Here are some quick tips for the old version. This is all well-known and old information.
Food
- Mushroom Stew is OP. Seriously. Find some mushrooms (one red and one brown at minimum) and replant them in a room that's 2 blocks tall. Poke a hole in the ceiling every 6 blocks and put in a torch in it. This should allow the mushrooms to grow and be just enough light to prevent spawns. Go mine for a while and when you come back.... you should have a harvest of mushrooms that will give you 5 hearts per bowl of stew.
- Mushrooms are probably easiest to locate in the Nether. Just run around and you should find both red and brown varieties. Get some Soul Sand while you're down there!
- Wheat is really easy to grow. One line of water, one line of grass, repeat as desired. Avoid walking on it and/or letting your dog, cow, pig or chicken walk on it.
- Carry only a couple of pieces of bread with you and a lot of wheat - when you run out, just make more bread at a crafting table. This is one way to get around the stackable food limit.
- Sugar is really easy to grow and actually makes a great fence. Plant these around your house/farm/whatever along with a trench of water and nothing can get through. Remember that the sugar must be next to a water block.
-
Battleshield -
Save yourself the extra time by planting trees and wheat underground. Trees need a high ceiling (10-12) and lots of light.
-
Battleshield -
Since Minecraft on xbox has a fixed map size, iron becomes enormously more valuable. AnIron pick does work faster but the wise player will only use Iron/Diamond picks when absolutely necessary.
Mobs and Combat
- The term "mobs" is short for "mobile", "mobile entity", "mobile NPC", etc. It is a term that has been in use for many, many years to describe moving characters in a game.
- Mobs have no pathing (they can't move intelligently) and only seek to you. It's really easy to cause them to fall into the ocean, walk into fire, leap into lava, go down a waterfall, etc. They generally won't walk off cliffs with large drops on their own, though.
- If there are too many around: leave the area for a while and return - they'll despawn relatively quickly.
- Mobs can't spawn on half-blocks. Go make a ton of stone half-blocks and cover your roof or other dark areas with them. This will prevent spiders and creepers from dropping on your head as you leave the door to your shelter (good lighting helps, too).
- Mobs are easy to farm. There are a thousand videos out there on how to make a spawning pad (or platform, or pod, or whatever you want to call it). Basically, it's an 8x8 pad with 2x8 water leading to a 2x2 hole. Seal the whole thing up so it's dark and put it somewhere that has 24 blocks of air from the 2x2 hole to the ground (you can put it in the air or the ground). Stand back and watch as it rains suicidal mobs - resulting in you getting a ridiculous number of bones, arrows, strings and feathers.
- Mobs are easy to put in a murder room. Make a structure 2 high with a glass ceiling (or no ceiling if you aren't looking for spiders). Put in archways for doors and put soul sand on the inside in front of the arches. Test it out - you should be able to walk in but you won't be able to walk out. Lure mobs in. Take turns with a friend bonking them on the head with axes. It's not as efficient as a spawning platform, but it's fun.
- Blasts from Creepers (and TNT) do damage depending on the block type. For example, a large chunk of sand will go missing after a blast while relatively little stone will get removed. Build your homes out of stone if creepers are a problem (stone from putting Cobblestone in a furnace - NOT cobblestone!). If you get bored, you can build it out of Obsidian......
- Learn to gauge the distance of mobs. Zombies have great reach, but you can definitely hit them before they hit you with a sword. Spiders are easiest to hit after they jump. Skeletons..... are annoying because they can often unexplainably shoot through walls, floors and random stuff in this version. Avoid using axes, shovels, etc in combat as they seem to have less reach than a sword. If you can't fight with a sword then make a bow.
- You can hear monsters within 16 blocks of you. If you can hear a lot of one type of monster you may be near a dungeon - try to find the cobblestone or mossy stone.
- Place a torch on top of a mob spawner to neutralize it. Blocking it on all 6 sides will not necessarily stop the mobs from spawning.
- If the mob doesn't get knocked back you aren't doing damage.
- You can recollect your own missed arrows but you lose the arrows that hit. You cannot collect the arrows that skeletons have shot.
Maneuvering and Mining
- Block stacking. Look down, jump, place a block. Rinse, repeat. Instant ladder. If you use something easy to break like gravel just start digging to get down quickly.
- Water ladder: pour water from a block near the top of a cliff (or find a natural waterfall). Jump in the water and use the A button to go up or just ride it down.
- Don't forget that using the wrong tool (pickaxe to break gravel, shovel to chop wood, axe to scoop up sand) causes the tool to deplete at twice the rate.
- TNT mining (and creepers) have a chance to destroy drops. Only use TNT near the surface to avoid destroying diamonds, gold, etc.
- Placed TNT CANNOT BE PICKED UP so make sure you really want to blast whatever you put it on......
- TNT has no physics in this version - dropping TNT into a mine is not possible.
- You can set TNT off by punching it in this version. You can also safely set it off via Redstone.
- Saddles and Cocoa Beans can currently only be found in dungeon treasure boxes.
- Battleshield - Speaking of gravel, save your shovel by placing a torch on the ground 2 blocks below a column of gravel, remove stone/dirt between torch and gravel - the torch will turn every falling block of gravel (or sand) into little blocks that you just pick up
- Battleshield - When deep mining ALWAYS keep a bucket of water and a stack of dirt/cobble in your quickbar. Water will douse flames if you turn yourself into a giant Torch, dirt or cobble will, with quick reflexes, prevent the lava you just found from pouring into and ruining your tunnel.
Misc
- Infinite water trick: get two buckets of water. Knock out a 2x2 hole. Pour the water in the diagonals quickly. You should now have a 2x2 block of water that you can get limitless buckets of water from. Useful when building a big water structure. Just cover the 2x2 area with random blocks to remove the water. Works with lava, too.
- Elevator: trap doors don't allow water to pass. You can build a structure with each alternating block being water and trap doors. Stand under it and hold jump. To get back down just jump in it. You can probably find a ton of youtube videos on this.
- Bonemeal makes instant trees and instant wheat. Make it from bones in the Dyes section.
- Taller fences. Put down a block (or several) and put fencing at the top. Knock the block under the fencing out. Put in more fencing. Repeat. Now you have a huge fence for your farm to keep those pesky peaceful mobs from stomping your wheat.
- Pause the game and press 'Y' to send a screenshot to Facebook!
- Music Discs can be found in dungeons (rare) or by getting a Skeleton to shoot and kill a Creeper. The creeper must be nearly dead for this to work - a creeper at full life that gets shot by a skeleton will simply explode.
- The generated worlds in MineCraft for the 360 are 1024x1024x128 (slightly less if you count ocean, bedrock and sky). You will see endless ocean when you reach the end of the world.
- Battleshield - Bookshelves may be *are* completely destroyed after you try to move them.
The Nether
- Portals to the Nether/From the Nether can be shutdown by enemy explosions and fire. On the Overworld just relight it. In the Nether where you might not have access to Flint and Steel you'll need to get a Ghast to shoot the portal (or have a buddy bring you Flint and Steel from the Overworld - the matching portal does not "go out" if the Nether portal does).
- Save before entering portals for the first time. There's a possibility of ending up in Bedrock or somewhere weird - rebuilding your portal can usually fix this.
- Cobblestone can stop Ghast fireballs much more effectively than Netherrack.
- You can teleport with 2 or more portals. Build the portal you want to return to (ie: in your home) and then build two portals elsewhere. Whenever you enter and exit the Nether through any portal you should end up at the first portal you built. There is a restriction to how this works on the PC, but I'm not sure what (if any) restrictions are on the 360.
- MineCraft for the 360 will be receiving updates.
- There will be a Creative mode in an upcoming update.
- It has been said (twitter) that MineCraft for the 360 will go up to the current PC version and beyond.
- 4J employees have mentioned there will be an initial bug fix update followed by an update to the next game version (probably 1.7.3 - see above) and that some mechanics from future versions may be backported in updates.
- One of the random messages in yellow at the title screen says something about an update on Friday. There's no update on Friday - all of those messages are from the PC version. MicroSoft doesn't even release updates on Friday. No more questions about Friday.
Always remember gravel and sand obey gravity. That killer formation in the desert will crumble if disturbed. This also means walk under 'floating' sand at your own peril.
Often a run across a sandy stretch will cause a cave in, dont be surprised if you take fall damage.
Mobs spawn based on light levels. On Hard mode be VERY liberal with torch placement if you want to keep a deep area 'safe'.
I could be thinking of wrong patch level but bookshelves may be completely destroyed after you try to move them.
Similar to the carry wheat and make bread idea above, carry 5-10 of each mushroom type and 2-3 empty bowls. The components all stack, the 'stew' does not...
Gravel may appear to only be useful for flint, but it makes the PERFECT lava-pool remover. Place gravel until the pool is filled and then reclaim your gravel, and get more flint for arrows in the process!!!
Speaking of gravel, save your shovel by placing a torch on the ground 2 blocks below a column of gravel, remove stone/dirt between torch and gravel - the torch will turn every falling block of gravel (or sand) into little blocks that you just pick up
When deep mining ALWAYS keep a bucket of water and a stack of dirt/cobble in your quickbar. Water will douse flames if you turn yourself into a giant Torch, dirt or cobble will, with quick reflexes, prevent the lava you just found from pouring into and ruining your tunnel.
Bedrock cannot be mined or removed by anything.
Bedrock comprises the bottom-most 5 layers of the game world. If you hit lava at bottom of the map, 70%+ of the time if you dig up to layer 12 you will find the top of the lava lake - use the gravel mentioned above.
Lava throws 'embers' up to 3 blocks sometimes....dont store your WOODEN chest filled with goodies anywhere near it.
Same goes for crafting tables, wooden fences, spare Pirate pglegs, or the beautiful mansion you just made out of white Birch wood...
When you find a lava lake, mine around the perimeter, many time what you see initially is a small portion of tje whole, lava lake caverns will uncover precious elements where it would normally be solid stone.
And the number 1 rule, never dig straight down or straight up unless you are also a famboi of Russian Roulette....
Typos above courtesy of Smartphone without arrow keys <grumbles loudly>
Sorry, another (few) thoughts:
(Updated) I only use Iron/Diamond picks when absolutely necessary. I spend massive amounts of time deep underground digging huge complexes. I bring 6-10 stone picks at a time and save the Iron/Diamond until I need it for tougher ores. This point is personal preference
If you dont already know, Gold is rare but it makes VERY poor tools/weapons/armor.
(Updated) Similar to the point about iron picks, avoid making iron shovels, hoes, or axes unless you feel that you have a surplus of Iron. There is nothing that stone tools cannot do that Iron or diamond can do (except picks of course).
(Added) The exception to the above would be Swords. Carry the best you can make - the extra dmg is critical to improving survivability
(Updated) Save yourself the extra time running to the surface by planting trees and wheat underground. Trees need a high ceiling (10-12) and lots of light.
Dye the sheep, not the wool - applying dye to wool is a 1+1=1 equation resulting in 1 block of dyed wool. Use the dye on the sheep, then harvest the wool from the animal and get 1-3 dyed blocks...
Redstone wiring has natural resistance - it's been long enough that I'm not sure exactly how far (8? 12? 16?) you can go before needing a repeater to boost signal strength.
Similarly, powered minecart tracks have an optimal spacing for flat and inclined sections (spacing is different for flat v. incline). Research to find the best spacing since powered sections consume a lot of gold on a small map size...
Ghasts in the Nether are the debil - You've been warned: build the strongest shelter you can if you plan to spend any time at all on the surface of the Nether. Ghast-shots are hella rough on most materials.
Your clock is broken while in the Nether - it's not a bug, it's by-design.
Distances in the Nether are meaningless - if you build a portal inside the Nether a set distance from your entry portal, it will not equate back in the normal world. 10 blocks away in the Nether could be 25, 47, or 550 in the normal world...PC version had a rough logic to this difference in linear distances but given MCX360 world sizes, all bets on logic are off until someone can do the tests...
Sorry, another thought: Since Minecraft on xbox has a fixed map size, iron becomes enormously more valuable. AnIron pick does work faster but the wise player will only use Iron/Diamond picks when absolutely necessary.
If you dont already know, Gold is rare but it makes VERY poor tools/weapons/armor.
Similar to the point about iron picks, never, ever make iron shovels, hoes, or axes.
Save yourself the extra time by planting trees and wheat underground. Trees need a high ceiling (10-12) and lots of light.
Everything after this post appears in italics on my screen.. Like everything. Names, post counts, rank, location, all of it o.O
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm usually not trying to be rude. So if a post comes across that way then sorry :]
Any tools other than picks are a waste of iron. Everything those tools are used for can be mined using stone. So unless you have stacks and stacks of iron, there are better uses for it.
There are approx 12,000 diamonds on each map and probably hundreds of thousands of Iron ore. Long before you use up all that you are going to be wanting to start a new world to get hold of features added by updates.
Xbox version game updates will add to existing maps.
I will grant that there is the potential for that many iron/diamond. That being said, 99.9% of players will only ever find an extremely small percentage of the total available on any given map.
My advice still applies, preserve 'the good stuff' for when it counts. 1 death from falling into lava can destroy nearly 30 iron just from armor/pick alone, let alone whatever else you are carrying.
Using iron picks and shovels to dig out a lot of material gains nothing but a few minutes, at the most. The iron can be put to better uses.
It is irrelevant what the find, the point is that there is more than enough.
You claim you can lose that if you die, You are more likely to die often with poor armour. You would also have that diamond pick on you whilst mining ready to whip it out for 'the good stuff.'
It gains a few minutes and a huge amount of time between having to make new ones.
Most your original thread is very solid info, but your logic in using stone tools is **** poor advice in my opinion, something you should never give to a new player.
It 'is' advice, mate - ive helped many people new to our Obsession and many have come back to thank me for the stone pick concept - no lie.
I guess it also comes down to patience level of the player and where they spend their time in-game. If, like me, they spend 90% of the time happily crafting massive underground complexes, they may well find it logical advice as others have professed to me. On the otherhand, surface-dwellers who only go down occasionally may be perfectly happy getting it done with an iron/diamond pick
I will edit my original post based on our discussion
I personally don't make iron hoes, axes or shovels.
Hoes are generally not something you go adventuring with, so I just make some wooden ones to stay in a box at my farm. Shovels really don't save you all that much time and you'll quickly bust through an iron shovel clearing your front lawn. Likewise with axes.
I mostly agree with Battleshield. I save the iron for the pickaxes, swords and disposable armor.
Food
- Mushroom Stew is OP. Seriously. Find some mushrooms (one red and one brown at minimum) and replant them in a room that's 2 blocks tall. Poke a hole in the ceiling every 6 blocks and put in a torch in it. This should allow the mushrooms to grow and be just enough light to prevent spawns. Go mine for a while and when you come back.... you should have a harvest of mushrooms that will give you 5 hearts per bowl of stew.
- Mushrooms are probably easiest to locate in the Nether. Just run around and you should find both red and brown varieties. Get some Soul Sand while you're down there!
- Wheat is really easy to grow. One line of water, one line of grass, repeat as desired. Avoid walking on it and/or letting your dog, cow, pig or chicken walk on it.
- Carry only a couple of pieces of bread with you and a lot of wheat - when you run out, just make more bread at a crafting table. This is one way to get around the stackable food limit.
- Sugar is really easy to grow and actually makes a great fence. Plant these around your house/farm/whatever along with a trench of water and nothing can get through. Remember that the sugar must be next to a water block.
-
-
Mobs and Combat
- The term "mobs" is short for "mobile", "mobile entity", "mobile NPC", etc. It is a term that has been in use for many, many years to describe moving characters in a game.
- Mobs have no pathing (they can't move intelligently) and only seek to you. It's really easy to cause them to fall into the ocean, walk into fire, leap into lava, go down a waterfall, etc. They generally won't walk off cliffs with large drops on their own, though.
- If there are too many around: leave the area for a while and return - they'll despawn relatively quickly.
- Mobs can't spawn on half-blocks. Go make a ton of stone half-blocks and cover your roof or other dark areas with them. This will prevent spiders and creepers from dropping on your head as you leave the door to your shelter (good lighting helps, too).
- Mobs are easy to farm. There are a thousand videos out there on how to make a spawning pad (or platform, or pod, or whatever you want to call it). Basically, it's an 8x8 pad with 2x8 water leading to a 2x2 hole. Seal the whole thing up so it's dark and put it somewhere that has 24 blocks of air from the 2x2 hole to the ground (you can put it in the air or the ground). Stand back and watch as it rains suicidal mobs - resulting in you getting a ridiculous number of bones, arrows, strings and feathers.
- Mobs are easy to put in a murder room. Make a structure 2 high with a glass ceiling (or no ceiling if you aren't looking for spiders). Put in archways for doors and put soul sand on the inside in front of the arches. Test it out - you should be able to walk in but you won't be able to walk out. Lure mobs in. Take turns with a friend bonking them on the head with axes. It's not as efficient as a spawning platform, but it's fun.
- Blasts from Creepers (and TNT) do damage depending on the block type. For example, a large chunk of sand will go missing after a blast while relatively little stone will get removed. Build your homes out of stone if creepers are a problem (stone from putting Cobblestone in a furnace - NOT cobblestone!). If you get bored, you can build it out of Obsidian......
- Learn to gauge the distance of mobs. Zombies have great reach, but you can definitely hit them before they hit you with a sword. Spiders are easiest to hit after they jump. Skeletons..... are annoying because they can often unexplainably shoot through walls, floors and random stuff in this version. Avoid using axes, shovels, etc in combat as they seem to have less reach than a sword. If you can't fight with a sword then make a bow.
- You can hear monsters within 16 blocks of you. If you can hear a lot of one type of monster you may be near a dungeon - try to find the cobblestone or mossy stone.
- Place a torch on top of a mob spawner to neutralize it. Blocking it on all 6 sides will not necessarily stop the mobs from spawning.
- If the mob doesn't get knocked back you aren't doing damage.
- You can recollect your own missed arrows but you lose the arrows that hit. You cannot collect the arrows that skeletons have shot.
Maneuvering and Mining
- Block stacking. Look down, jump, place a block. Rinse, repeat. Instant ladder. If you use something easy to break like gravel just start digging to get down quickly.
- Water ladder: pour water from a block near the top of a cliff (or find a natural waterfall). Jump in the water and use the A button to go up or just ride it down.
- Don't forget that using the wrong tool (pickaxe to break gravel, shovel to chop wood, axe to scoop up sand) causes the tool to deplete at twice the rate.
- TNT mining (and creepers) have a chance to destroy drops. Only use TNT near the surface to avoid destroying diamonds, gold, etc.
- Placed TNT CANNOT BE PICKED UP so make sure you really want to blast whatever you put it on......
- TNT has no physics in this version - dropping TNT into a mine is not possible.
- You can set TNT off by punching it in this version. You can also safely set it off via Redstone.
- Saddles and Cocoa Beans can currently only be found in dungeon treasure boxes.
- Battleshield - Speaking of gravel, save your shovel by placing a torch on the ground 2 blocks below a column of gravel, remove stone/dirt between torch and gravel - the torch will turn every falling block of gravel (or sand) into little blocks that you just pick up
- Battleshield - When deep mining ALWAYS keep a bucket of water and a stack of dirt/cobble in your quickbar. Water will douse flames if you turn yourself into a giant Torch, dirt or cobble will, with quick reflexes, prevent the lava you just found from pouring into and ruining your tunnel.
Misc
- Infinite water trick: get two buckets of water. Knock out a 2x2 hole. Pour the water in the diagonals quickly. You should now have a 2x2 block of water that you can get limitless buckets of water from. Useful when building a big water structure. Just cover the 2x2 area with random blocks to remove the water. Works with lava, too.
- Elevator: trap doors don't allow water to pass. You can build a structure with each alternating block being water and trap doors. Stand under it and hold jump. To get back down just jump in it. You can probably find a ton of youtube videos on this.
- Bonemeal makes instant trees and instant wheat. Make it from bones in the Dyes section.
- Taller fences. Put down a block (or several) and put fencing at the top. Knock the block under the fencing out. Put in more fencing. Repeat. Now you have a huge fence for your farm to keep those pesky peaceful mobs from stomping your wheat.
- Pause the game and press 'Y' to send a screenshot to Facebook!
- Music Discs can be found in dungeons (rare) or by getting a Skeleton to shoot and kill a Creeper. The creeper must be nearly dead for this to work - a creeper at full life that gets shot by a skeleton will simply explode.
- The generated worlds in MineCraft for the 360 are 1024x1024x128 (slightly less if you count ocean, bedrock and sky). You will see endless ocean when you reach the end of the world.
- Battleshield - Bookshelves
may be*are* completely destroyed after you try to move them.The Nether
- Portals to the Nether/From the Nether can be shutdown by enemy explosions and fire. On the Overworld just relight it. In the Nether where you might not have access to Flint and Steel you'll need to get a Ghast to shoot the portal (or have a buddy bring you Flint and Steel from the Overworld - the matching portal does not "go out" if the Nether portal does).
- Save before entering portals for the first time. There's a possibility of ending up in Bedrock or somewhere weird - rebuilding your portal can usually fix this.
- Cobblestone can stop Ghast fireballs much more effectively than Netherrack.
- You can teleport with 2 or more portals. Build the portal you want to return to (ie: in your home) and then build two portals elsewhere. Whenever you enter and exit the Nether through any portal you should end up at the first portal you built. There is a restriction to how this works on the PC, but I'm not sure what (if any) restrictions are on the 360.
- Pigmen drop cooked porkchops.
- Ghasts can drop gunpowder.
MineCraft Updates
Check the update thread to verify!
4J twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/4jstudios
- The current MineCraft version is beta 1.6.6.
- The next update should be at least beta 1.7.3.
- MineCraft for the 360 will be receiving updates.
- There will be a Creative mode in an upcoming update.
- It has been said (twitter) that MineCraft for the 360 will go up to the current PC version and beyond.
- 4J employees have mentioned there will be an initial bug fix update followed by an update to the next game version (probably 1.7.3 - see above) and that some mechanics from future versions may be backported in updates.
- One of the random messages in yellow at the title screen says something about an update on Friday. There's no update on Friday - all of those messages are from the PC version. MicroSoft doesn't even release updates on Friday. No more questions about Friday.
Often a run across a sandy stretch will cause a cave in, dont be surprised if you take fall damage.
Mobs spawn based on light levels. On Hard mode be VERY liberal with torch placement if you want to keep a deep area 'safe'.
I could be thinking of wrong patch level but bookshelves may be completely destroyed after you try to move them.
Similar to the carry wheat and make bread idea above, carry 5-10 of each mushroom type and 2-3 empty bowls. The components all stack, the 'stew' does not...
Gravel may appear to only be useful for flint, but it makes the PERFECT lava-pool remover. Place gravel until the pool is filled and then reclaim your gravel, and get more flint for arrows in the process!!!
Speaking of gravel, save your shovel by placing a torch on the ground 2 blocks below a column of gravel, remove stone/dirt between torch and gravel - the torch will turn every falling block of gravel (or sand) into little blocks that you just pick up
When deep mining ALWAYS keep a bucket of water and a stack of dirt/cobble in your quickbar. Water will douse flames if you turn yourself into a giant Torch, dirt or cobble will, with quick reflexes, prevent the lava you just found from pouring into and ruining your tunnel.
Bedrock cannot be mined or removed by anything.
Bedrock comprises the bottom-most 5 layers of the game world. If you hit lava at bottom of the map, 70%+ of the time if you dig up to layer 12 you will find the top of the lava lake - use the gravel mentioned above.
Lava throws 'embers' up to 3 blocks sometimes....dont store your WOODEN chest filled with goodies anywhere near it.
Same goes for crafting tables, wooden fences, spare Pirate pglegs, or the beautiful mansion you just made out of white Birch wood...
When you find a lava lake, mine around the perimeter, many time what you see initially is a small portion of tje whole, lava lake caverns will uncover precious elements where it would normally be solid stone.
And the number 1 rule, never dig straight down or straight up unless you are also a famboi of Russian Roulette....
Typos above courtesy of Smartphone without arrow keys <grumbles loudly>
Sorry, another (few) thoughts:
(Updated) I only use Iron/Diamond picks when absolutely necessary. I spend massive amounts of time deep underground digging huge complexes. I bring 6-10 stone picks at a time and save the Iron/Diamond until I need it for tougher ores. This point is personal preference
If you dont already know, Gold is rare but it makes VERY poor tools/weapons/armor.
(Updated) Similar to the point about iron picks, avoid making iron shovels, hoes, or axes unless you feel that you have a surplus of Iron. There is nothing that stone tools cannot do that Iron or diamond can do (except picks of course).
(Added) The exception to the above would be Swords. Carry the best you can make - the extra dmg is critical to improving survivability
(Updated) Save yourself the extra time running to the surface by planting trees and wheat underground. Trees need a high ceiling (10-12) and lots of light.
Dye the sheep, not the wool - applying dye to wool is a 1+1=1 equation resulting in 1 block of dyed wool. Use the dye on the sheep, then harvest the wool from the animal and get 1-3 dyed blocks...
Redstone wiring has natural resistance - it's been long enough that I'm not sure exactly how far (8? 12? 16?) you can go before needing a repeater to boost signal strength.
Similarly, powered minecart tracks have an optimal spacing for flat and inclined sections (spacing is different for flat v. incline). Research to find the best spacing since powered sections consume a lot of gold on a small map size...
Ghasts in the Nether are the debil - You've been warned: build the strongest shelter you can if you plan to spend any time at all on the surface of the Nether. Ghast-shots are hella rough on most materials.
Your clock is broken while in the Nether - it's not a bug, it's by-design.
Distances in the Nether are meaningless - if you build a portal inside the Nether a set distance from your entry portal, it will not equate back in the normal world. 10 blocks away in the Nether could be 25, 47, or 550 in the normal world...PC version had a rough logic to this difference in linear distances but given MCX360 world sizes, all bets on logic are off until someone can do the tests...
Everything after this post appears in italics on my screen.. Like everything. Names, post counts, rank, location, all of it o.O
Any tools other than picks are a waste of iron. Everything those tools are used for can be mined using stone. So unless you have stacks and stacks of iron, there are better uses for it.
Xbox version game updates will add to existing maps.
I will grant that there is the potential for that many iron/diamond. That being said, 99.9% of players will only ever find an extremely small percentage of the total available on any given map.
My advice still applies, preserve 'the good stuff' for when it counts. 1 death from falling into lava can destroy nearly 30 iron just from armor/pick alone, let alone whatever else you are carrying.
Using iron picks and shovels to dig out a lot of material gains nothing but a few minutes, at the most. The iron can be put to better uses.
It 'is' advice, mate - ive helped many people new to our Obsession and many have come back to thank me for the stone pick concept - no lie.
I guess it also comes down to patience level of the player and where they spend their time in-game. If, like me, they spend 90% of the time happily crafting massive underground complexes, they may well find it logical advice as others have professed to me. On the otherhand, surface-dwellers who only go down occasionally may be perfectly happy getting it done with an iron/diamond pick
I will edit my original post based on our discussion
Hoes are generally not something you go adventuring with, so I just make some wooden ones to stay in a box at my farm. Shovels really don't save you all that much time and you'll quickly bust through an iron shovel clearing your front lawn. Likewise with axes.
I mostly agree with Battleshield. I save the iron for the pickaxes, swords and disposable armor.