 again.
Once you have completed this cycle three times, replace step 5 with:
5) Turn right and mine South. You will mine 3 steps, walk 5 steps on previously-mined turf, mine 3 more, walk 5 more, mine a final 3, and open up onto your mine shaft.
This means that, for a total of 189 blocks mined, you will have backtracked a grand total of 15 steps. This also means that, when you return to the mine to resume digging, you only have to walk 24 blocks to reach the very front of your mine. The better (or more of) your tools, the longer you can make your zig-zags, and the better your transport efficiency gets. I don't know if there is a way to beat this pattern when using a single mineshaft.
Just as a side-note, I realize that my calculations don't factor discovered deposits at all, but it would make sense to carry a higher-quality pickaxe solely for extracting minerals (since stone handles stone pretty damn well).
This is pretty much the same as a parallel mine (two corridors, mining between them), except with minimal amounts of rock saved. A lot of the rock you do save will be wiped off when you walk back again, making it exactly the same as before.
Yes, it is better than a single corridor, but I have already said that parallel mines should be used (or at least, I think I did).
Oh, I also found this on Gamfaqs:
A very interesting concept. Transportation hasn't been talked a lot on this thread, so maybe we should be brainstorming ideas?
A 'Micro Studies' issue. How do you guys mine ore veins when you actually find them? I used to kind of go nuts whenever I found diamond, cause I just knew ores appeared near each other. After I read this thread and learned the rule (they have to share vertices) I use an algorithm: completely expose the ore on a plane in front of and around it, then dig, repeat for new ore found. This doesn't miss any ore and I don't lose track or have to dig extra to be sure.
Layer
So I'd mine where all the smooth stone is, and all the blocks in front of them.
Is there a more efficient, or more 3d approach, that you don't have to think about too much when you're using it?
Some issues with section 4's efficiency. Once a single mineral block is discovered, a player will dig out a cavity near it to remove the rest of the deposit. Remember that deposits of coal, iron, gold and diamond tend to show up in pockets greater than 1x1 horizontally. This makes all of the current methods too exhaustive. You can still achieve very nearly 100% mineral extraction from your target area with much larger crosscut spacing.
A 4-block spacing between crosscuts will give you a pillar 3 blocks wide. This will catch 99% of deposits, given the typical horizontal dimensions. I would dig the crosscut drift as high as possible to get a 'view' of as many wall blocks as you can.
Because horizontal spacing is greater, horizontal mining methods will be more efficient generally - with exception to the fact that you do have lower 'efficiency' since they expose fewer faces than vertical methods. But this is made up for by the horizontal ore shapre.
I have been thinking about effieciency in mining, and I realized that there are really 2 factors involved which do not necessarily co-exist. Are we talking about time-efficiency (ore recovered per unit time), or recovery efficiency? Anyways, that's not what this post is about. I have not yet done enough mining for time to be a real issue, so my thoughts have been mainly focused on Ore-Recovery, and I noticed that there's a very optimal pattern which has not yet been posted. UNTIL NOW!!!
You may have already thought of it on your own, but I call it...
THE HONEYCOMB
( [] = mined, = visible, = implied)
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] [] Can you guess why I call it the honeycomb?
(it's 'cause it's hexagonal)
[] [] [] [] (Just like a honeycomb!)
[] [] [] []
(...Oh, you already figured that out.)
[] [] [] [] (Well aren't YOU Special!)
[] [] [] []
:DORE:<-- It has excellent coverage, yet still has a solid floor!
[] [] [] [] Tunnels every 4 blocks is efficient AND easy to measure,
[] [] [] [] since the digging range of a pick is 4 blocks.
The unit-cell is this:
[]
[]
[]
[]
24 Squares:
17% Dug
50% Revealed
33% Implied (heavily implied in fact, since they're all bordering multiple revealed tiles)
Nothing escapes the honeycomb! (Except for the rare linear cluster that also happens to run parallel to the tunnels.)
(I bet you've never seen one have you? Yeah, that's what I thought.)
(And with the honeycomb, you never will!!! BWAHAHAHA!!!)
(...wait-)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hans Lemurson's Thread of Links:http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/371610-hans-lemursons-thread-of-links/
Look here to find links to my inventions, creations, and my Youtube channel featuring Amazing Creations of Mine (Redstone engineering FTW!!!) and charming Music-Videos about clones. I also made "Minecraft in Minecraft" (2D platformer/building game). I'm currently trying to make a computer.
The Honeycomb is great for diamond, as diamond deposits are usually small. For iron and especially coal it is too dense for it's own good. So for anything above diamond level, I think 4 or 5 blocks between branches would be optimal.
By mining between two separate corridors, you can effectively reduce all the time it takes for you to walk around in the mine to zero.
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.
With an efficiency of 4, that is true. However, the true efficiency of a good mine isn't 4 as you can indirectly see more blocks due to deposit size. So you can get efficiencies between 4 and 8.(Depending on how much deposits you miss.)
On a side note, using iron picks seems to be very inefficient as the decreased rarity of the ore(compared to diamond) does not make up for the decrease in durability. And that's without taking speed into account.
On a second side note, the placing of torches isn't mentioned anywhere. If you're taking click-mining into account, it seems strange that torch placement isn't. I think you'll save far more time knowing exactly how far they can be apart and how to place quickly, then perfecting mining techniques.
Also, you'll be far more efficient if you mine instead of hanging round the forums. :wink.gif:
Guess why the main post hasn't been updated often :wink.gif:
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.
SOMEONE STICKY THIS NOW!
No, I'm not talking about the chance of hitting a block of a deposit. I'm talking about the fact that a deposit found can have blocks that reside outside the area that 4 efficiency takes into account. This is also mentioned in the original guide.
So the actual area you are searching in is larger then the area you can see. As only one block of a deposit needs to be within the seen area. From that you have to withdraw the deposits in the blind area you miss when no block of it resides in the seen area.(Also mentioned in the guide.) So while you won't hit all the deposits in the unseen area(would be efficiency 8 I think), you will hit the majority due to the average deposit size.
This means that doing efficient branch mining @ 12-17 will on average net you just under double the diamond that you use.(Diamond picks.)(Only taking branches into account, not the main hallway or the path to the mine.)
Have some diamonds for your trouble.:Diamond:
Maybe, just maybe, you should move all this knowledge to the Minecraft Wiki?
https://denilson.sa.nom.br/
Oh, and that bandwidth thing is annoying. I've looked all over imgur's sight, and I can't find any place where it talks about a bandwidth cap, so I'll switch there indefinitely.
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.
By placing the tunnels 1-below and 1-above the main corridor, you can easily have a floor every 4 blocks. The only concession is that the 1-below tunnels need to have 1 block chipped out from the top of their entrance, for access.
Just as a test, I made this video here on click mining. Is it good enough? Was it informative? You tell me.
It is far higher quality than the thumbnail, so don't worry about that.
I hope I get input on this.
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.
From the top down:
The Cobblestone blocks indicate digging 1x1 (head-height) so you don't have to count blocks or worry about botching the pattern..
Go down one floor (3 z-layers) and then off-set the same pattern:
When you leave the mine, just dig the straight path back:
Do this pattern between levels 11 and 19, and then, to increase your iron and coal reserves, do vertical mining from the top down. Because of the network of corridors at the bottom floors, you can mine downward with whichever density you prefer, with an easy route back up, and no worries about falling into a pool of lava. This is my magic combo.
Let me know what you think. If it is worthwhile, I can make a quick video of the pattern in action.
A few blocks saved is better than no blocks saved, but I think that if you have two parallel corridors, you'll end up eventually just mining those saved blocks, making it indifferent to practice over just mining straight down each section.
Hehehe, and with the vertical mines down, that Is what I was thinks of doing later is matching up diagrams so that the vertical mines line up with the horizontal branches. Then you can knock out the pillaring time and just walk to the nearest boatovator. I believe a vertical docking hub has the same purpose, and probably could be outlawed by using the branches themselves as the dock.
~~~
Made a new video, this time on vertical transport.
Again, the quality of the video is better than shown on the thumbnail. I'm also sorry that it was night, but the best video happened to have been during night time. I am also sleepy, so I made dry jokes :X
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.
Here is the use case:
You have 1 stone pickaxe.
You are mining north from your primary mineshaft; this means your primary transport tunnel will run north-south.
Start by mining North for 4 steps. Turn left and mine West for 10 steps. Turn right (facing North) and mine 4. Turn right again (facing East) and mine 10. Your pickaxe is almost out, it can only clear 3 more steps worth of stone. Turn right one more (facing south), and mine 3 steps. Your tunnel opens back onto your mineshaft, and your pickaxe has 3 blocks-worth of mining left (assuming you start from new) Through this pattern, you never once walked back onto a square that you had already mined, except for your mineshaft itself.
Now extend that a little bit:
You have 3 iron pickaxes (a combined total of 387 strokes, according to the minecraftwiki). This means your zig-zag length can be 27. Do as above and follow this pattern:
1) Mine North 4 steps
2) Turn left and mine West 26 steps
3) Turn right and mine North 4 steps
4) Turn right and mine East 26 steps
5) You are now parallel to your North-South transport tunnel, turn left to face North and start from step 1 again.
Once you have completed this cycle three times, replace step 5 with:
5) Turn right and mine South. You will mine 3 steps, walk 5 steps on previously-mined turf, mine 3 more, walk 5 more, mine a final 3, and open up onto your mine shaft.
This means that, for a total of 189 blocks mined, you will have backtracked a grand total of 15 steps. This also means that, when you return to the mine to resume digging, you only have to walk 24 blocks to reach the very front of your mine. The better (or more of) your tools, the longer you can make your zig-zags, and the better your transport efficiency gets. I don't know if there is a way to beat this pattern when using a single mineshaft.
Just as a side-note, I realize that my calculations don't factor discovered deposits at all, but it would make sense to carry a higher-quality pickaxe solely for extracting minerals (since stone handles stone pretty damn well).
Thoughts?
Yes, it is better than a single corridor, but I have already said that parallel mines should be used (or at least, I think I did).
Oh, I also found this on Gamfaqs:
A very interesting concept. Transportation hasn't been talked a lot on this thread, so maybe we should be brainstorming ideas?
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.
Layer
So I'd mine where all the smooth stone is, and all the blocks in front of them.
Is there a more efficient, or more 3d approach, that you don't have to think about too much when you're using it?
A 4-block spacing between crosscuts will give you a pillar 3 blocks wide. This will catch 99% of deposits, given the typical horizontal dimensions. I would dig the crosscut drift as high as possible to get a 'view' of as many wall blocks as you can.
Because horizontal spacing is greater, horizontal mining methods will be more efficient generally - with exception to the fact that you do have lower 'efficiency' since they expose fewer faces than vertical methods. But this is made up for by the horizontal ore shapre.
You may have already thought of it on your own, but I call it...
THE HONEYCOMB
( [] = mined, = visible, = implied)
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] [] Can you guess why I call it the honeycomb?
(it's 'cause it's hexagonal)
[] [] [] [] (Just like a honeycomb!)
[] [] [] []
(...Oh, you already figured that out.)
[] [] [] [] (Well aren't YOU Special!)
[] [] [] []
:DORE:<-- It has excellent coverage, yet still has a solid floor!
[] [] [] [] Tunnels every 4 blocks is efficient AND easy to measure,
[] [] [] [] since the digging range of a pick is 4 blocks.
The unit-cell is this:
[]
[]
[]
[]
24 Squares:
17% Dug
50% Revealed
33% Implied (heavily implied in fact, since they're all bordering multiple revealed tiles)
Nothing escapes the honeycomb! (Except for the rare linear cluster that also happens to run parallel to the tunnels.)
(I bet you've never seen one have you? Yeah, that's what I thought.)
(And with the honeycomb, you never will!!! BWAHAHAHA!!!)
(...wait-)
Look here to find links to my inventions, creations, and my Youtube channel featuring Amazing Creations of Mine (Redstone engineering FTW!!!) and charming Music-Videos about clones. I also made "Minecraft in Minecraft" (2D platformer/building game). I'm currently trying to make a computer.
Damndamndamndamn.
I will run specs on it later (it's too late now) but that looks like a good candidate for a low ore loss mine.
(Bides time)
A simple suggestion on geology here.
~~~
Slaves of the Coal Mine
An interesting Novel to pass the time.