I'm rather new to the whole Minecraft experience, and I've had some good times. When I got back from a serious spelunking expedition safely with a pocketful of diamonds, I really started to gtet what people see in it. But ever since I had an epic wipeout on my way back from a sugarcane-gathering expedition, it made me realize that I'm really skittish about venturing out into the world.
So, I humbly plead with any seasoned veterens of the wild watching this board. How do you deal with journeying far beyond the world you know? And more importantly, how do you not get lost? A map will - very literally - only take you so far. (And ironically enough, I'm really going to have to go out really far to get enough sugarcane to make a new map.)
The easiest way is to check what the x/y/z of where your base is and write that down. That way you can always know where you have to go to get back to your base.
So, I humbly plead with any seasoned veterens of the wild watching this board. How do you deal with journeying far beyond the world you know? And more importantly, how do you not get lost? A map will - very literally - only take you so far. (And ironically enough, I'm really going to have to go out really far to get enough sugarcane to make a new map.)
Before you go turning your reeds into paper next time, why not put a few of them down and get a farm going? You can place a single reed in dirt or sand that's adjacent to water, and they will slowly grow to a height of three blocks. (You can place a reed on top of other reeds, too, but they will still only grow to a max. height of 3.) Chop off the top two, plant them next to the first one, and watch them multiply. Then 3 turns into 9, 9 into 27, and 27 into 81. Exponential growth, baby!
As for not getting lost, writing down your coordinates is pretty foolproof, but not the only way. Other method resemble real life: memorize landmarks, mark your trail, or build a road.
Memorize landmarks - Try not to wander too far away from your home base area at first. Make small excursions to the area around you so that you know you'll be able to find your way back. Stay close to home and eventually you will start to recognize certain features. That's a weird looking tree, there's a desert over there in the distance, and a spooky looking cave entrance in this mountainside...oh, I know where I am! My base is just on the other side of this hill!
Mark your path - Leave a trail of torches everywhere you go. This can help you find your way back home, especially if you get stuck outside at night! For added visibility, you could build a "beacon" every so often: make a pillar of dirt or cobblestone up into the sky so that it raises above the terrain and can be seen from a great distance, then put a torch (or torches - one on each side) at the top. Make the pillar 2 blocks wide so you can dig your way back down on the second one.
Build a road - This could just be thought of as an advanced way of marking your path. Dig out a trench, just 1 block deep and say 3 to 5 blocks wide, from your home to various destinations, and then fill it in with cobblestone, gravel, or some other material that stands out from the surrounding terrain. Can end up being a rather large undertaking, but nothing says "this way" quite like a road.
In caves, many people find it helpful to always place torches on only one side of the cave walls. If you need extra lighting then put them on the floor, not the opposite wall. That way, when you want to leave, you can just follow the torches on the other side. I tend to place the torches on my right while I'm exploring, so I can follow "torches on the left" to get out. Some people (particularly those with a nautical background) prefer the other way, torches on the left going in, and on the right going out ("red, right, returning.") Decide on one that works for you, and stick with it. It's not foolproof, especially when you loop back around to someplace you've already been before, but it's served me well and is better than no plan at all.
Wear armor and bring a compass (esp if your base is near your original spawn point) or several compasses and a stack of paper. That way, when you're a ways out of bounds of your map, you can make another and keep going.
Also, if you're willing to sully your vanilla experience with use mods, get Rei's minimap and death chest, and activate death points on Rei's minimap, and always carry a chest with you.
I get that it's not technically vanilla but this way the consequences of death aren't as bad because your stuff won't despawn and you'll have a waypoint to where it is.
Another way to explore and travel the surface (quite safely I might add) is via the mole method. Just dig a tunnel in a straight line from your base just below the surface (just below sea level is best), placing a torch on the wall every 10 blocks traveled. You now have a travel method that is simple and safe day or night. Make a niche at intervals and make a ladder hole up to survey the surroundings. If they are interesting and you want to explore further, make an above ground shelter around the ladder hole and/or a simple tower of blocks with a torch on top so you can find your way back more easily from a distance.
You will also find cave systems to explore later also using this method.
welcome to the minecraft community, I'm fairly new also, and agree with what many here are saying. Even a combination of tactics can help, really depends on how far you're venturing out. You can also build pillars with torches on them by jumping and placing blocks below you to build a pillar. Use a different material that will stand out. Placing torches on the right or left only in a cave is a good tip. I used to spam them on both sides and get lost. leaving some kind of bread crumb trail is a good idea. Making notes of the x, y, z axis of key places (home base, that cool cave, that awesome island, NCP village, etc) is a good idea. Another thing is travel light, don't wander off carrying stuff you don't want to lose, take only what you need with you. Especially if you plan on going caving, you will need the inventory room for the stuff you plan on brining back.
One thing I've always found usefull is to bring chests with me on long(er) trips. Just place stuff in chests as you go, since they stack it only takes 1 slot but effectively gives you a ton of 'safe' storage space as you won't lose the items in the chest.
Nah, a supply of wood and a crafting bench and you have as many chests as you need.
Thanks for all the advice. I am definitely going to try farming some sugarcane once I manage to find some more.
Really, 90% of my exploration thus far has been downward. I haven't gone more than... maybe a square mile or so from my main base? Which, sadly, is not at my spawn point. If I knew how compasses were calibrated then, maybe things would be different.
If I knew how compasses were calibrated then, maybe things would be different.
A compass always points towards your initial spawn point (not the last bed you slept in, but where you first spawned in the world.) If you build your home far away from spawn, they're less useful.
A compass always points towards your initial spawn point (not the last bed you slept in, but where you first spawned in the world.) If you build your home far away from spawn, they're less useful.
;o I didn't knew that,thank you i will move my mansion with my two PET enderdragons
A compass always points towards your initial spawn point (not the last bed you slept in, but where you first spawned in the world.) If you build your home far away from spawn, they're less useful.
Back in my newbie days, I solved that problem by building a road from my spawn to my home. Then I learned to press F3.
The big shift is realizing that your home base, as fond of it as you may have grown, is really not that hard to replicate on a basic level. You need safety from hostile mobs, a chest, a workbench, and maybe a furnace and you're pretty much good to go for the bulk of survival activities.
So for me, the real trick is just to quickly build a reasonable shelter which can serve as a base of operations for a Minecraft day or two while I gather whatever resources the area has to offer. Once you've got some iron, torches and food sorted out, you can pretty easily survive anywhere - building a hut to spend the night, or even a hidey hole or a saferoom in a big cavern is no big deal.
I generally set out in one direction (rising sun or setting sun is easy) and try not to divert side-to-side too much. That way you can pretty easily just do a 180* and find your way back. Some "newb towers" (3-4+ block tall towers with torches) can help serve as landmarks as needed.
The big shift is realizing that your home base, as fond of it as you may have grown, is really not that hard to replicate on a basic level. You need safety from hostile mobs, a chest, a workbench, and maybe a furnace and you're pretty much good to go for the bulk of survival activities.
So for me, the real trick is just to quickly build a reasonable shelter which can serve as a base of operations for a Minecraft day or two while I gather whatever resources the area has to offer. Once you've got some iron, torches and food sorted out, you can pretty easily survive anywhere - building a hut to spend the night, or even a hidey hole or a saferoom in a big cavern is no big deal.
For me, the issue with a home base isn't so much that it provides shelter or protection, but that that's where all my damn stuff is! I suppose if you're lost in the wilderness, then you probably haven't slaughtered all the nearby animals so food isn't really an issue, but I have farms at my base for renewable food, plus chests and chests full of items and materials. If I couldn't find my way back to all that it'd be pretty devastating. I'd basically have to start Minecraft over from the beginning. Less of an issue for me, though, because it's just a quick jog over from my spawn point, but still something to keep in mind. The base itself might not be hard to replicate, but everything that's inside it may take a long time to replace. And the dragon egg in there is one-of-a-kind. (Yeah, I beat the game. On normal. Still play in the world. Tried to start up a new "large biomes" world on hard difficulty, but I just can't seem to get that "in" to it. Thought I was gonna just abandon my old world, but I still find myself going back to it over and over, even if I'm doing nothing more there than digging out another few layers of the pit down to my stronghold which I plan to one day have exposed to the surface.)
Sugar cane grows on both sand and dirt (Sand is best!) as long as its near water
There's no difference between growing sugarcane on sand and dirt.
As everyone else said, F3 is the best option. I sort of wish you were around in 1.7.3 (you could get by by using landmarks, plus the terrain was better) but nowadays since everything looks the same it's either a compass, mods, or F3.
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Did something happen to you in your childhood to give you this unreasonable fear of rutabaga?
For long exploration trips overland, I tend to take at the very least a crafting table and a chest with me, as well as my map(s) and a compass since my main base is pretty much below spawn. If you find a spot you like to look at further (or turn into a small outpost-ish thing), fire up the crafting table, build a little base.
Write down the coordinates of it (and you did write down your base coordinates, yes?), and then start thinking about "how do I get out here". Take a boat, make a road, lay down tracks, tunnel over, boat travel through tunnel, carts through tunnel, putting a nether portal in and taking a shortcut through there, the possibilities aren't exactly endless but there's plenty
Edit: yes, I'm aware of the minimap mod, but in my opinion using that takes the challenge out of it.
Looking for a friendly community? Look no further, and join the BlockStackers! We run a Vanilla whitelisted server, a Feed The Beast server, and a Survival server with some twists.
Up until now I've used dirt blocks to mark my path so I wouldn't get lost, but for some reason I never thought of just writing down the coords. And maps can only be so helpful because they only show a limited area, but if I'm within its boundaries, its basically impossible for me to get lost because my house is shown as a big gray dot on the map.
I've had Minecraft for over a year and I still get horribly lost. I'm really good at getting lost.
What I do is go in one single direction from my house. Really. I travel really far one way, then go back when I get bored of exploring. Then I'll go a different way.
Every once in a while I'll make another house so that 1, I have another house to go exploring from, and 2, it's easier to find the main house if you know where all the other houses are in reference to it.
But yeah, writing down coordinates is really helpful too.
One way to navigate is to use the clouds. Clouds always move north, so if you know that you are moving the opposite direction as the clouds when you set out from your base, you know that to get back you have to go with the clouds. Also, the sun. Derp.
One way to navigate is to use the clouds. Clouds always move north, so if you know that you are moving the opposite direction as the clouds when you set out from your base, you know that to get back you have to go with the clouds. Also, the sun. Derp.
I didn't know this about clouds. Potentially useful! Thank you.
I did build a ginormous tower near my home base almost immediately after I made my first hidey-hole. Then I poured a bucket of water onto the very top of it. It makes for a very distinct landmark.
So, I humbly plead with any seasoned veterens of the wild watching this board. How do you deal with journeying far beyond the world you know? And more importantly, how do you not get lost? A map will - very literally - only take you so far. (And ironically enough, I'm really going to have to go out really far to get enough sugarcane to make a new map.)
Before you go turning your reeds into paper next time, why not put a few of them down and get a farm going? You can place a single reed in dirt or sand that's adjacent to water, and they will slowly grow to a height of three blocks. (You can place a reed on top of other reeds, too, but they will still only grow to a max. height of 3.) Chop off the top two, plant them next to the first one, and watch them multiply. Then 3 turns into 9, 9 into 27, and 27 into 81. Exponential growth, baby!
As for not getting lost, writing down your coordinates is pretty foolproof, but not the only way. Other method resemble real life: memorize landmarks, mark your trail, or build a road.
Memorize landmarks - Try not to wander too far away from your home base area at first. Make small excursions to the area around you so that you know you'll be able to find your way back. Stay close to home and eventually you will start to recognize certain features. That's a weird looking tree, there's a desert over there in the distance, and a spooky looking cave entrance in this mountainside...oh, I know where I am! My base is just on the other side of this hill!
Mark your path - Leave a trail of torches everywhere you go. This can help you find your way back home, especially if you get stuck outside at night! For added visibility, you could build a "beacon" every so often: make a pillar of dirt or cobblestone up into the sky so that it raises above the terrain and can be seen from a great distance, then put a torch (or torches - one on each side) at the top. Make the pillar 2 blocks wide so you can dig your way back down on the second one.
Build a road - This could just be thought of as an advanced way of marking your path. Dig out a trench, just 1 block deep and say 3 to 5 blocks wide, from your home to various destinations, and then fill it in with cobblestone, gravel, or some other material that stands out from the surrounding terrain. Can end up being a rather large undertaking, but nothing says "this way" quite like a road.
In caves, many people find it helpful to always place torches on only one side of the cave walls. If you need extra lighting then put them on the floor, not the opposite wall. That way, when you want to leave, you can just follow the torches on the other side. I tend to place the torches on my right while I'm exploring, so I can follow "torches on the left" to get out. Some people (particularly those with a nautical background) prefer the other way, torches on the left going in, and on the right going out ("red, right, returning.") Decide on one that works for you, and stick with it. It's not foolproof, especially when you loop back around to someplace you've already been before, but it's served me well and is better than no plan at all.
Village Mechanics: A not-so-brief guide - Update 2017! Now with 1.8 breeding mechanics! Long-overdue trading info, coming soon!
You think magic isn't real? Consider this: for every person, there is a sentence -- a series of words -- which has the power to destroy them.
Only because sand is prettier.
Wear armor and bring a compass (esp if your base is near your original spawn point) or several compasses and a stack of paper. That way, when you're a ways out of bounds of your map, you can make another and keep going.
Also, if you're willing to
sully your vanilla experience withuse mods, get Rei's minimap and death chest, and activate death points on Rei's minimap, and always carry a chest with you.I get that it's not technically vanilla but this way the consequences of death aren't as bad because your stuff won't despawn and you'll have a waypoint to where it is.
[represent]
You will also find cave systems to explore later also using this method.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
Nah, a supply of wood and a crafting bench and you have as many chests as you need.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
Really, 90% of my exploration thus far has been downward. I haven't gone more than... maybe a square mile or so from my main base? Which, sadly, is not at my spawn point. If I knew how compasses were calibrated then, maybe things would be different.
But seriously, thanks a lot.
A compass always points towards your initial spawn point (not the last bed you slept in, but where you first spawned in the world.) If you build your home far away from spawn, they're less useful.
Village Mechanics: A not-so-brief guide - Update 2017! Now with 1.8 breeding mechanics! Long-overdue trading info, coming soon!
You think magic isn't real? Consider this: for every person, there is a sentence -- a series of words -- which has the power to destroy them.
;o I didn't knew that,thank you i will move my mansion with my two PET enderdragons
I Solve practical problems
So for me, the real trick is just to quickly build a reasonable shelter which can serve as a base of operations for a Minecraft day or two while I gather whatever resources the area has to offer. Once you've got some iron, torches and food sorted out, you can pretty easily survive anywhere - building a hut to spend the night, or even a hidey hole or a saferoom in a big cavern is no big deal.
I generally set out in one direction (rising sun or setting sun is easy) and try not to divert side-to-side too much. That way you can pretty easily just do a 180* and find your way back. Some "newb towers" (3-4+ block tall towers with torches) can help serve as landmarks as needed.
For me, the issue with a home base isn't so much that it provides shelter or protection, but that that's where all my damn stuff is! I suppose if you're lost in the wilderness, then you probably haven't slaughtered all the nearby animals so food isn't really an issue, but I have farms at my base for renewable food, plus chests and chests full of items and materials. If I couldn't find my way back to all that it'd be pretty devastating. I'd basically have to start Minecraft over from the beginning. Less of an issue for me, though, because it's just a quick jog over from my spawn point, but still something to keep in mind. The base itself might not be hard to replicate, but everything that's inside it may take a long time to replace. And the dragon egg in there is one-of-a-kind. (Yeah, I beat the game. On normal. Still play in the world. Tried to start up a new "large biomes" world on hard difficulty, but I just can't seem to get that "in" to it. Thought I was gonna just abandon my old world, but I still find myself going back to it over and over, even if I'm doing nothing more there than digging out another few layers of the pit down to my stronghold which I plan to one day have exposed to the surface.)
Village Mechanics: A not-so-brief guide - Update 2017! Now with 1.8 breeding mechanics! Long-overdue trading info, coming soon!
You think magic isn't real? Consider this: for every person, there is a sentence -- a series of words -- which has the power to destroy them.
There's no difference between growing sugarcane on sand and dirt.
As everyone else said, F3 is the best option. I sort of wish you were around in 1.7.3 (you could get by by using landmarks, plus the terrain was better) but nowadays since everything looks the same it's either a compass, mods, or F3.
Write down the coordinates of it (and you did write down your base coordinates, yes?), and then start thinking about "how do I get out here". Take a boat, make a road, lay down tracks, tunnel over, boat travel through tunnel, carts through tunnel, putting a nether portal in and taking a shortcut through there, the possibilities aren't exactly endless but there's plenty
Edit: yes, I'm aware of the minimap mod, but in my opinion using that takes the challenge out of it.
What I do is go in one single direction from my house. Really. I travel really far one way, then go back when I get bored of exploring. Then I'll go a different way.
Every once in a while I'll make another house so that 1, I have another house to go exploring from, and 2, it's easier to find the main house if you know where all the other houses are in reference to it.
But yeah, writing down coordinates is really helpful too.
I didn't know this about clouds. Potentially useful! Thank you.
I did build a ginormous tower near my home base almost immediately after I made my first hidey-hole. Then I poured a bucket of water onto the very top of it. It makes for a very distinct landmark.