Note: This thread is a how-to guide to help newbies along as they learn the game. Veterans are encouraged to chime in with their own advice!
Cave running enthusiasts! 1.8 is nearly upon us, and it's bringing cave systems that are far more vast and dangerous than you've become used to on the xbox edition. With hostile mobs descending upon you from numerous dark caves, your hunger growing by the minute, supplies dwindling, and the labyrinthine caves turning your path around on itself, how is one to survive?
Well, fear not, brave spelunker! This guide will prepare you for cave running in the upcoming worlds, showing you how to mark a path so you're never lost, how to establish an underground base, how to find new caves quickly, and more to come!
Never Get Lost
Ever find yourself lost in a cavern, pickaxe broken, out of supplies, and forced to claw your way up? Never again!
You will need:
Torches
Wood, Coal/Charcoal (to keep your supply of torches up)
A stack of blocks that will stand out, such as wool or sand.
Tip 1: Always place torches on the right side as you advance.
In a simple cave, all you have to do is keep torches on the left to get out.
Tip 1.5: Keep torches at eye-level, so that any water you might accidentally unleash while mining won't sweep them off the walls. (Thanks, Janx!(Hey, that rhymes!))
Tip 2: Make pillars to place torches on at intersections where there is no right-side wall.
Just for consistency, so you never get confused at an intersection.
Tip 3: Use your noticable block in place of torches when you need to use many torches to light up a cave. Thanks, UpUp_Away95!
While consistent torch placement is useful for finding your way back, sometimes a cave is so big that you need to throw many torches down to prevent monster spawns. If this is the case, place your noticable blocks on the right side in place of your torches. You may consider putting down your block, then placing the torch on it. If you have access to redstone torches, you might also consider placing those as your pathfinding torches while using regular torches liberally for lighting.
Tip 4: Always close off a path that loops back around to the starting point.
The system of placing torches on the right can collapse in on itself if the cave loops around, especialy if the loop is more complex than a small circle. Trace the path that loops around, then seal off the end that reconnects back to the start using cobble or dirt. If there are caves that branch off of the loop, close the loop off right beside those caves in order to make a linear path.
Tip 5: Use your noticable block to label the exit at branches.
If you're at a complicated junction with multiple branches, including ones above or below the cave you came in at, place your blocks in the exit cave to mark the correct path. You can try building an archway at the exit cave, or place the blocks in an arrow pattern in the floor or on the wall pointing out. Especially useful if your exit is at a confusing spot, like a cave where you have to go down before you ascend back toward the surface.
Tip 6: Use different types of blocks to mark different branches.
Different colored wools work well to mark paths out when a branch you explored branches off even more. Cobblestone also sticks out nicely.
Tip 7: Got redstone? Make a trail!
If you find yourself accumulating more redstone than you use in circuitry, redstone dust makes the best metaphorical trail-of-breadcrumbs. Replace your noticable block with a trail of redstone dust on a main path that leads in and out of the cave.
Tip 8: Know where you dropped/pillared into a cave. Thanks again to UpUp_Away95!
Sometimes in a cave, you find a hole in the ceiling/floor that leads to a new cave, and you advance by pillaring up/dropping in to it. Take special care to mark these areas off in a unique way, such as making a noticable staircase back up if you need to leave by going back up through the hole, or by using a unique materia to pillar up with so you can easily find where to dig back down.
Tip 9: Block off caves you aren't exploring until you are ready to explore them, as well as caves you have already explored.(Thanks again, Janx!)
This will remind you of where you are if your path loops back around, and will also prevent mobs from spawning in the cave and wandering in behind you. A good way to do this: Use a different color wool on each cave, and block them off by laying a row of wool from wall to wall at eye-level. This will allow you to see on the other side of the barrier should you come across it again, and will prevent mobs (except spiders) from attacking you.
Tip 10: Keep a reserve pickaxe.
If all else fails, you'll appreciate that you have a fresh stone pickaxe to make a stairway out of there.
How to Make an Underground Supply Depot and Mine For Days
You now know how to not get lost in caves, now you have to be prepared to make long runs beneath the surface. This section will show you how to build an underground farm that will allow you to stay supplied with torches and tools, keep your hunger bar full, and have a safe room to set your spawn point in.
You will need:
Water bucket x2
Stone pickaxe x4
Torches x32
Wheat Seeds x18 and/or Melon Seeds x9
Dirt x19
Sapling x1 (Birch (white wood) or Oak preferred***)
Stone hoe x1
Bone meal (optional)
Some food to hold you over while you work.
Chest x1, or x2 if you prefer.
Crafting bench
Furnaces (x however many)
Bed x1
Door x1
Fishing Rod x1 (Optional**)
Click spoilers to reveal pictures of an underground supply base in action!
Step 1: Find a suitable location for a base.
Your underground base should be in a location where you can easily make your way back to the surface, but is far enough in to be worth having a supply depot. Too close to the surface, and you may as well just keep going up for supplies. The closer you are to layer 10, the better, but if you get far enough into a cave before you find a way down, it's worth it to build a base higher up than that.
Step 2: Secure the area.
Light the caves up and down for a good distance down from where you plan to make your cave. Clearing the area needed out is tedious work enough without worrying about mobs ambushing you. You may also wish to seal the caves off with cobble until you're done.
Step 3: Dig out a 9x9x11 space; plant the sapling.
That's a 9x9 square, 11 blocks in height. Once that's done, dig out the block in the center of the square, place a piece of dirt there, and plant your sapling. Saplings rquire a light level of 9 on the air block above them to grow, placing a torch 3 blocks away from the sapling will accomplish this.
***Birch is preferred because it's predictable, the shape is always the same and the height doesn't vary too much, so you'll never waste bonemeal/time on a sapling that tries to grow too tall (spruce) or too wide (oak) for its space. On the other hand, Oak trees have chances of dropping apples from their leaves, which makes for another good food option.
Step 4: Create an infinite well; create a farm.
Dig a 2x2 pit into the ground and empty the water buckets into opposite corners to make a water source that won't run dry. This does not need to be part of the base itself. With that finished, dig out three 9-block-long rows from the floor in the base. Fill 2 of the rows in with dirt, and place water in the third row. Till the dirt with your hoe, then place torches down in a line next to the dirt to supply the wheat with sufficient light. Now, plant your seeds.
Don't worry about efficiency in the wheat farm at the start. You may wish to improve upon it later, but the goal now is raw survival.
If you've found melon seeds, you may wish to start a melon farm in your base as well. Melon farming is both easier and more efficient than wheat farming.
Bonus: having a bucket of water on hand is always a good thing. Click here to learn how to win at everything using a water bucket!
**Double-Bonus: If you bring a fishing rod with you, you can also use the small well to catch fish and cook for food. You can also use it to fish around in the many underground lakes you may find for a quick bite! Credit to Last_username_im_gonna_try for the fishing idea.
Step 5: Dig out a room.
For particularly long spelunking runs, you may appreciate a spawn point in your cave. If you meet an unfortunate end, a safe spawn point at your base will cut precious minutes off your travel time, giving you a better chance to recover your items. Pick a wall in your base and dig into it, make a nice 4x4x3 space with a 1-block wide entrance. Secure it with a door, light it up, place your bed, and sleep to set your spawn (sleeping through the night is not required to set your spawn on your bed).
I have a picture of a video game in my room to remind me of all the sun I miss out on even when I'm on the surface.
Step 6: Finishing touches.
Place your chest, place your crafting bench, place your furnace. Keep your hoe, a few reserve pickaxes, excess wood, excess coal you mine, excess seeds and wheat from farming, and anything else you fancy in the chest.
Now that you have a base, you'll never need to surface until you want to! A farmable tree allows you to make not only sticks foor tools (and wood for wooden tools, if you die and need to start from scratch), but also charcoal if somehow you find yourself running low on coal. and while bread isn't the most efficient food for combating hunger, it's renewable, sustainable, and compact. In time, you may also choose to hook up a rail system linking your base and a spot near your home on the surface, which you can use to send supplies off in a Minecart-with-Chest. that you can collect and organize later when you surface. You may also wish to...
Step 7: Pimp it out!
This is Minecraft. Of COURSE you're going to get the urge to make it pretty at some point.
Find New Caves
You've built your supply base and mapped out all the caves, even having taken time to explore the mieshafts and ravines you've hit, and now you're sitting, wondering what to do now. Is it time to resurface and venture off in search of new caves?
No, noble miner! It's time to break into caves you may have not even realized were there!
You need:
Pickaxe (Stone or Iron, depending on how low down you are)
Shovel (Optional)
Torches (x64)
Sword/Bow and armor
Your ears, and your volume up.*
*Most televisions (even some old box TVs) as well as the Xbox360 support stereo sound and/or surround emulation. Two of these techniques involve listening for sounds, be sure to take advantage of stereo sound or surround sound to pinpoint directions you hear sounds in!
Important: ALWAYS crouch/sneak while tunneling through to find caves!
You never know if there's a lava lake or a deep pit ahead of you, and moving too fast as you mine out a tunnel may cause you to plummet to your doom. Sneaking will prevent this!
Tip 1: Dig around a bit at dead-ends.
Due to how caves are generated in the world, a dead-end in one cave is oftentimes just a few blocks shy of being a link to a cave system beyond it. Whenever you reach a adead end, try punching through the wall for a short distance. You may get lucky.
Tip 2: Listen for monsters.
When you're in a cave that you've already lit up, hearing monsters is a sure sign that you're near a cave (though it never hurts to check your six!). Zombies growling, spiders hissing, skeletons click-clacking, and even the subtle noise of footsteps the otherwise-silent creeper makes, dig toward the sounds and you'll find where they're hiding. This is dangerous! If you are close enough to hear a monster, they are close enough to be able to track you, which they will as soon as you break through into the cave and they can draw line of sight. Skeletons and spiders are particularly dangerous in this aspect. Skeletons will be able to shoot you from a distance the instant you leave them an opening to, and spiders can track you through walls, and will already be trying to pounce on you before you even break through. Also, if you hear an excessive amount of noise from one mob, you may be approaching a spawner for that mob. Be ready to fight, be ready to retreat, and be ready to lay down torches! Don't be afraid to take damage if your hunger bar and health is full, especially if you have reserve food on you.
A handy tip from electricblooz: while tunneling through stone, always mine the eye-level block first. If you mine out the floor of a cave and a mob drops in, they won't be able to attack you, and you can dispatch them easily by smacking their feet.
Tip 3: Listen for the sound of water flowing and lava bubbling (thanks toDivadOcsalev for reminding me about Lava!).
Underground water springs are abundant, but the sound of flowing water isn't constant, it plays on a loop with small periods of silence. if you hear flowing water, stop. Take it slowly and listen carefully to what direction the sound is coming from. If you dig too fast while the flowing noise isn't playing, you may pass the water by.
The 1.8 update has also given lava an ambient bubbling/popping sound, which is especially useful for digging toward large lava lakes at layer 10. Take care when digging toward the sound of lava; always sneak (crouch) to prevent falling into a lethal lava lake, and be ready to run should lava start pouring in from the ceiling!
Tip 4: TNT!
I normally wouldn't recommend this, but if you aren't terribly concerned with the possibility of blowing up valuable ores, TNT will open up holes and expose caves good and quick.
I never thought of putting torches on the right side. I will never end up walking deeper into my caves again!
One thing I would also bring is a fishing rod and make a small lake for fishing if your wheat hasn't grown.
I will also put a few trees underground to never run out of wood, pickaxes or torches.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I put my shirt on one leg at a time, just like everybody else.
I have been watching Let's Play series and I keep seeing all the forays into these ravines and strongholds, kind of makes you almost giddy to get lost at least one damn good time. Good time for a refresher course like this!!
Great guide Chikka. May I add a couple of suggestions...
Nautical navigation puts the light on the left. It works either way just as long as you're consistent.
The downfall with only using torches is that they are needed for light and you probably want to leave lots of them in place to keep the cave lit so monsters don't spawn. So, another way is to put torches along the walls wherever convenient and then place a "path marking" torch on the floor as you go into a cave. That way, on the way out, you can pick up the floor torches and still leave the cave lit up. If you do pick them up whenever you leave a branch of the cave, you'll always only have 1 line of torches on the floor and following that line backwards will always lead you out. If you're shy on torches, you can do the same thing with redstone dust (I always have way too much of the stuff anyway). Lay it in a line on your way in and pick it up on your way out.
If you do go up or down without making stairs (i.e. by jump placing), mark that either with a couple of torches in a unique way so that you'll know that you're not looking for stairs, but a place to either pillar down or up.
I reserve colored pillars for caves with interesting stuff in them that I want to go back in to utilize at a later time... things like spawners, large mushroom areas or lakes I might want to gather lava from or "nice" areas with water where I might want to build a base station.
Great guide Chikka. May I add a couple of suggestions...
Nautical navigation puts the light on the left. It works either way just as long as you're consistent.
The downfall with only using torches is that they are needed for light and you probably want to leave lots of them in place to keep the cave lit so monsters don't spawn. So, another way is to put torches along the walls wherever convenient and then place a "path marking" torch on the floor as you go into a cave. That way, on the way out, you can pick up the floor torches and still leave the cave lit up. If you do pick them up whenever you leave a branch of the cave, you'll always only have 1 line of torches on the floor and following that line backwards will always lead you out. If you're shy on torches, you can do the same thing with redstone dust (I always have way too much of the stuff anyway). Lay it in a line on your way in and pick it up on your way out.
If you do go up or down without making stairs (i.e. by jump placing), mark that either with a couple of torches in a unique way so that you'll know that you're not looking for stairs, but a place to either pillar down or up.
I reserve colored pillars for caves with interesting stuff in them that I want to go back in to utilize at a later time... things like spawners, large mushroom areas or lakes I might want to gather lava from or "nice" areas with water where I might want to build a base station.
This is a useful post, I'm going to go back and edit/add a few tips. Thanks! Glad everyone is liking the thread so far.
I never thought of putting torches on the right side. I will never end up walking deeper into my caves again!
One thing I would also bring is a fishing rod and make a small lake for fishing if your wheat hasn't grown.
I will also put a few trees underground to never run out of wood, pickaxes or torches.
Fishing, the oft-overlooked food source! A+, never would have thought of it!
Thank you for giving me some great ideas. I never thought of something like a underground base. I might do this more often now. I do mine a lot all over my world. Giving you a +1.
Thank you for giving me some great ideas. I never thought of something like a underground base. I might do this more often now. I do mine a lot all over my world. Giving you a +1.
I've been playing this game long enough so that I knew a lot of the things in this guide, but I was still able to learn a lot from reading it as well. +1, although it deserves more than just +1. I'd encourage everyone to read this because it is very helpful whether you've been around the block a few times or you're new to the game. I also like that you're editing this to include the contributions of others so that it's all on the first post.
Very nice job!
I wish I had a lot to add, but I'm afraid most of what I know is covered. The only thing I can really say is (this may seem a bit obvious), what I usually do is carry around some extra coal and sticks so that I can make more torches on the go if the cave I'm exploring is even bigger than expected. I burn through a stack of torches so quickly. This can save time so that you don't have to run back for more torches and can possibly save your life so that you don't run out of torches while trying to light up a dungeon. Again, this may seem obvious, but I find it very helpful.
one thing ive always done for path marking is bringing 2 64 stacks of dirt and flowers(the color does matter btw) i use red flowers to mark paths that lead me back to base and yellow flowers to mark new paths that have yet to be explored (useful for when you have a cave that has a junction that leads 4 diffrent ways)
one thing ive always done for path marking is bringing 2 64 stacks of dirt and flowers(the color does matter btw) i use red flowers to mark paths that lead me back to base and yellow flowers to mark new paths that have yet to be explored (useful for when you have a cave that has a junction that leads 4 diffrent ways)
Flowers are a neat idea, though you'd need to be careful with placement or you'd end up wasting torches in order to light the flower so it will survive. Or failing that, the flower could uproot and leave you lost.
I've been playing this game long enough so that I knew a lot of the things in this guide, but I was still able to learn a lot from reading it as well. +1, although it deserves more than just +1. I'd encourage everyone to read this because it is very helpful whether you've been around the block a few times or you're new to the game. I also like that you're editing this to include the contributions of others so that it's all on the first post.
Very nice job!
I wish I had a lot to add, but I'm afraid most of what I know is covered. The only thing I can really say is (this may seem a bit obvious), what I usually do is carry around some extra coal and sticks so that I can make more torches on the go if the cave I'm exploring is even bigger than expected. I burn through a stack of torches so quickly. This can save time so that you don't have to run back for more torches and can possibly save your life so that you don't run out of torches while trying to light up a dungeon. Again, this may seem obvious, but I find it very helpful.
Why not carry wood logs, instead of sticks? Saves yourself some inventory space if you're going to be carrying any more than 64 sticks for long adventures
Why not carry wood logs, instead of sticks? Saves yourself some inventory space if you're going to be carrying any more than 64 sticks for long adventures
It's amazing how far in a mine you can go with half a stack of logs. If you're diligent about mining coal, 8 coal + 1 log = 32 torches.
Why not carry wood logs, instead of sticks? Saves yourself some inventory space if you're going to be carrying any more than 64 sticks for long adventures
Very true. Also, wood logs are more versatile because you can make a lot more with them. For example, you can easily make four wooden planks and then turn them into an emergency crafting table if necessary.
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Retired StaffCave running enthusiasts! 1.8 is nearly upon us, and it's bringing cave systems that are far more vast and dangerous than you've become used to on the xbox edition. With hostile mobs descending upon you from numerous dark caves, your hunger growing by the minute, supplies dwindling, and the labyrinthine caves turning your path around on itself, how is one to survive?
Well, fear not, brave spelunker! This guide will prepare you for cave running in the upcoming worlds, showing you how to mark a path so you're never lost, how to establish an underground base, how to find new caves quickly, and more to come!
Ever find yourself lost in a cavern, pickaxe broken, out of supplies, and forced to claw your way up? Never again!
You will need:
Torches
Wood, Coal/Charcoal (to keep your supply of torches up)
A stack of blocks that will stand out, such as wool or sand.
Tip 1: Always place torches on the right side as you advance.
In a simple cave, all you have to do is keep torches on the left to get out.
Tip 1.5: Keep torches at eye-level, so that any water you might accidentally unleash while mining won't sweep them off the walls. (Thanks, Janx! (Hey, that rhymes!))
Tip 2: Make pillars to place torches on at intersections where there is no right-side wall.
Just for consistency, so you never get confused at an intersection.
Tip 3: Use your noticable block in place of torches when you need to use many torches to light up a cave.
Thanks, UpUp_Away95!
While consistent torch placement is useful for finding your way back, sometimes a cave is so big that you need to throw many torches down to prevent monster spawns. If this is the case, place your noticable blocks on the right side in place of your torches. You may consider putting down your block, then placing the torch on it. If you have access to redstone torches, you might also consider placing those as your pathfinding torches while using regular torches liberally for lighting.
Tip 4: Always close off a path that loops back around to the starting point.
The system of placing torches on the right can collapse in on itself if the cave loops around, especialy if the loop is more complex than a small circle. Trace the path that loops around, then seal off the end that reconnects back to the start using cobble or dirt. If there are caves that branch off of the loop, close the loop off right beside those caves in order to make a linear path.
Tip 5: Use your noticable block to label the exit at branches.
If you're at a complicated junction with multiple branches, including ones above or below the cave you came in at, place your blocks in the exit cave to mark the correct path. You can try building an archway at the exit cave, or place the blocks in an arrow pattern in the floor or on the wall pointing out. Especially useful if your exit is at a confusing spot, like a cave where you have to go down before you ascend back toward the surface.
Tip 6: Use different types of blocks to mark different branches.
Different colored wools work well to mark paths out when a branch you explored branches off even more. Cobblestone also sticks out nicely.
Tip 7: Got redstone? Make a trail!
If you find yourself accumulating more redstone than you use in circuitry, redstone dust makes the best metaphorical trail-of-breadcrumbs. Replace your noticable block with a trail of redstone dust on a main path that leads in and out of the cave.
Tip 8: Know where you dropped/pillared into a cave.
Thanks again to UpUp_Away95!
Sometimes in a cave, you find a hole in the ceiling/floor that leads to a new cave, and you advance by pillaring up/dropping in to it. Take special care to mark these areas off in a unique way, such as making a noticable staircase back up if you need to leave by going back up through the hole, or by using a unique materia to pillar up with so you can easily find where to dig back down.
Tip 9: Block off caves you aren't exploring until you are ready to explore them, as well as caves you have already explored. (Thanks again, Janx!)
This will remind you of where you are if your path loops back around, and will also prevent mobs from spawning in the cave and wandering in behind you. A good way to do this: Use a different color wool on each cave, and block them off by laying a row of wool from wall to wall at eye-level. This will allow you to see on the other side of the barrier should you come across it again, and will prevent mobs (except spiders) from attacking you.
Tip 10: Keep a reserve pickaxe.
If all else fails, you'll appreciate that you have a fresh stone pickaxe to make a stairway out of there.
You now know how to not get lost in caves, now you have to be prepared to make long runs beneath the surface. This section will show you how to build an underground farm that will allow you to stay supplied with torches and tools, keep your hunger bar full, and have a safe room to set your spawn point in.
You will need:
Water bucket x2
Stone pickaxe x4
Torches x32
Wheat Seeds x18 and/or Melon Seeds x9
Dirt x19
Sapling x1 (Birch (white wood) or Oak preferred***)
Stone hoe x1
Bone meal (optional)
Some food to hold you over while you work.
Chest x1, or x2 if you prefer.
Crafting bench
Furnaces (x however many)
Bed x1
Door x1
Fishing Rod x1 (Optional**)
Click spoilers to reveal pictures of an underground supply base in action!
Step 1: Find a suitable location for a base.
Your underground base should be in a location where you can easily make your way back to the surface, but is far enough in to be worth having a supply depot. Too close to the surface, and you may as well just keep going up for supplies. The closer you are to layer 10, the better, but if you get far enough into a cave before you find a way down, it's worth it to build a base higher up than that.
Step 2: Secure the area.
Light the caves up and down for a good distance down from where you plan to make your cave. Clearing the area needed out is tedious work enough without worrying about mobs ambushing you. You may also wish to seal the caves off with cobble until you're done.
Step 3: Dig out a 9x9x11 space; plant the sapling.
That's a 9x9 square, 11 blocks in height. Once that's done, dig out the block in the center of the square, place a piece of dirt there, and plant your sapling. Saplings rquire a light level of 9 on the air block above them to grow, placing a torch 3 blocks away from the sapling will accomplish this.
***Birch is preferred because it's predictable, the shape is always the same and the height doesn't vary too much, so you'll never waste bonemeal/time on a sapling that tries to grow too tall (spruce) or too wide (oak) for its space. On the other hand, Oak trees have chances of dropping apples from their leaves, which makes for another good food option.
Step 4: Create an infinite well; create a farm.
Dig a 2x2 pit into the ground and empty the water buckets into opposite corners to make a water source that won't run dry. This does not need to be part of the base itself. With that finished, dig out three 9-block-long rows from the floor in the base. Fill 2 of the rows in with dirt, and place water in the third row. Till the dirt with your hoe, then place torches down in a line next to the dirt to supply the wheat with sufficient light. Now, plant your seeds.
Don't worry about efficiency in the wheat farm at the start. You may wish to improve upon it later, but the goal now is raw survival.
If you've found melon seeds, you may wish to start a melon farm in your base as well. Melon farming is both easier and more efficient than wheat farming.
Bonus: having a bucket of water on hand is always a good thing. Click here to learn how to win at everything using a water bucket!
**Double-Bonus: If you bring a fishing rod with you, you can also use the small well to catch fish and cook for food. You can also use it to fish around in the many underground lakes you may find for a quick bite!
Credit to Last_username_im_gonna_try for the fishing idea.
Step 5: Dig out a room.
For particularly long spelunking runs, you may appreciate a spawn point in your cave. If you meet an unfortunate end, a safe spawn point at your base will cut precious minutes off your travel time, giving you a better chance to recover your items. Pick a wall in your base and dig into it, make a nice 4x4x3 space with a 1-block wide entrance. Secure it with a door, light it up, place your bed, and sleep to set your spawn (sleeping through the night is not required to set your spawn on your bed).
I have a picture of a video game in my room to remind me of all the sun I miss out on even when I'm on the surface.
Step 6: Finishing touches.
Place your chest, place your crafting bench, place your furnace. Keep your hoe, a few reserve pickaxes, excess wood, excess coal you mine, excess seeds and wheat from farming, and anything else you fancy in the chest.
Now that you have a base, you'll never need to surface until you want to! A farmable tree allows you to make not only sticks foor tools (and wood for wooden tools, if you die and need to start from scratch), but also charcoal if somehow you find yourself running low on coal. and while bread isn't the most efficient food for combating hunger, it's renewable, sustainable, and compact. In time, you may also choose to hook up a rail system linking your base and a spot near your home on the surface, which you can use to send supplies off in a Minecart-with-Chest. that you can collect and organize later when you surface. You may also wish to...
Step 7: Pimp it out!
This is Minecraft. Of COURSE you're going to get the urge to make it pretty at some point.
You've built your supply base and mapped out all the caves, even having taken time to explore the mieshafts and ravines you've hit, and now you're sitting, wondering what to do now. Is it time to resurface and venture off in search of new caves?
No, noble miner! It's time to break into caves you may have not even realized were there!
You need:
Pickaxe (Stone or Iron, depending on how low down you are)
Shovel (Optional)
Torches (x64)
Sword/Bow and armor
Your ears, and your volume up.*
*Most televisions (even some old box TVs) as well as the Xbox360 support stereo sound and/or surround emulation. Two of these techniques involve listening for sounds, be sure to take advantage of stereo sound or surround sound to pinpoint directions you hear sounds in!
Important: ALWAYS crouch/sneak while tunneling through to find caves!
You never know if there's a lava lake or a deep pit ahead of you, and moving too fast as you mine out a tunnel may cause you to plummet to your doom. Sneaking will prevent this!
Tip 1: Dig around a bit at dead-ends.
Due to how caves are generated in the world, a dead-end in one cave is oftentimes just a few blocks shy of being a link to a cave system beyond it. Whenever you reach a adead end, try punching through the wall for a short distance. You may get lucky.
Tip 2: Listen for monsters.
When you're in a cave that you've already lit up, hearing monsters is a sure sign that you're near a cave (though it never hurts to check your six!). Zombies growling, spiders hissing, skeletons click-clacking, and even the subtle noise of footsteps the otherwise-silent creeper makes, dig toward the sounds and you'll find where they're hiding.
This is dangerous! If you are close enough to hear a monster, they are close enough to be able to track you, which they will as soon as you break through into the cave and they can draw line of sight. Skeletons and spiders are particularly dangerous in this aspect. Skeletons will be able to shoot you from a distance the instant you leave them an opening to, and spiders can track you through walls, and will already be trying to pounce on you before you even break through. Also, if you hear an excessive amount of noise from one mob, you may be approaching a spawner for that mob. Be ready to fight, be ready to retreat, and be ready to lay down torches! Don't be afraid to take damage if your hunger bar and health is full, especially if you have reserve food on you.
A handy tip from electricblooz: while tunneling through stone, always mine the eye-level block first. If you mine out the floor of a cave and a mob drops in, they won't be able to attack you, and you can dispatch them easily by smacking their feet.
Tip 3: Listen for the sound of water flowing and lava bubbling (thanks to DivadOcsalev for reminding me about Lava!).
Underground water springs are abundant, but the sound of flowing water isn't constant, it plays on a loop with small periods of silence. if you hear flowing water, stop. Take it slowly and listen carefully to what direction the sound is coming from. If you dig too fast while the flowing noise isn't playing, you may pass the water by.
The 1.8 update has also given lava an ambient bubbling/popping sound, which is especially useful for digging toward large lava lakes at layer 10. Take care when digging toward the sound of lava; always sneak (crouch) to prevent falling into a lethal lava lake, and be ready to run should lava start pouring in from the ceiling!
Tip 4: TNT!
I normally wouldn't recommend this, but if you aren't terribly concerned with the possibility of blowing up valuable ores, TNT will open up holes and expose caves good and quick.
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Retired StaffThanks! I always try my best at these guides to make them worthwhile,
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One thing I would also bring is a fishing rod and make a small lake for fishing if your wheat hasn't grown.
I will also put a few trees underground to never run out of wood, pickaxes or torches.
I have been watching Let's Play series and I keep seeing all the forays into these ravines and strongholds, kind of makes you almost giddy to get lost at least one damn good time. Good time for a refresher course like this!!
Nautical navigation puts the light on the left. It works either way just as long as you're consistent.
The downfall with only using torches is that they are needed for light and you probably want to leave lots of them in place to keep the cave lit so monsters don't spawn. So, another way is to put torches along the walls wherever convenient and then place a "path marking" torch on the floor as you go into a cave. That way, on the way out, you can pick up the floor torches and still leave the cave lit up. If you do pick them up whenever you leave a branch of the cave, you'll always only have 1 line of torches on the floor and following that line backwards will always lead you out. If you're shy on torches, you can do the same thing with redstone dust (I always have way too much of the stuff anyway). Lay it in a line on your way in and pick it up on your way out.
If you do go up or down without making stairs (i.e. by jump placing), mark that either with a couple of torches in a unique way so that you'll know that you're not looking for stairs, but a place to either pillar down or up.
I reserve colored pillars for caves with interesting stuff in them that I want to go back in to utilize at a later time... things like spawners, large mushroom areas or lakes I might want to gather lava from or "nice" areas with water where I might want to build a base station.
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Retired StaffThis is a useful post, I'm going to go back and edit/add a few tips. Thanks! Glad everyone is liking the thread so far.
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Retired StaffFishing, the oft-overlooked food source! A+, never would have thought of it!
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Retired StaffGlad to help, thanks for the rep
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Very nice job!
I wish I had a lot to add, but I'm afraid most of what I know is covered. The only thing I can really say is (this may seem a bit obvious), what I usually do is carry around some extra coal and sticks so that I can make more torches on the go if the cave I'm exploring is even bigger than expected. I burn through a stack of torches so quickly. This can save time so that you don't have to run back for more torches and can possibly save your life so that you don't run out of torches while trying to light up a dungeon. Again, this may seem obvious, but I find it very helpful.
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Retired StaffBranch mining is great when you need to power through for resources, but there's a certain joy in cave running, tunneling's just not the same
Flowers are a neat idea, though you'd need to be careful with placement or you'd end up wasting torches in order to light the flower so it will survive. Or failing that, the flower could uproot and leave you lost.
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Why not carry wood logs, instead of sticks? Saves yourself some inventory space if you're going to be carrying any more than 64 sticks for long adventures
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Retired StaffIt's amazing how far in a mine you can go with half a stack of logs.
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Very true. Also, wood logs are more versatile because you can make a lot more with them. For example, you can easily make four wooden planks and then turn them into an emergency crafting table if necessary.