If lapis is nearly as rare as diamond, then how comes I have a double chest full of it (I know it drops multiple, but still, I just find a sh*t ton of that crap)
I wish I was you. I did a branch mine for four hours and only found two veins of Lapis, but found dozens of diamonds.
Here is a tip for your lapis, or any dye block. Provided you are dying wool and not trying to make the solid lapis block, just dye a sheep and then shear it, get twice as many blocks of dyed wool for every piece of dye that way.
Actually, if you sheer a sheep you will get 1 - 4 blocks of the specific wool color, so you can actually quadruple what you would normally get. If you know what you're doing, you get 2 - 5 wool per sheep.
And that is hardly a tip, more like stating the obvious.
a nice looking way to dig down is to dig at a diagonal. go to corner of a room, dig down one block. then dig out 6 blocks to make a 2x2x2 space. go into the corner of that, dig down a block. dig out another 2x2x2 space. keep going until you reach your desired depth.
protip- to make traveling easier, after mining out your nice hole, go back and mine out an additional layer of blocks from the ceiling of each step, and add a halfslab the the center of each step. now you can run up and down without bunny hopping the whole way
i can dig straight down, just stand between 2 blocks and mine both of blocks, if u see that theres lava at 1 block u can just block the lava, theres lava under you but even if u fall u was between 2 blocks so the other block would block u form falling to the lava. baah whatever.
The lapis ore blocks are nearly as rare as diamonds, but the yield is higher per block mined. That is, diamond yields only 1 diamond per block mined; whereas lapis will yield about 4 per ore block mined.
The key to getting more of a particular target ore is to be sure to thoroughly mine in the layers in which the ore you desire is most commonly found. For example, looking for diamonds above layer 16 is a complete waste of time, but I have dug up about a stack of them from one series of drifts mined systematically on layers 16 to bedrock.
When reading coordinates, keep in mind that your map's Y coordinate indicates the layer your head is on, not the layer your feet are on and not the layer the block below you're feet.
When you encounter a lava lake in a cave, make a note of the approximate size and coordinates. The lake is likely more than one block deep and some point and may be encountered when mining the layers below ti at approximately the same coordinates.
To dry up a lava lake (if you don't want to mine obsidian or collect buckets of lava), drop sand or gravel into the lake until the entire lake is filled by the sand or gravel. Once you fill the lake, then all but the very edge sand and gravel blocks can be safely removed to get a look at whatever ores might be hiding on the floor of a lake. Careful if the ores you spot are along the edges and if you do decide to mine away any of the blocks you placed on the edges of the lake. The lava source block may have been a side block of the original lake and the lava may start to flow again if you remove any of those blocks.
When mining in a likely lava layer (generally anything below layer 12) using a 1 x 2 drift method, I remove my blocks in the following pattern:
1. The axe will generally mine 4 blocks ahead of the block the player is standing on, so I stand 2 blocks back from the wall ahead of me and first mine the top block out of the wall for 2 blocks in.
2. Then, I move forward until I can't move anymore and mine the bottom block not right ahead of me, but the 2nd one; thereby leaving the bottom block right in front of me in place as a stopper.
3. Then I mine the next bottom blocks ahead of that as far as I can (usually 2 more blocks), still leaving the one closest to me in place.
4. Then I mine the remaining top blocks as far as I can (usually 2 more blocks for a total of 4 top blocks mined ahead).
5. Then, I remove my stopper block last and walk ahead 2 spaces and start the pattern again.
With practice, this mining pattern can be done nearly as fast as just alternatingly mining the top and bottom blocks at full speed. The advantage is that if I do open up lava in front of me, I can generally react quickly enough to back safely out of the way (8 or 10 blocks back) and stop the flow back down the tunnel with some dirt or cobble. If I happen to have mined one or more of the bottom blocks ahead of my stopper bottom block before opening up the lava, then I know the lava will not flow "uphill" to get beyond my stopper block and all I have to do to be safe is just back up a couple of blocks. Then, once I'm safely distant from the lava, I can decide whether or not to abandon the drift or just try to divert it to one side or up one or two layers to get around the lava.
Not a bad tutorial at all and all the tweaks that could be added that I could see were already posted by other fellow minecraft players. So I'm not going to bother repeating good tips.
I wish I was you. I did a branch mine for four hours and only found two veins of Lapis, but found dozens of diamonds.
Actually, if you sheer a sheep you will get 1 - 4 blocks of the specific wool color, so you can actually quadruple what you would normally get. If you know what you're doing, you get 2 - 5 wool per sheep.
And that is hardly a tip, more like stating the obvious.
Hit the sheep with shears 5 times. Right when they die, before they disppear, sheer them.
You'll get 1 for killing the sheep + 1-4 more for shearing.
Btw, sheers give 1 - 4 wool, not 1 - 3.
protip- to make traveling easier, after mining out your nice hole, go back and mine out an additional layer of blocks from the ceiling of each step, and add a halfslab the the center of each step. now you can run up and down without bunny hopping the whole way
The lapis ore blocks are nearly as rare as diamonds, but the yield is higher per block mined. That is, diamond yields only 1 diamond per block mined; whereas lapis will yield about 4 per ore block mined.
When reading coordinates, keep in mind that your map's Y coordinate indicates the layer your head is on, not the layer your feet are on and not the layer the block below you're feet.
When you encounter a lava lake in a cave, make a note of the approximate size and coordinates. The lake is likely more than one block deep and some point and may be encountered when mining the layers below ti at approximately the same coordinates.
To dry up a lava lake (if you don't want to mine obsidian or collect buckets of lava), drop sand or gravel into the lake until the entire lake is filled by the sand or gravel. Once you fill the lake, then all but the very edge sand and gravel blocks can be safely removed to get a look at whatever ores might be hiding on the floor of a lake. Careful if the ores you spot are along the edges and if you do decide to mine away any of the blocks you placed on the edges of the lake. The lava source block may have been a side block of the original lake and the lava may start to flow again if you remove any of those blocks.
When mining in a likely lava layer (generally anything below layer 12) using a 1 x 2 drift method, I remove my blocks in the following pattern:
1. The axe will generally mine 4 blocks ahead of the block the player is standing on, so I stand 2 blocks back from the wall ahead of me and first mine the top block out of the wall for 2 blocks in.
2. Then, I move forward until I can't move anymore and mine the bottom block not right ahead of me, but the 2nd one; thereby leaving the bottom block right in front of me in place as a stopper.
3. Then I mine the next bottom blocks ahead of that as far as I can (usually 2 more blocks), still leaving the one closest to me in place.
4. Then I mine the remaining top blocks as far as I can (usually 2 more blocks for a total of 4 top blocks mined ahead).
5. Then, I remove my stopper block last and walk ahead 2 spaces and start the pattern again.
With practice, this mining pattern can be done nearly as fast as just alternatingly mining the top and bottom blocks at full speed. The advantage is that if I do open up lava in front of me, I can generally react quickly enough to back safely out of the way (8 or 10 blocks back) and stop the flow back down the tunnel with some dirt or cobble. If I happen to have mined one or more of the bottom blocks ahead of my stopper bottom block before opening up the lava, then I know the lava will not flow "uphill" to get beyond my stopper block and all I have to do to be safe is just back up a couple of blocks. Then, once I'm safely distant from the lava, I can decide whether or not to abandon the drift or just try to divert it to one side or up one or two layers to get around the lava.
Noooooooooooooooooooo duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh