I need a lot of obsidian for a construction project. The problem I'm having is that when I mine a block of obsidian a lot of times it's a thin crust of obsidian on top of lava, and the block I just mined falls into the lava underneath and is lost.
What I'm trying now is scooping out pails full of lava, putting them in a mold made of dirt, and hitting them with water. That way I don't loose any lava/obsidian, but it's boring and time-consuming work. And it's hard to reach the lava in the middle of a lava pool to scoop it out.
Is there a better way to mine large quantities of obsidian in survival?
If you make it to the end and kill the dragon, you can mine out the pillars and get all the obsidian your little heart desires. And more. If you haven't gotten that far, then sadly no. Unless of course you're playing on a version earlier than 1.8, in which case there's a bug you can exploit that will turn placed redstone dust into obsidian that you can mine out, making the stuff renewable. But without an earlier version, or the end, your best be would be to make a bunch of buckets, go to the nether and get all the lava you want, place it in the overworld, and mine it out like you've been doing.
That will change slightly in 1.9 btw, with a new way to mine obsidian: after you kill the dragon and mine the pillars, if you respawn the dragon, the pillars rebuild. Then you can kill the dragon again, mine the pillars, and otherwise continue the cycle until the enderdragon can no longer be respawned (i thought i read somewhere that you can only respawn him 20 times, but i may be wrong). This should give you the same problem everyone seems to have with melon: there's just way too much. Until then, stick to your old technique. It's rather slow, but it gets the job done.
I've done pretty much exactly what you've done Cryptopian- the pros are that it's relatively safe and you don't lose obsidian, the cons are that you can occasionally waste a bucket of lava by mis-placing it and, when the lava source dries up, it's even more of a pain to carry 12 or 15 buckets of lava back and forth.
After doing the above for a while I started harvesting obsidian down in my mines. I spend a lot of time digging subways and branch mines at y= 11+12- there's always a pool of lava somewhere nearby. I'm sure people have come up with super-clever optimized ways of doing this, but after splashing water on the surface of a lava pool, I gather up the water, chop a one block hole in the stone on the edge of the obsidian surface, fill the one block hole with water, then start hacking away at the obsidian blocks adjacent to the water block- both on the surface and down into the water. The water will turn the exposed lava to obsidian so long as it flows against the lava, and you can just keep hacking away at the newly formed obsidian. Of course water only spreads so far and you can only reach so deep, so after a while I stop, gather up my water source block again, and then jump down into the hole and gather up the obsidian.
The pros are that if done properly it's perfectly safe, you can harvest a lot of obsidian without schlepping buckets of lava around, and obsidian blocks stack while full buckets don't. The con is that the water stream doesn't always flow the way you think it will and occasionally the exposed lava will flow into a block that the water decided not to. You can lose loose obsidian blocks this way- I try not to get greedy and tend to pick up the water and lava before this happens. I then dump the water back out on the newly formed obsidian and so on and so on. Due to the unpredictable nature of the water and lava flow you usually can't get *every* lava block to turn to obsidian safely- once I get to this point I pick up and move to another part of the lava pool.
I also use something other than cobble to make stepping blocks in and around the obsidian- this way you can tell the blocks you placed from active "hot spots" of flowing lava that you might not want to hack into.
I see how it makes the obsidian block, but how can it be AFK is the blocks aren't collected some how? It looks like still need to stand next to it and break the obsidian blocks.
There's more lava in the Nether than I could ever use, so I can collect lots of pails of lava from the nether. I'm considering building with lava instead of building with obsidian. To make an obsidian floor,for example, I just make a big "pan" out of dirt, one block deep. Then I can fill it up with lava, then pour water all over it. Then I chip away the dirt and I have my obsidian floor without ever having to break a single block of obsidian. I've made nether portals that way before. I suppose I could make a whole obsidian building that way.
I'm wanting obsidian and white diorite for floors and support columns, glass for walls, and glowstone for lighting. I could also use coal blocks for black instead of obsidian, but I think obsidian would be cooler.
I could also make decorative patterned floors in black obsidian and
white diorite, or black and red nether brick by setting up the pattern
with holes in the right places for lava, filling in the lava, and then
flooding the whole floor with water to make obsidian in place.
there are hoppers under the collection area. everything goes into the chest. you have to use the afk trick to make this work. I am sorry I thought it was common knowledge.
Okay, so after actually watching the video, you cannot call this an AFK trick. AFK means "away from keyboard", and i still have to be near mine to mine out the obsidian manually. Despite this, however, it is still a very easy way to mine obsidian. So despite not being AFK, it's still the easiest way i've seen to go about mining the stuff. Bravo my friend
hold f11 and press the left clicker and let go of everything and you will keep mining without having to press anything. there are a few other ways too but the idea is that you can then go do real life stuff while minecraft does the boring stuff for you.
afk machine are a well known term in minecraft. this one falls under that term.
I need a lot of obsidian for a construction project. The problem I'm having is that when I mine a block of obsidian a lot of times it's a thin crust of obsidian on top of lava, and the block I just mined falls into the lava underneath and is lost.
What I'm trying now is scooping out pails full of lava, putting them in a mold made of dirt, and hitting them with water. That way I don't loose any lava/obsidian, but it's boring and time-consuming work. And it's hard to reach the lava in the middle of a lava pool to scoop it out.
Is there a better way to mine large quantities of obsidian in survival?
Just pace a bucket of water next to the obsidian your mining. If the obsidian is right over a patch of lava, the lava will turn into obsidian.
hold f11 and press the left clicker and let go of everything and you will keep mining without having to press anything. there are a few other ways too but the idea is that you can then go do real life stuff while minecraft does the boring stuff for you.
afk machine are a well known term in minecraft. this one falls under that term.
I apologize, i didn't realize that was possible. I might actually have to try that in my survival world
I made an infinitely AFK obsidian farm. You don't have to go as extreme as I did, but using withers can get you tons of obsidian quickly even if you have to keep an eye on the wither until your satisfied with the amount.
Besides the trick with having water in the neighboring spot others have mentioned, since I was lucky enough to have my End spawning platform underground, whenever I need more obsidian I just grab an Efficiency V pick (the only time it really seems to make much of a difference going from IV to V) and mine it out. (You could do the same if you spawn in the Void, of course, you'd just have to build a little floor underneath it first.)
But yes, for the floor I'd just use lava and then water it.
I've done pretty much exactly what you've done Cryptopian- the pros are that it's relatively safe and you don't lose obsidian, the cons are that you can occasionally waste a bucket of lava by mis-placing it and, when the lava source dries up, it's even more of a pain to carry 12 or 15 buckets of lava back and forth.
After doing the above for a while I started harvesting obsidian down in my mines. I spend a lot of time digging subways and branch mines at y= 11+12- there's always a pool of lava somewhere nearby. I'm sure people have come up with super-clever optimized ways of doing this, but after splashing water on the surface of a lava pool, I gather up the water, chop a one block hole in the stone on the edge of the obsidian surface, fill the one block hole with water, then start hacking away at the obsidian blocks adjacent to the water block- both on the surface and down into the water. The water will turn the exposed lava to obsidian so long as it flows against the lava, and you can just keep hacking away at the newly formed obsidian. Of course water only spreads so far and you can only reach so deep, so after a while I stop, gather up my water source block again, and then jump down into the hole and gather up the obsidian.
The pros are that if done properly it's perfectly safe, you can harvest a lot of obsidian without schlepping buckets of lava around, and obsidian blocks stack while full buckets don't. The con is that the water stream doesn't always flow the way you think it will and occasionally the exposed lava will flow into a block that the water decided not to. You can lose loose obsidian blocks this way- I try not to get greedy and tend to pick up the water and lava before this happens. I then dump the water back out on the newly formed obsidian and so on and so on. Due to the unpredictable nature of the water and lava flow you usually can't get *every* lava block to turn to obsidian safely- once I get to this point I pick up and move to another part of the lava pool.
I also use something other than cobble to make stepping blocks in and around the obsidian- this way you can tell the blocks you placed from active "hot spots" of flowing lava that you might not want to hack into.
Hope this makes sense- cheers!
tbg
This works for me.
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Owner of "Ever Crafter SMP" the server where you write your own story!
Playing Minecraft is our chance to escape the reality and mundaneness of everyday life, if only for a little while.
You can still use withers for tree farms. Just take my Sandsidiator farm and push wood into the withers. I am an expert on withers, but you don't have to be to make an obsidian farm or tree farm with them.
I need a lot of obsidian for a construction project. The problem I'm having is that when I mine a block of obsidian a lot of times it's a thin crust of obsidian on top of lava, and the block I just mined falls into the lava underneath and is lost.
What I'm trying now is scooping out pails full of lava, putting them in a mold made of dirt, and hitting them with water. That way I don't loose any lava/obsidian, but it's boring and time-consuming work. And it's hard to reach the lava in the middle of a lava pool to scoop it out.
Is there a better way to mine large quantities of obsidian in survival?
If you make it to the end and kill the dragon, you can mine out the pillars and get all the obsidian your little heart desires. And more. If you haven't gotten that far, then sadly no. Unless of course you're playing on a version earlier than 1.8, in which case there's a bug you can exploit that will turn placed redstone dust into obsidian that you can mine out, making the stuff renewable. But without an earlier version, or the end, your best be would be to make a bunch of buckets, go to the nether and get all the lava you want, place it in the overworld, and mine it out like you've been doing.
That will change slightly in 1.9 btw, with a new way to mine obsidian: after you kill the dragon and mine the pillars, if you respawn the dragon, the pillars rebuild. Then you can kill the dragon again, mine the pillars, and otherwise continue the cycle until the enderdragon can no longer be respawned (i thought i read somewhere that you can only respawn him 20 times, but i may be wrong). This should give you the same problem everyone seems to have with melon: there's just way too much. Until then, stick to your old technique. It's rather slow, but it gets the job done.
I've done pretty much exactly what you've done Cryptopian- the pros are that it's relatively safe and you don't lose obsidian, the cons are that you can occasionally waste a bucket of lava by mis-placing it and, when the lava source dries up, it's even more of a pain to carry 12 or 15 buckets of lava back and forth.
After doing the above for a while I started harvesting obsidian down in my mines. I spend a lot of time digging subways and branch mines at y= 11+12- there's always a pool of lava somewhere nearby. I'm sure people have come up with super-clever optimized ways of doing this, but after splashing water on the surface of a lava pool, I gather up the water, chop a one block hole in the stone on the edge of the obsidian surface, fill the one block hole with water, then start hacking away at the obsidian blocks adjacent to the water block- both on the surface and down into the water. The water will turn the exposed lava to obsidian so long as it flows against the lava, and you can just keep hacking away at the newly formed obsidian. Of course water only spreads so far and you can only reach so deep, so after a while I stop, gather up my water source block again, and then jump down into the hole and gather up the obsidian.
The pros are that if done properly it's perfectly safe, you can harvest a lot of obsidian without schlepping buckets of lava around, and obsidian blocks stack while full buckets don't. The con is that the water stream doesn't always flow the way you think it will and occasionally the exposed lava will flow into a block that the water decided not to. You can lose loose obsidian blocks this way- I try not to get greedy and tend to pick up the water and lava before this happens. I then dump the water back out on the newly formed obsidian and so on and so on. Due to the unpredictable nature of the water and lava flow you usually can't get *every* lava block to turn to obsidian safely- once I get to this point I pick up and move to another part of the lava pool.
I also use something other than cobble to make stepping blocks in and around the obsidian- this way you can tell the blocks you placed from active "hot spots" of flowing lava that you might not want to hack into.
Hope this makes sense- cheers!
tbg
I see how it makes the obsidian block, but how can it be AFK is the blocks aren't collected some how? It looks like still need to stand next to it and break the obsidian blocks.
There's more lava in the Nether than I could ever use, so I can collect lots of pails of lava from the nether. I'm considering building with lava instead of building with obsidian. To make an obsidian floor,for example, I just make a big "pan" out of dirt, one block deep. Then I can fill it up with lava, then pour water all over it. Then I chip away the dirt and I have my obsidian floor without ever having to break a single block of obsidian. I've made nether portals that way before. I suppose I could make a whole obsidian building that way.
I'm wanting obsidian and white diorite for floors and support columns, glass for walls, and glowstone for lighting. I could also use coal blocks for black instead of obsidian, but I think obsidian would be cooler.
I could also make decorative patterned floors in black obsidian and
white diorite, or black and red nether brick by setting up the pattern
with holes in the right places for lava, filling in the lava, and then
flooding the whole floor with water to make obsidian in place.
Whaaaat. This is easy
Mine out one block next to the obsidian. Place water. Mine the obsidian next to the water. Repeat forever (well, moving the water sometimes.)
there are hoppers under the collection area. everything goes into the chest. you have to use the afk trick to make this work. I am sorry I thought it was common knowledge.
yeah that works. and is actually what I do early game but late game that is so boring I just auto mine it.
AFK trick? Sorry, I'm kind of new to Minecraft. Been playing about eight months or so, and there's a lot I don't know yet.
I've been playing for years and i was never aware of an AFK trick with obsidian. This is immensely helpful
Okay, so after actually watching the video, you cannot call this an AFK trick. AFK means "away from keyboard", and i still have to be near mine to mine out the obsidian manually. Despite this, however, it is still a very easy way to mine obsidian. So despite not being AFK, it's still the easiest way i've seen to go about mining the stuff. Bravo my friend
hold f11 and press the left clicker and let go of everything and you will keep mining without having to press anything. there are a few other ways too but the idea is that you can then go do real life stuff while minecraft does the boring stuff for you.
afk machine are a well known term in minecraft. this one falls under that term.
Just pace a bucket of water next to the obsidian your mining. If the obsidian is right over a patch of lava, the lava will turn into obsidian.
I apologize, i didn't realize that was possible. I might actually have to try that in my survival world
no offence taken.
I made an infinitely AFK obsidian farm. You don't have to go as extreme as I did, but using withers can get you tons of obsidian quickly even if you have to keep an eye on the wither until your satisfied with the amount.
Besides the trick with having water in the neighboring spot others have mentioned, since I was lucky enough to have my End spawning platform underground, whenever I need more obsidian I just grab an Efficiency V pick (the only time it really seems to make much of a difference going from IV to V) and mine it out. (You could do the same if you spawn in the Void, of course, you'd just have to build a little floor underneath it first.)
But yes, for the floor I'd just use lava and then water it.
I thought they patched this in 1.8 and up? well at the very least tree farms that use withers do not work last I checked.
This works for me.
Owner of "Ever Crafter SMP" the server where you write your own story!
Playing Minecraft is our chance to escape the reality and mundaneness of everyday life, if only for a little while.
You can still use withers for tree farms. Just take my Sandsidiator farm and push wood into the withers. I am an expert on withers, but you don't have to be to make an obsidian farm or tree farm with them.