There's a "butter zone" for digging with shovels, a specific distance from the block that slightly increases the speed that you can break it. It's very noticeable while using a diamond shovel as it allows you to dig faster than you can walk, allowing you to dig without losing any speed at all. That butter zone is about 3 3/4 to 4 blocks from the block.
To try it for yourself, grab a diamond shovel in survival mode and try digging like this:
and just dig. You'll get caught up and slow down from the normal walking speed.
Then try it like this:
Dig while standing just over 3 blocks away from the sand and walk forward while digging. You should be able to dig at the exact speed as you walk, allowing you to walk at your normal speed.
If you're too lazy or just don't want to try this yourself, I have a video with some of the tests myself:
(sorry not entirely sure how to embed the actual video with this new forum system)
Now, I'm not sure what causes this. It may just be a little discrepancy, a bug, or just a logistical thing caused by standing farther away. But it's definitely helpful and definitely causes faster digging, and it's completely unmentioned on the Minecraft Wiki. Also, I doubt something as minor as this is anything near what Notch was mentioning, but I certainly think it's interesting.
I've been doing this for a while. I assumed it was known. I just hold the mouse button down to dig the first block or 2 until the next one is out of range, then start walking without releasing the button.
It doesn't seem to happen in this build, but in earlier ones if you did the same with sugar cane you could harvest it at running speed. In the latest build it seems to always harvest at the fastest speed.
It speeds up a pick on stone as well, but not to the point where you can mine at walking speed. Not sure if that's still the case in the current build as I haven't used a diamond pick much with it.
I think you do a "half-cycle" buffer to prevent power-mining. If you're at the limit, there is no new block to start the anti-pwer-mining "half-cycle."
Yeah, I know of this as well when I was using shovels to help flatten a portion of the land so that I can build farms and my base of operations on it. Very useful this trick is to making hills flat, unless there's a lot of stone within the hill, but that's what picks are for.
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"I'm not addicted I just play too much. Now where's my Creeper-proof base?"
"For no matter how many times I'm killed, I'll always be ressurrected to continue the struggle." -A Ressurrected Doom's origin
If it's fairly old then I don't understand why it's not on the wiki.
To quote it: "The speed at which you dig is controlled by two factors: The block you are breaking, and the item you are currently wielding."
No mention is made to the distance from the block. If it's old, then it should be added to the wiki or others should confirm that this isn't some strange anomaly.
Ok, so here's what I found:
There's a "butter zone" for digging with shovels, a specific distance from the block that slightly increases the speed that you can break it. It's very noticeable while using a diamond shovel as it allows you to dig faster than you can walk, allowing you to dig without losing any speed at all. That butter zone is about 3 3/4 to 4 blocks from the block.
To try it for yourself, grab a diamond shovel in survival mode and try digging like this:
and just dig. You'll get caught up and slow down from the normal walking speed.
Then try it like this:
Dig while standing just over 3 blocks away from the sand and walk forward while digging. You should be able to dig at the exact speed as you walk, allowing you to walk at your normal speed.
If you're too lazy or just don't want to try this yourself, I have a video with some of the tests myself:
(sorry not entirely sure how to embed the actual video with this new forum system)
Now, I'm not sure what causes this. It may just be a little discrepancy, a bug, or just a logistical thing caused by standing farther away. But it's definitely helpful and definitely causes faster digging, and it's completely unmentioned on the Minecraft Wiki. Also, I doubt something as minor as this is anything near what Notch was mentioning, but I certainly think it's interesting.
It doesn't seem to happen in this build, but in earlier ones if you did the same with sugar cane you could harvest it at running speed. In the latest build it seems to always harvest at the fastest speed.
It speeds up a pick on stone as well, but not to the point where you can mine at walking speed. Not sure if that's still the case in the current build as I haven't used a diamond pick much with it.
"For no matter how many times I'm killed, I'll always be ressurrected to continue the struggle." -A Ressurrected Doom's origin
If it's fairly old then I don't understand why it's not on the wiki.
To quote it: "The speed at which you dig is controlled by two factors: The block you are breaking, and the item you are currently wielding."
No mention is made to the distance from the block. If it's old, then it should be added to the wiki or others should confirm that this isn't some strange anomaly.