I've often wondered if anybody else comes close to me when it comes to caving - an activity usually done to get resources, with much of the rest of the time spent on other activities.
For me it is the other way around - the majority of the time I spend playing is spent caving, not to get resources but because I find it fun; when I start a new world I branch-mine to get resources, then spend some time building a base, finding a stronghold and all that (I only go as far as to kill the Ender Dragon; I've only ever gotten two Wither skulls, in different worlds and both unintentionally, and don't have the incentive to try getting more; you can see my typical progression in this thread) but afterwards caving is pretty much all of my playing, with occasional interruptions when I build a new secondary base and railway linking it to my main base.
This is also on worlds that I play on for months for hours per day, with this as the result; as they say, pictures are worth a thousand words:
For a better perspective of the scale here are a couple close-ups (the full-size renderings were over 11,000 pixels across and 30 MB for the surface alone), one of caves around one of my secondary bases (green area in the center, rail lines also extend out from it) and another of some of the largest cave systems I've found; all of the yellow dots are torches, which are used by the mapping utility that I used to render areas underground (caves are only rendered if there is a torch within 6 blocks; I actually modified the utility itself to reduce the range (from +/- 20 blocks) to a more realistic range, and removed naturally generated torches from mineshafts so they don't show up):
A few screenshots I took with MCEdit (similar to Spectator mode):
Underneath my main base (the yellow cubes are tile entities, in the upper-left is my storage area). You can also see some primitive branch-mining (in this world I never made any organized mine, e.g. like this, as I do in more recent worlds):
Some random caves, ravines, and mineshafts:
A very large cave system (there's a dungeon I missed in the lower-right; I normally mine the moss stone and destroy the spawners):
There are areas that I've missed, as seen here (also an area of relatively low cave density) and here and there on the other screenshots, but for the most part nearly every cave/ravine/mineshaft has been explored:
That's also just on one world, plus I had explored an even larger area back when I had modded this world (new biomes, bigger caves, etc) as shown in this thread (first world), along with several other worlds that I've had. Yes, what you see is mostly vanilla cave generation, as it was before 1.7 nerfed them, mainly by making individual cave systems smaller and less dense (as I call it, "the update that ruined the underground"; I say "mostly vanilla" because I recently nerfed the frequency of mineshafts, which are really way too common further away from the origin (one per 100 chunks, when they can each cover that large of an area) but otherwise nothing else has been modified).
The amount of mining I do is also astounding - I've mined as much as 5,500 ore in a single play session and regularly mine 2-3,000 (as rightfully said in this thread, "fuel the world's furnace demands with coal, and fill chests with iron BLOCKS"); just the last time I played I mined 750 rails from abandoned mineshafts (3/4 of what you need for "on a rail" - without actually making any, and indeed, I never did make any regular rails in this world). As with the cave renderings, this speaks for itself, and again this is only from one world (which is also less than what I mined back when I'd modded it); as seen by the first screenshot (ordered by blocks used) torches are the most commonly placed block, followed by cobblestone (mostly placed while caving), then everything else is far behind, indicative of my playstyle and not seeing Minecraft as a building game (as it is a sandbox, a point I've emphasized before):
So, I've been wondering if anybody else caves like this, or how much caving you do in general and if it is just to get resources or because you find it to be fun.
Sheesh dude, that's crazy. I can't cave that much, I get freaked out. Like I won't be able to find my way back again. I know some might say "just use coordinates", but I feel like that's a bit cheaty. So I cave, and go as far as I can while lighting places where I know i'll be able to find my way back, and get back. I can't stay for more than like an hr because then I know that i'll get lost. More importantly, I probably won't ever use that many minerals lol. So no I don't enjoy caving as much as you do obviously, but it's a nice fun thing to do once in a while.
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TMC- I suspect the answer is no- I do think you really have this niche covered!
I do spend more time underground than most folks (at least I imagine so), but until recently I've done very little proactive caving. I branch mine and construct subway rail lines for transportation, but I typically explore caves only when convenient and relatively safe- once I get to a big gnarly cavern with multiple entrances I usually reverse, seal it off, and tell myself I'll come back to explore it later.
I've been doing a lot more active caving recently, though- generally with the intent of "tapping out" the local system entirely (though I still tend to skip ravines- they take a long time to secure and are a pain to mine resources from). Why more caving now? I dunno- I like mining and accumulating resources, but I'm not real fond of combat. I guess I've finally convinced myself that I'm sturdy enough to withstand just about anything thrown at me, even if I'm not the best fighter. I also like strategically navigating the complex, open areas in a way so as to minimize combat- just another aspect of the game I haven't spent much time doing before.
And why do *you* like caving so much? What do *you* get out of it?
And why do *you* like caving so much? What do *you* get out of it?
I guess it is mostly a combination of exploration and mob combat, and seeing how much stuff I can mine (though I don't put it on display as you do, plus I'd literally have problems stacking up enough 16x16x16 coal cubes, with 53,000 blocks so far, including from back when I used Fortune, which would be a tower over 200 blocks high; maybe 32x32x32?). In a modded world I played until recently I made a game out of finding new biomes by following caves to them, instead of searching for them overland (I've even found a Mushroom Island this way), and there's nothing like finding a stronghold without using Eyes of Ender (though I find the first one through normal means).
Also, regarding your comment about ravines, I don't find them to be particularly difficult to explore, although I prefer them not to be in the middle of a big cave system, and ladders make it easy to scale their walls to reach any ores, plus I carve out ledges along the sides (if the existing ones aren't wide enough; this is responsible for a large portion of the stone/cobblestone I mine/use); generally, I explore them from the top down and explore any intersecting caves first, which reduces attacks from mobs falling down (this does increase the fall risk, both from fall damage and falling onto mobs, but this is one reason why I wear Feather Falling IV boots plus 2x Protection IV, which maximizes protection from fall damage); if they have lava at the bottom I'll empty my water bucket off the edge at intervals (which can cause mobs to spawn but that is much preferred over falling into lava).
One thing that interests me is seeing renderings like the ones I've posted, which I see as the best way to show how much caving you (or anybody else) have done, plus it would be interesting to compare a 1.7+ world.
For example, here is such a rendering of the famous 404 cave system (plus another nearby) back in Beta 1.7.3*, taken from this thread, which includes similar renderings (a lot of the small scattered areas you see in the OP are unexplored abandoned mineshafts, due to their naturally generated torches:
*I've decompiled Beta 1.7.3 and determined that cave generation was basically the same as up to 1.6.4, aside from the fixing of a bug that caused caves to generate inconsistently across chunk boundaries (the locations of caves also changed, so the 404 seed no longer produces a large cave system in the same location), but the same amount overall (the addition of mineshafts and ravines in Beta 1.8 are mainly responsible for a significant increase in interconnectivity; believe it or not, when first introduced mineshafts were twice as common as they were up to 1.6.4 (reduced by another factor of 2.5 in 1.7), in any case they seem less common if you stay close to spawn due to a reduction in frequency within 80 chunks of 0, 0).
I never really went on my Survival World much. Provided I had started one earlier than I did and became active on it, I'd get close to this level if not at it. I just feel more at home with SMP. But that's just me.
I've never had an interest in caving tbh. I find it boring if the caves are too big. I love building rather than exploring but I can get where the caving love coves from. The idea that every caves is different in size and features I'm guessing is a big reason why som epeople love it
i don't know what it is but I can't really get into it.
I go exploring occasionally, lighting as I go so I know where I been. If I do get lost, I can always dig up. I wish there were more things to find underground though - a larger variety of structures than mineshafts and strongholds.
I've caved a lot for mostly the same reason, though no where near that much, I always either can't find any more caves or simply start slowly losing interest in the world. But most of my gameplay time goes towarda caving. I also like to set the dungeon limit in customized worlds to 100. Not because of the loot nut because I like exploring and finding little things.
I get nowhere near and have no intention of doing so because I find caving boring. I have only ever had one survival world. Once I had gathered some resources early on I have hardly been back in a cave except when I had another reason to be there.
The reason I have never started another survival world is that I want to do new things all the time. I don't see the appeal of going through the same steps over and over again and caving gets old very quickly. I am frankly baffled as to what it is that you enjoy about caving once the initial novelty wore off (which must have been some time ago in your case) but if you do, good luck to you and you are certainly the person I would turn to if I needed advice on caving and mining.
This.
I only mine enough to support my other minecraft activities, let alone caving. I have several stacks of diamonds just from mining for stone to use in my builds. That much will last me a YEAR without having to go looking for diamonds. Of course I'll end up mining more stone to build with though, so I'll get more diamonds anyway.
Caving is extremely repetitive and I'll only do it if I absolutely have to for resources. If I was interested in mob combat and exploration I'd just explore above ground... Which I do for those exact reasons. You see far more interesting things above ground than looking at the same stone over and over and over, with slightly different tunnel arrangements. I also find combat at night more challenging than in caves. It's usually very easy to predict where mobs will be in cave systems, but at night in the open world you can sometimes be surprised by where that group of creepers came from in the roofed forest. An exploratory trip for 15-20k blocks above ground(without a bed) can be quite an adventure.
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I'm not sure many people have spent as much time playing Minecraft as you, TMC, nevermind spent as much time caving. Your OP question has to be about 90% rhetorical because of course nobody else has done it that much. You clearly have an addiction or maybe OCD. If you ever visit an actual cave system, please do not bring any tools! It's probably a national monument and they don't want you mining it out!
So far I think I'm an MC generalist. I enjoy caving well enough; I don't have enough diamonds or redstone yet to have lost the little satisfied feeling when I find a block to mine. I will actually be happy when they change to Lapis as an enchanting input because ATM I get a small rush when finding it in a cave, but then remember that it's mostly useless.
I also enjoy taking those resources back to base and using them to build things which automatically murder iron golems, chickens, or crops. Or which semi-automatically help me to murder zombies and spiders. And I enjoy designing ever bigger, better bases, or villager homes, or farms or whatever. I also enjoy the occasional fishing (only during rain).
I will say that I did not enjoy caving much before I got full iron armor and a blast protection enchant, at least. Now that a creeper can't one-shot me, I feel safer exploring on my own. Still prefer to have a friend along who at least can pick up all my stuff if I fall into a lava pool.
I'm not sure many people have spent as much time playing Minecraft as you, TMC, nevermind spent as much time caving. Your OP question has to be about 90% rhetorical because of course nobody else has done it that much. You clearly have an addiction or maybe OCD. If you ever visit an actual cave system, please do not bring any tools! It's probably a national monument and they don't want you mining it out!
So far I think I'm an MC generalist. I enjoy caving well enough; I don't have enough diamonds or redstone yet to have lost the little satisfied feeling when I find a block to mine. I will actually be happy when they change to Lapis as an enchanting input because ATM I get a small rush when finding it in a cave, but then remember that it's mostly useless.
I also enjoy taking those resources back to base and using them to build things which automatically murder iron golems, chickens, or crops. Or which semi-automatically help me to murder zombies and spiders. And I enjoy designing ever bigger, better bases, or villager homes, or farms or whatever. I also enjoy the occasional fishing (only during rain).
I will say that I did not enjoy caving much before I got full iron armor and a blast protection enchant, at least. Now that a creeper can't one-shot me, I feel safer exploring on my own. Still prefer to have a friend along who at least can pick up all my stuff if I fall into a lava pool.
I know of people who have spent more than twice the time I have on one world; given how much I've done it is understandable to assume that I play a very lot but I can mine upwards of a thousand ore in a single hour; granted, I do play around 3 hours per day but I've also seen truly addicted people claiming upwards of 20 hours per day (at least on weekends; I've never played for more than around 8 hours at a stretch; my playtime is usually very regular from day to day regardless of how much time I might have to play) and/or a year or more of continuous gameplay; e.g in threads like this one (I've calculated that I've spent a total of around 2,500 hours playing over about 2 1/2 years).
Also, they already added lapis as an enchanting requirement back in 1.8 (more than a year ago); I assume you are still playing in an older or non-PC version; I think adding a use for lapis* is offset by the need to constantly replace your gear (I carry around an anvil and extra diamonds (for the rare case I don't find any) so I can repair my gear on the spot; sure, it is much cheaper to enchant/repair overall in 1.8 but this convenience outweighs this, plus I get too much XP anyway, one reason for the amethyst gear in a mod I made, which is nothing more than a rarer and more expensive version of diamond. Of course, not everybody uses enchanted gear as much as I do; I've killed enough mobs in one session to break an unenchanted diamond sword, or mined enough to go though 4-5 diamond pickaxes, plus don't travel as far out as I do).
*When I first started playing I didn't even bother mining lapis, or taking it from minecarts, same for redstone (only a small amount needed for maps and powered rails), both of which I mined in large quantities when I re-explored caves I'd explored early on; I also didn't start mining all coal until 1.6 added coal blocks (also all mined out later on), or using Fortune on everything (for a while, first it was only diamond and emerald, I later dropped it by the time I started playing on the world again after about a year playing other worlds). That said, I didn't start caving right away either based on a very old copy of my first world, which only has a few caves explored near spawn, consistent with exploring them for needed resources, and was about a third of the size it is now; i.e. much of the world was explored above ground.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that I play on Xbox One. So 1.6 rules I think.
I can mine upwards of a thousand ore in a single hour
Ore ore? As in coal or better? I've seen that you have some very neat tools to map out your worlds and places you've explored...wish we had those on console. But in any case, is there a mod you use that directs you to ore deposits in the caves you explore? I ask because with the caves I've seen (maybe a limitation of 1.6/console world generation?) I can't imagine mining 1000 ore blocks in an hour.
Even considering only coal (which has the largest veins, right?) and assuming each and every vein you find is 10 blocks, you have to find and mine a vein every 36 seconds.
Edit: OK, wiki says underground coal veins are usually 10 and may be up to 64. So midpoint is 37. That means finding a new vein every 2.2 minutes.That seems reasonable (edit: for me to accomplish), though mixing in iron, redstone, and gold brings the blocks-per-mined-vein down and the time-between-veins down as well.
Tonight I might focus a bit and see what my rate is. Maybe I just putter around too much. Plenty of unexplored caves in the area I'm in...
Edit 2: It occurs to me now that you might mean 1,000 units of mined material, such as 1,000 pieces of coal + redstone + lapis + emeralds + iron ore blocks + gold ore blocks + etc. So not necessarily finding and mining 1,000 ore blocks in caves, but coming away with 1,000 units of whatever you mine. That seems more reasonable (edit: as in, reasonable for someone like me to match). Still awesomely productive, tho.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that I play on Xbox One. So 1.6 rules I think.
Ore ore? As in coal or better? I've seen that you have some very neat tools to map out your worlds and places you've explored...wish we had those on console. But in any case, is there a mod you use that directs you to ore deposits in the caves you explore? I ask because with the caves I've seen (maybe a limitation of 1.6/console world generation?) I can't imagine getting 1000 units of valuable ores in an hour.
Even considering only coal (which has the largest veins, right?) and assuming each and every vein you find is 10 blocks, you have to find and mine a vein every 36 seconds. Nevermind lighting the cave and building temporary structures to reach the veins, or fighting off mobs. I maybe get 4 or 5 stacks of ores (combined coal/iron/redstone/whatever) per hour, but I suppose I might be lollygagging around too much. :-) I definitely am not laser-focused on finding visible deposits, but even if I were...1,000 units an hour would be astounding. Tonight I might focus a bit and see what my rate is. Plenty of unexplored caves in the area I'm in...
It is easily possible; a while back I modified the ore generation code so that any vein that had at least one block exposed to an air block had every successfully placed block (ores can only replace stone) counted towards a running total with the following results:
That was just for the area generated right around spawn (using the same seed as my world):
Similarly, this was over a much larger area, coincidentally with close to the same amounts of ores as I've mined (I've mined relatively more gold, lapis and diamond, likely because I don't bother mining around other ores to see if there is more ore diagonally adjacent in a vein; e.g. if I find a diamond vein with 1-2 ore I check around to make sure there isn't more. Also, veins found after mining coal or another ore appear to contribute to around 25% of all diamond I've found, currently at about 4,200 ore, about a third more than expected from this; last time I played I found 26 diamonds, including a vein of 6 behind a coal vein. This does not factor in these "indirectly exposed" veins, only ones that directly touch an air block):
I've calculated that I explore around 100 chunks per play session, which fits pretty closely with these results; my world is around 33,000 chunks in size (actual explored area is less) so that is also consistent with the above.
Here are some figures I posted in another thread for another world that I had, showing that while the average is not quite as high (up to 1,000 per hour) I still manage a very good rate:
In terms of hourly rates (over 144 hours), this means that on average I've mined the following:
Total: 797 ores mined per hour, 2,775 per play session
Compare this to what was found in the second test ran above, which gives 27.38 exposed ore per chunk, or 2,738 ores exposed across 100 chunks.
Here are some screenshots from some of my more extreme play sessions (I added the GUI display of ores mined and stuff in the inventory screen):
This includes what I mined from previous days ("diamond ender chest" is from a mod I made, used so I can transport nearly twice as many resources back to my main base at once):
While not very useful underground I carry a fully-zoomed out map with me so I can see where I've been so far - that's 2048x2048 blocks, 16384 chunks for a full map:
Also, this was from the play session immediately before; compare my score, which shows that I gained more than 8,000 XP from mining/smelting and killing mobs:
Here is what I mined from my most prolific play session (the purple armor and tools are from my mod TMCW, which makes some modifications to ore generation in accordance with changes to caves (lower lava level) but doesn't make them more common other than rescaling with the ground depth from 52-59 layers; the very large caves that can be found also expose less ore than several smaller caves of the same volume):
Here you can see what I explored in that single play session (top is before, bottom after); I also went through more than 1,800 torches (I start with a full stack of logs and had only 5 left; I also use some to smelt iron/gold to get a multiple of 9 ingots without wasting coal; weird, huh?; but most of it is used to make sticks for torches):
Here is another sequence I made over several consecutive play sessions:
Also, I'm not sure how much they play but thebugguy has a pretty impressive stockpile of resources and regularly hauls back chestfuls of mineral blocks just like I do (they do use Fortune, but they also got much of this, at least until recently, from branch-mining, which may yield more of the rarer resources per unit time but likely less overall):
My dad caves a lot. Or mines in general, I guess. Me, I just mine every once in awhile. It's too boring so I get most of my things other ways. (I.E. Iron from zombies and Gold from killing Pigmen. Just got an idea actually )
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Watch out for the crabocalypse. Some say the day will never come. But it will.
Feel free to drop by for a chat whenever.
If you'd like to talk with me about other games, here are a few I play.
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands series (Borderlands 2 is my favorite game, ever. TPS combat is a lot of fun and makes up for the lower-quality story, in my opinion)
Elder Scrolls series
Warframe (IGN is something like That_One_Flesh_Atronach)
Pokémon series (HGSS forever)
Rocket League
Fallout series
Left 4 Dead 2 (Boomer files always corrupt though)
SUPERHOT (SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!)
Dead Rising series (Dead Rising 2 is one of my favorite games, and the 3rd was a lot of fun. 1st has poor survivor AI and the 4th is bad)
Just Cause series
Come to think of it, I mainly play fighting-based games.
I spend most of my time mining, and come out with an average of one inventory full of ore and cobblestone. I generally avoid actually digging out huge rooms or branch mining, because I just waste pickaxes. In fact, yesterday I abandoned my huge "room mine" (which is when I mine from a point and keep going out), because I only mined around 30 coal ore, 20 iron ore, and 5 redstone ores, and 8 gold ores, and trust me the thing was around 30-40 blocks across at least. I wasn't mining at 5 like I usually do because there is too much lava and I die too many times, so I mined at level 15 instead. Instead of me mainly looking for diamonds, though, as it is really common, I was mining for lapis lazuli. I explored a cave, and came out with 3 stacks of lapis lazuli, 5 diamonds, 1 stack of coal, 1 stack of iron, 50 gold, and 1 stack of redstone.
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I don't even play Minecraft much anymore yet here I am on the Minecraft forums for some reason...
That was just for the area generated right around spawn (using the same seed as my world):
Wow I wish we had these tools on console. So OK help me decipher the right half of that image. Are those ore veins, at the same scale as the left half? If so, it looks to me like veins on the PC version are much larger than veins on console. If I find 15 or 20 coal blocks together that is a "large" vein in my experience so far.
Well, I can just walk around or dig for 10 minutes, find a cave system, and walk out 10 minutes later with a stack of iron and 3 stacks of coal.
Definitely not my experience in the console version. Caving has been plenty productive - I'm not wanting for coal or redstone - but a stack of iron ore is an hour's work at least. (The "natural" skin doesn't help; I like it for all textures except stone and iron ore, which looks just like stone only slightly tan/orange in spots.)
Was there a significant ore-generation change from 1.6 to 1.7 or 1.8? Maybe because I play on such an old version I have different results. Also I'm not nearly as focused as you are, but who is? :-)
Wow I wish we had these tools on console. So OK help me decipher the right half of that image. Are those ore veins, at the same scale as the left half? If so, it looks to me like veins on the PC version are much larger than veins on console. If I find 15 or 20 coal blocks together that is a "large" vein in my experience so far.
Definitely not my experience in the console version. Definitely caving has been plenty productive - I'm not wanting for coal or redstone - but a stack of iron ore is an hour's work at least. (The "natural" skin doesn't help; I like it for all textures except stone and iron ore, which looks just like stone only slightly tan/orange in spots.)
Was there a significant ore-generation change from 1.6 to 1.7 or 1.8? Maybe because I play on such an old version I have different results. Also I'm not nearly as focused as you are, but who is? :-)
Those are caves, hence all the threads about too many caves (here's another; I'll note that claims like "a year's worth of diamonds in the first hour of gameplay" are exaggerating, but not by that much, also depends on how much you use them); around 10% of the entire underground between layers 11-35 is empty air in versions before 1.7 (see interactive chart here, for 1.2.2 but applies to up to 1.6.4. Note also how common ores are (better seen here); around 1% of all blocks are coal, meaning you can expect to find one exposed coal ore for every 100 blocks exposed, and since ores are in veins you effectively get more, as my exposed ore demonstration shows - it shows considerably more coal exposed than would be suggested when you compare it to iron, close to twice as much as expected, which also matches my experience).
It is possible that the console edition doesn't have the same caves as PC 1.6.4 (which is also what I play on, and no, there was no change to ore generation in 1.7, though 1.8 did increase the size of veins):
That said, even in 1.8 I managed to mine the equivalent of 1,600 ores in a single hour on a default world (in part because of an issue with mob spawning but also because of the aforementioned increase in ore; the time taken to actually mine that many ores with an Efficiency V diamond pickaxe is pretty small - combine this with weapons like a Sharpness V sword and a Power V bow and Protection IV diamond armor and mobs aren't a big problem for me. In fact, I've even buffed them; e.g. increased armor on zombies (more hits/time to kill), added "Hard-only" features to Normal difficulty, etc).
I also know for a fact that the console edition doesn't let you rename tools and repair them indefinitely, so while it may be similar to 1.6.4 it seems to combine elements from later versions. The Wiki also compares it to PC version 1.8, not 1.6.4, even though I've seen it compared to 1.6.4 (The Wiki used to state this before as well, presumably it has since been updated, or has a mixture of new and old features).
For further evidence of whether what I mine is reasonable, here is what thebugguy (again; if you still doubt me try asking them how they mine so much) mined in one hour of branch-mining, which as noted is likely not as time-efficient for more common ores:
As someone inordinately fond of mining, I thought I would do another little pseudo-experiment last night to see what I could find spending 60 minutes branch mining....
That's 641 ores mined in one hour - 80% of the hourly rate that I calculated previously - again, by branch-mining, mining an estimated 800-900 meters (1600-1800 blocks mined excluding anything in the walls; only about 2-3 percent of these blocks are ore so that's around 2,300 blocks total). Extrapolate that to 3 hours and you get 1,923 ores and some 7,000 blocks mined.
I apologize for coming off that way. I was attempting to express both admiration at your skill and curiosity at your methods so I could employ them myself. I had some questions about terminology and version differences, but never once did I doubt that the many screenshots you have shown were genuine.
When I run my own 60 minute experiment maybe we can talk about the results and you can help me get better. Meantime, I'll let the thread get back onto the topic of whether anybody else is as good at caving as you are.
I've often wondered if anybody else comes close to me when it comes to caving - an activity usually done to get resources, with much of the rest of the time spent on other activities.
For me it is the other way around - the majority of the time I spend playing is spent caving, not to get resources but because I find it fun; when I start a new world I branch-mine to get resources, then spend some time building a base, finding a stronghold and all that (I only go as far as to kill the Ender Dragon; I've only ever gotten two Wither skulls, in different worlds and both unintentionally, and don't have the incentive to try getting more; you can see my typical progression in this thread) but afterwards caving is pretty much all of my playing, with occasional interruptions when I build a new secondary base and railway linking it to my main base.
This is also on worlds that I play on for months for hours per day, with this as the result; as they say, pictures are worth a thousand words:
For a better perspective of the scale here are a couple close-ups (the full-size renderings were over 11,000 pixels across and 30 MB for the surface alone), one of caves around one of my secondary bases (green area in the center, rail lines also extend out from it) and another of some of the largest cave systems I've found; all of the yellow dots are torches, which are used by the mapping utility that I used to render areas underground (caves are only rendered if there is a torch within 6 blocks; I actually modified the utility itself to reduce the range (from +/- 20 blocks) to a more realistic range, and removed naturally generated torches from mineshafts so they don't show up):
A few screenshots I took with MCEdit (similar to Spectator mode):
Some random caves, ravines, and mineshafts:
A very large cave system (there's a dungeon I missed in the lower-right; I normally mine the moss stone and destroy the spawners):
There are areas that I've missed, as seen here (also an area of relatively low cave density) and here and there on the other screenshots, but for the most part nearly every cave/ravine/mineshaft has been explored:
That's also just on one world, plus I had explored an even larger area back when I had modded this world (new biomes, bigger caves, etc) as shown in this thread (first world), along with several other worlds that I've had. Yes, what you see is mostly vanilla cave generation, as it was before 1.7 nerfed them, mainly by making individual cave systems smaller and less dense (as I call it, "the update that ruined the underground"; I say "mostly vanilla" because I recently nerfed the frequency of mineshafts, which are really way too common further away from the origin (one per 100 chunks, when they can each cover that large of an area) but otherwise nothing else has been modified).
The amount of mining I do is also astounding - I've mined as much as 5,500 ore in a single play session and regularly mine 2-3,000 (as rightfully said in this thread, "fuel the world's furnace demands with coal, and fill chests with iron BLOCKS"); just the last time I played I mined 750 rails from abandoned mineshafts (3/4 of what you need for "on a rail" - without actually making any, and indeed, I never did make any regular rails in this world). As with the cave renderings, this speaks for itself, and again this is only from one world (which is also less than what I mined back when I'd modded it); as seen by the first screenshot (ordered by blocks used) torches are the most commonly placed block, followed by cobblestone (mostly placed while caving), then everything else is far behind, indicative of my playstyle and not seeing Minecraft as a building game (as it is a sandbox, a point I've emphasized before):
So, I've been wondering if anybody else caves like this, or how much caving you do in general and if it is just to get resources or because you find it to be fun.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Sheesh dude, that's crazy. I can't cave that much, I get freaked out. Like I won't be able to find my way back again. I know some might say "just use coordinates", but I feel like that's a bit cheaty. So I cave, and go as far as I can while lighting places where I know i'll be able to find my way back, and get back. I can't stay for more than like an hr because then I know that i'll get lost. More importantly, I probably won't ever use that many minerals lol. So no I don't enjoy caving as much as you do obviously, but it's a nice fun thing to do once in a while.
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No, I don't come close to that amount of caving. I guess your name doesn't lie.
TMC- I suspect the answer is no- I do think you really have this niche covered!
I do spend more time underground than most folks (at least I imagine so), but until recently I've done very little proactive caving. I branch mine and construct subway rail lines for transportation, but I typically explore caves only when convenient and relatively safe- once I get to a big gnarly cavern with multiple entrances I usually reverse, seal it off, and tell myself I'll come back to explore it later.
I've been doing a lot more active caving recently, though- generally with the intent of "tapping out" the local system entirely (though I still tend to skip ravines- they take a long time to secure and are a pain to mine resources from). Why more caving now? I dunno- I like mining and accumulating resources, but I'm not real fond of combat. I guess I've finally convinced myself that I'm sturdy enough to withstand just about anything thrown at me, even if I'm not the best fighter. I also like strategically navigating the complex, open areas in a way so as to minimize combat- just another aspect of the game I haven't spent much time doing before.
And why do *you* like caving so much? What do *you* get out of it?
cheers,
tbg
I guess it is mostly a combination of exploration and mob combat, and seeing how much stuff I can mine (though I don't put it on display as you do, plus I'd literally have problems stacking up enough 16x16x16 coal cubes, with 53,000 blocks so far, including from back when I used Fortune, which would be a tower over 200 blocks high; maybe 32x32x32?). In a modded world I played until recently I made a game out of finding new biomes by following caves to them, instead of searching for them overland (I've even found a Mushroom Island this way), and there's nothing like finding a stronghold without using Eyes of Ender (though I find the first one through normal means).
Also, regarding your comment about ravines, I don't find them to be particularly difficult to explore, although I prefer them not to be in the middle of a big cave system, and ladders make it easy to scale their walls to reach any ores, plus I carve out ledges along the sides (if the existing ones aren't wide enough; this is responsible for a large portion of the stone/cobblestone I mine/use); generally, I explore them from the top down and explore any intersecting caves first, which reduces attacks from mobs falling down (this does increase the fall risk, both from fall damage and falling onto mobs, but this is one reason why I wear Feather Falling IV boots plus 2x Protection IV, which maximizes protection from fall damage); if they have lava at the bottom I'll empty my water bucket off the edge at intervals (which can cause mobs to spawn but that is much preferred over falling into lava).
One thing that interests me is seeing renderings like the ones I've posted, which I see as the best way to show how much caving you (or anybody else) have done, plus it would be interesting to compare a 1.7+ world.
For example, here is such a rendering of the famous 404 cave system (plus another nearby) back in Beta 1.7.3*, taken from this thread, which includes similar renderings (a lot of the small scattered areas you see in the OP are unexplored abandoned mineshafts, due to their naturally generated torches:
*I've decompiled Beta 1.7.3 and determined that cave generation was basically the same as up to 1.6.4, aside from the fixing of a bug that caused caves to generate inconsistently across chunk boundaries (the locations of caves also changed, so the 404 seed no longer produces a large cave system in the same location), but the same amount overall (the addition of mineshafts and ravines in Beta 1.8 are mainly responsible for a significant increase in interconnectivity; believe it or not, when first introduced mineshafts were twice as common as they were up to 1.6.4 (reduced by another factor of 2.5 in 1.7), in any case they seem less common if you stay close to spawn due to a reduction in frequency within 80 chunks of 0, 0).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I never really went on my Survival World much. Provided I had started one earlier than I did and became active on it, I'd get close to this level if not at it. I just feel more at home with SMP. But that's just me.
Figured it was time for a change.
I found an endless cave once with 22 diamonds found..but i never came this close to found this once,(i think there are over 250 diamonds in there.
I've never had an interest in caving tbh. I find it boring if the caves are too big. I love building rather than exploring but I can get where the caving love coves from. The idea that every caves is different in size and features I'm guessing is a big reason why som epeople love it
i don't know what it is but I can't really get into it.
I go exploring occasionally, lighting as I go so I know where I been. If I do get lost, I can always dig up. I wish there were more things to find underground though - a larger variety of structures than mineshafts and strongholds.
I've caved a lot for mostly the same reason, though no where near that much, I always either can't find any more caves or simply start slowly losing interest in the world. But most of my gameplay time goes towarda caving. I also like to set the dungeon limit in customized worlds to 100. Not because of the loot nut because I like exploring and finding little things.
This.
I only mine enough to support my other minecraft activities, let alone caving. I have several stacks of diamonds just from mining for stone to use in my builds. That much will last me a YEAR without having to go looking for diamonds. Of course I'll end up mining more stone to build with though, so I'll get more diamonds anyway.
Caving is extremely repetitive and I'll only do it if I absolutely have to for resources. If I was interested in mob combat and exploration I'd just explore above ground... Which I do for those exact reasons. You see far more interesting things above ground than looking at the same stone over and over and over, with slightly different tunnel arrangements. I also find combat at night more challenging than in caves. It's usually very easy to predict where mobs will be in cave systems, but at night in the open world you can sometimes be surprised by where that group of creepers came from in the roofed forest. An exploratory trip for 15-20k blocks above ground(without a bed) can be quite an adventure.
The BEST way to mine diamond, layer 12 and you.
I'm not sure many people have spent as much time playing Minecraft as you, TMC, nevermind spent as much time caving. Your OP question has to be about 90% rhetorical because of course nobody else has done it that much. You clearly have an addiction or maybe OCD. If you ever visit an actual cave system, please do not bring any tools! It's probably a national monument and they don't want you mining it out!
So far I think I'm an MC generalist. I enjoy caving well enough; I don't have enough diamonds or redstone yet to have lost the little satisfied feeling when I find a block to mine. I will actually be happy when they change to Lapis as an enchanting input because ATM I get a small rush when finding it in a cave, but then remember that it's mostly useless.
I also enjoy taking those resources back to base and using them to build things which automatically murder iron golems, chickens, or crops. Or which semi-automatically help me to murder zombies and spiders. And I enjoy designing ever bigger, better bases, or villager homes, or farms or whatever. I also enjoy the occasional fishing (only during rain).
I will say that I did not enjoy caving much before I got full iron armor and a blast protection enchant, at least. Now that a creeper can't one-shot me, I feel safer exploring on my own. Still prefer to have a friend along who at least can pick up all my stuff if I fall into a lava pool.
I know of people who have spent more than twice the time I have on one world; given how much I've done it is understandable to assume that I play a very lot but I can mine upwards of a thousand ore in a single hour; granted, I do play around 3 hours per day but I've also seen truly addicted people claiming upwards of 20 hours per day (at least on weekends; I've never played for more than around 8 hours at a stretch; my playtime is usually very regular from day to day regardless of how much time I might have to play) and/or a year or more of continuous gameplay; e.g in threads like this one (I've calculated that I've spent a total of around 2,500 hours playing over about 2 1/2 years).
Also, they already added lapis as an enchanting requirement back in 1.8 (more than a year ago); I assume you are still playing in an older or non-PC version; I think adding a use for lapis* is offset by the need to constantly replace your gear (I carry around an anvil and extra diamonds (for the rare case I don't find any) so I can repair my gear on the spot; sure, it is much cheaper to enchant/repair overall in 1.8 but this convenience outweighs this, plus I get too much XP anyway, one reason for the amethyst gear in a mod I made, which is nothing more than a rarer and more expensive version of diamond. Of course, not everybody uses enchanted gear as much as I do; I've killed enough mobs in one session to break an unenchanted diamond sword, or mined enough to go though 4-5 diamond pickaxes, plus don't travel as far out as I do).
*When I first started playing I didn't even bother mining lapis, or taking it from minecarts, same for redstone (only a small amount needed for maps and powered rails), both of which I mined in large quantities when I re-explored caves I'd explored early on; I also didn't start mining all coal until 1.6 added coal blocks (also all mined out later on), or using Fortune on everything (for a while, first it was only diamond and emerald, I later dropped it by the time I started playing on the world again after about a year playing other worlds). That said, I didn't start caving right away either based on a very old copy of my first world, which only has a few caves explored near spawn, consistent with exploring them for needed resources, and was about a third of the size it is now; i.e. much of the world was explored above ground.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Sorry, I should have mentioned that I play on Xbox One. So 1.6 rules I think.
Ore ore? As in coal or better? I've seen that you have some very neat tools to map out your worlds and places you've explored...wish we had those on console. But in any case, is there a mod you use that directs you to ore deposits in the caves you explore? I ask because with the caves I've seen (maybe a limitation of 1.6/console world generation?) I can't imagine mining 1000 ore blocks in an hour.
Even considering only coal (which has the largest veins, right?) and
assuming each and every vein you find is 10 blocks, you have to find and mine a vein every 36 seconds.Edit: OK, wiki says underground coal veins are usually 10 and may be up to 64. So midpoint is 37. That means finding a new vein every 2.2 minutes.That seems reasonable (edit: for me to accomplish), though mixing in iron, redstone, and gold brings the blocks-per-mined-vein down and the time-between-veins down as well.
Tonight I might focus a bit and see what my rate is. Maybe I just putter around too much. Plenty of unexplored caves in the area I'm in...
Edit 2: It occurs to me now that you might mean 1,000 units of mined material, such as 1,000 pieces of coal + redstone + lapis + emeralds + iron ore blocks + gold ore blocks + etc. So not necessarily finding and mining 1,000 ore blocks in caves, but coming away with 1,000 units of whatever you mine. That seems more reasonable (edit: as in, reasonable for someone like me to match). Still awesomely productive, tho.
It is easily possible; a while back I modified the ore generation code so that any vein that had at least one block exposed to an air block had every successfully placed block (ores can only replace stone) counted towards a running total with the following results:
That was just for the area generated right around spawn (using the same seed as my world):
Similarly, this was over a much larger area, coincidentally with close to the same amounts of ores as I've mined (I've mined relatively more gold, lapis and diamond, likely because I don't bother mining around other ores to see if there is more ore diagonally adjacent in a vein; e.g. if I find a diamond vein with 1-2 ore I check around to make sure there isn't more. Also, veins found after mining coal or another ore appear to contribute to around 25% of all diamond I've found, currently at about 4,200 ore, about a third more than expected from this; last time I played I found 26 diamonds, including a vein of 6 behind a coal vein. This does not factor in these "indirectly exposed" veins, only ones that directly touch an air block):
I've calculated that I explore around 100 chunks per play session, which fits pretty closely with these results; my world is around 33,000 chunks in size (actual explored area is less) so that is also consistent with the above.
Here are some figures I posted in another thread for another world that I had, showing that while the average is not quite as high (up to 1,000 per hour) I still manage a very good rate:
Compare this to what was found in the second test ran above, which gives 27.38 exposed ore per chunk, or 2,738 ores exposed across 100 chunks.
Here are some screenshots from some of my more extreme play sessions (I added the GUI display of ores mined and stuff in the inventory screen):
This includes what I mined from previous days ("diamond ender chest" is from a mod I made, used so I can transport nearly twice as many resources back to my main base at once):
While not very useful underground I carry a fully-zoomed out map with me so I can see where I've been so far - that's 2048x2048 blocks, 16384 chunks for a full map:
Also, this was from the play session immediately before; compare my score, which shows that I gained more than 8,000 XP from mining/smelting and killing mobs:
Here is what I mined from my most prolific play session (the purple armor and tools are from my mod TMCW, which makes some modifications to ore generation in accordance with changes to caves (lower lava level) but doesn't make them more common other than rescaling with the ground depth from 52-59 layers; the very large caves that can be found also expose less ore than several smaller caves of the same volume):
Here you can see what I explored in that single play session (top is before, bottom after); I also went through more than 1,800 torches (I start with a full stack of logs and had only 5 left; I also use some to smelt iron/gold to get a multiple of 9 ingots without wasting coal; weird, huh?; but most of it is used to make sticks for torches):
Here is another sequence I made over several consecutive play sessions:
You can see more examples of my caving in this thread: TheMasterCaver's Caving Adventures in TMCW
And no, I do not use any mods or external mapping utilities to show me the locations of ore - you may as well just play in Creative if you do that.
See also:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/survival-mode/293385-too-many-caves-game-is-too-easy ("How does it make the game too easy? Well, I can just walk around or dig for 10 minutes, find a cave system, and walk out 10 minutes later with a stack of iron and 3 stacks of coal.")
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/survival-mode/248727-minecraft-1-0-cave-frequency ("It seems to me that almost every time I attempt to build an underground mine network or structure, I run into a GIGANOURMOUS MONSTER cave network. I'm talking large enough to spend half an IRL day on, fuel the world's furnace demands with coal, and fill chests with iron BLOCKS just by spelunking alone")
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/86974-the-issues-with-iron ("Why is it, then, that whenever I go mining in a cave or a man-made mine, I emerge with stacks of iron, when I haven't even been mining for an hour?")
Also, I'm not sure how much they play but thebugguy has a pretty impressive stockpile of resources and regularly hauls back chestfuls of mineral blocks just like I do (they do use Fortune, but they also got much of this, at least until recently, from branch-mining, which may yield more of the rarer resources per unit time but likely less overall):
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/survival-mode/297957-what-have-you-done-recently?comment=4408
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
My dad caves a lot. Or mines in general, I guess. Me, I just mine every once in awhile. It's too boring so I get most of my things other ways. (I.E. Iron from zombies and Gold from killing Pigmen. Just got an idea actually )
Watch out for the crabocalypse. Some say the day will never come. But it will.
Feel free to drop by for a chat whenever.
If you'd like to talk with me about other games, here are a few I play.
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands series (Borderlands 2 is my favorite game, ever. TPS combat is a lot of fun and makes up for the lower-quality story, in my opinion)
Elder Scrolls series
Warframe (IGN is something like That_One_Flesh_Atronach)
Pokémon series (HGSS forever)
Rocket League
Fallout series
Left 4 Dead 2 (Boomer files always corrupt though)
SUPERHOT (SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!)
Dead Rising series (Dead Rising 2 is one of my favorite games, and the 3rd was a lot of fun. 1st has poor survivor AI and the 4th is bad)
Just Cause series
Come to think of it, I mainly play fighting-based games.
I spend most of my time mining, and come out with an average of one inventory full of ore and cobblestone. I generally avoid actually digging out huge rooms or branch mining, because I just waste pickaxes. In fact, yesterday I abandoned my huge "room mine" (which is when I mine from a point and keep going out), because I only mined around 30 coal ore, 20 iron ore, and 5 redstone ores, and 8 gold ores, and trust me the thing was around 30-40 blocks across at least. I wasn't mining at 5 like I usually do because there is too much lava and I die too many times, so I mined at level 15 instead. Instead of me mainly looking for diamonds, though, as it is really common, I was mining for lapis lazuli. I explored a cave, and came out with 3 stacks of lapis lazuli, 5 diamonds, 1 stack of coal, 1 stack of iron, 50 gold, and 1 stack of redstone.
I don't even play Minecraft much anymore yet here I am on the Minecraft forums for some reason...
Wow I wish we had these tools on console. So OK help me decipher the right half of that image. Are those ore veins, at the same scale as the left half? If so, it looks to me like veins on the PC version are much larger than veins on console. If I find 15 or 20 coal blocks together that is a "large" vein in my experience so far.
Definitely not my experience in the console version. Caving has been plenty productive - I'm not wanting for coal or redstone - but a stack of iron ore is an hour's work at least. (The "natural" skin doesn't help; I like it for all textures except stone and iron ore, which looks just like stone only slightly tan/orange in spots.)
Was there a significant ore-generation change from 1.6 to 1.7 or 1.8? Maybe because I play on such an old version I have different results. Also I'm not nearly as focused as you are, but who is? :-)
Those are caves, hence all the threads about too many caves (here's another; I'll note that claims like "a year's worth of diamonds in the first hour of gameplay" are exaggerating, but not by that much, also depends on how much you use them); around 10% of the entire underground between layers 11-35 is empty air in versions before 1.7 (see interactive chart here, for 1.2.2 but applies to up to 1.6.4. Note also how common ores are (better seen here); around 1% of all blocks are coal, meaning you can expect to find one exposed coal ore for every 100 blocks exposed, and since ores are in veins you effectively get more, as my exposed ore demonstration shows - it shows considerably more coal exposed than would be suggested when you compare it to iron, close to twice as much as expected, which also matches my experience).
It is possible that the console edition doesn't have the same caves as PC 1.6.4 (which is also what I play on, and no, there was no change to ore generation in 1.7, though 1.8 did increase the size of veins):
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/recent-updates-and-snapshots/381672-it-seems-that-the-underground-is-no-longer-swiss
That said, even in 1.8 I managed to mine the equivalent of 1,600 ores in a single hour on a default world (in part because of an issue with mob spawning but also because of the aforementioned increase in ore; the time taken to actually mine that many ores with an Efficiency V diamond pickaxe is pretty small - combine this with weapons like a Sharpness V sword and a Power V bow and Protection IV diamond armor and mobs aren't a big problem for me. In fact, I've even buffed them; e.g. increased armor on zombies (more hits/time to kill), added "Hard-only" features to Normal difficulty, etc).
I also know for a fact that the console edition doesn't let you rename tools and repair them indefinitely, so while it may be similar to 1.6.4 it seems to combine elements from later versions. The Wiki also compares it to PC version 1.8, not 1.6.4, even though I've seen it compared to 1.6.4 (The Wiki used to state this before as well, presumably it has since been updated, or has a mixture of new and old features).
For further evidence of whether what I mine is reasonable, here is what thebugguy (again; if you still doubt me try asking them how they mine so much) mined in one hour of branch-mining, which as noted is likely not as time-efficient for more common ores:
That's 641 ores mined in one hour - 80% of the hourly rate that I calculated previously - again, by branch-mining, mining an estimated 800-900 meters (1600-1800 blocks mined excluding anything in the walls; only about 2-3 percent of these blocks are ore so that's around 2,300 blocks total). Extrapolate that to 3 hours and you get 1,923 ores and some 7,000 blocks mined.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I apologize for coming off that way. I was attempting to express both admiration at your skill and curiosity at your methods so I could employ them myself. I had some questions about terminology and version differences, but never once did I doubt that the many screenshots you have shown were genuine.
When I run my own 60 minute experiment maybe we can talk about the results and you can help me get better. Meantime, I'll let the thread get back onto the topic of whether anybody else is as good at caving as you are.