Most of us have encountered at least one mind-bogglingly hugemongous cave system that we couldn't even begin to navigate unaided. Most of us have died in at least one of these and lost a hefty fraction of the minerals it contained. I spent most of Beta deep underground, looking for and looting the biggest caves I could find. I like to think I've gotten quite good at it; I die in my base more than I do in caves. This guide is a summary of the strategies I use to navigate them successfully and safely.
EQUIPMENT LIST
There is not a whole lot if disagreement over what to bring, but this is what usually comes with me when I step into the shadows of a likely tunnel.
Pickaxe, shovel, sword
The higher-level, the better. Diamonds in caves are too rare to make plain diamond tools sustainable, though, last time I checked. But a high-end diamond sword will save your life and thus your loot.
Fortune or Silk touch
whatever your main pick is, bring one of the above two. Either a fortune pick to get the most out of your ores, or a silk touch pick to bring them home and use the fortune pick in safety. Having a fortune pick and/or unbreaking on your diamond tools can make it easy possible to turn a diamond profit while spelunking.
Bow and arrows
For creepers, mostly. Go down with a stack if you don't like sword fighting. Take half that if you save it for creepers. I sometimes gain arrows in caves, due to frequent skeleton encounters. Low-level enchantments do a lot for bows, by the way. All you need is power 1 to take all monsters down in two hits.
Iron armor
Leather is weak sauce. Diamond is awesome, but usually prohibitively expensive. Only creepers, cave spiders, and careless mistakes around lava can kill you with full armor. I can't stress enough how important having full armor is.
Lava bucket and Water bucket
Did you know that emptying a bucket into a source block will make the contents disappear? Pick up the source you emptied it into and move on. Use this trick to clear all the random water and lava flows you find.
Torches - 1 stack
Make more as needed.
Logs - 1 stack
Logs, not planks. And at least half a stack. Yes, you might run through thirty blocks making torches, workbenches, tools and chests. No, you don't want be out of wood when you're in so deep that you ran out of wood. You get it? In mineshafts, you can mine your wood, but I prefer not to rely on that.
Food - 1 stack
The best food is the one you can bring the most of, except melon slices and mushrooms. Melons just don't fill you much, and shrooms take a lot of inventory space because you can't stack soup. I prefer baked potatoes. Very easy to get a lot of, and they keep you full for a long time.
Some cobblestone and gravel
For bridges, long drops/ascensions, etc.
You will find more, but it's good to have some before you enter. Same thing with iron.
NAIVGATION SYSTEM
My navigation system isn't very complex, but it works perfectly for completely searching cave systems. It doesn't work well for the strategy of lighting caves up then going back to mine the ores, but I always mine as I go. This whole guide is built around the idea of using what you find down there to keep going.
The primary rule is always turn right. Right, right, right (left works too, as long as you always go the same way), until you hit a dead end. Then you mark the dead end with a cobble pillar at the last intersection that has an unexplored option. With the rightmost path marked off, it's time to try the next path to the left. This means that when I enter a large room with many paths coming off it, I tend to go counterclockwise around the room as I explore each path. And if I come across a section of cave I've already been through, I mark the meeting point like a dead end. This often results in one meandering and excessively long path through the cave system, but at least it's one path. To prevent getting lost if I make any mistakes, I also place torches on the right. If I get confused, I can just keep walking walking with my torches on the left and I will always approach the exit.
CERTAIN DIFFICULT SITUATIONS
Sometimes, the cave will say, "**** you. I don't want you to get out alive today. Good luck surviving THIS." This section explains how to survive those situations with as much grace and remaining health as possible. The first and best way to survive anything is to be prepared for it, though. ALWAYS keep your health high and replace destroyed armor, even if it means stopping right there and making a workbench and furnace. Skeleton squad got you down to three hearts? There may be a creeper squad around the corner, so get ready for it before they catch you off your guard.
Lava pools
Weak sauce. You got that water bucket? Stand somewhere where the flow won't push you into the lava, and let it spread out over the lava and make a nice, safe obsidian floor. Then scoop it back up, repeat until it's all frozen, and be on your way. Don't feel obligated to mine all the obsidian.
Water pushing you into lava
Holding SHIFT will keep you from falling into the lava. Freeze the rest of the lava with your water bucket (or at least enough to make it unlikely to kill you), then find the source of the problem flow and scoop it up.
Skeletons below you
Goddamn it's hard to shoot those buggers without getting shot. Having the high ground is good in a real firefight, but bad in a Minecraft firefight. Either jump down and take the hit, or pour lava on them. It goes around corners.
Creepers above you
Shoot them if you have space. Run if you don't. If you hear hissing and don't know where the creeper is, turn around and spam punch while backing up. I consider gunpowder to be a bit of a trophy, so letting them blow up in a safe place is a last resort.
Endermen
Do not engage endermen in a cave. It will teleport away, then five minutes later it will pop up behind you while you're digging something up in a ravine wall or next to lava. Every goddamned time. They KNOW. Only hunt endermen on the surface.
Where the hell is that goddamned spider? Spiders lost their telepathic player detection in some update and this section is only preserved as a tribute to deaths long past.
It's on the roof of a cave. It sensed you (spiders do not need to see you to know you're there) and ran towards you, hit a wall, and went up it. Now its dark belly is blending in with a dark cave roof and you need to spot it and shoot it down before it drops on your head and gores you. This is an unintentional but highly effective ambush routine. Good stereo or headphones will help you figure out where it is by sound, but you may not hear it before it lands on you.
Dungeons
For all dungeons, remember that the brighter it is, the less frequently monsters will appear. Light that sucker up at the FIRST opportunity. Engage dungeons hard and fast. The longer you wait, the more monsters will be there.
Spider dungeons are easy, unless the opening to the dungeon is actually big enough to let them out. If that's the case, it totally doesn't make you a ***** to place blocks so that they can't reach you while you fight off the existing swarm and approach the spawner to disable with torches before many more spawn. You have been gifted with the ability to change the terrain, and you can use it to save your ass any time you please.
Zombie dungeons are not hard.
Skeleton dungeons are consistently difficult for me. I usually approach them through walls, open a 1X1 hole at the bottom of the wall, place a torch, and let most of them shoot each other while chopping at their feet. This also works for zombies.
If I'm really not in the mood to be f***ed with, I'll come in through the roof and drop some lava or water on it. Water will always turn the whole floor into an un-spawnable surface, and while complete coverage is not guaranteed with lava, it will kill anything in there and light it up. Chests do not burn. Cave Spiders
As if regular spiders weren't hard enough, sometimes a mineshaft appears and says "**** your ****, you can't have my melon seeds! Just die already goddamn you!" That is what cave spiders are saying in their screech, sped up and distorted. I promise. Cave spider spawners are the most dangerous thing you will find underground. The spiders don't hurt much, but the poison will take you down to half a heart easily. They can fit through any hole, ignore the cobwebs that will trap you. If you can locate the spawner, I recommend coming in through the roof and dumping lava on it until you stop hearing the little buggers' screams. Watch out for burning wood. It shouldn't spread very far. If coming in through the roof is not an option, get a good sword out and clear as much of the cobwebs as possible (you will get stuck running and fighting if you don't), then get to a place where the spiders will not path to you but you can reach the spawner. Break it and then deal with the spiders. Take note that spiderwebs are destroyed by water.
INVENTORY OPTIMIZATION
This isn't a really complicated topic, but it's worth discussing a little. There's a lot of information in the equipment list too. Bring logs, not planks. Diamond tools, only one bucket of each liquid, making everything you can as you go so it isn't taking up space until you run out. The only important factor that hasn't been explained is taking the time to smelt iron once you have more than two stacks. At that point, you're guaranteed to save an inventory slot after smelting metals and converting to blocks. You'll also want to convert lapis to blocks.
Using cobblestone as dead-end markers will also save you inventory space. If you aren't out to mine much coal or redstone, you can use those tricks to spend afternoons down there without running out of space. But if you are out to mine all the minerals you see, you might want a mini-base.
MINI-BASE
If you need to travel far for caves and you want to bring back everything in them, you might want to construct a base within the cave. An ideal spot has plenty of room but few entrances.
In the forward base, you probably want to place a bed. Much better than writing down the coordinates of the entrance and running for your stuff across the overworld. Aside from the obvious furnaces and chests, you might want to set up a small farm or two. Wheat, melons, potatoes, and carrots are all good. Carrots are unique in that they can be planted directly in their edible state, saving inventory space. Melons and mushrooms are poor choices, but they can be found underground if you're running out of food.
If you're in for the REALLY long haul, or you think you might die and lose all your wood, bring a sapling (not pine, pine sucks for farming) and read this article. If you plan on using a tree farm, look for a place with a lot of headroom for your base. Ditto with a bonemeal-based mushroom farm.
FINDING GOOD CAVES
If you're playing the current version of Minecraft, all you need to do to find good caves is find a cave, usually. The newest terrain generator makes great caves everywhere. But I actually wish there were fewer caves. It used to be that you could completely explore a system. Now, caves seem to make up an infinite network and I never get that satisfaction of finishing one off.
Sailing at Night
You wouldn't think hanging around the ocean at night would be a good way to find caves, but it is, especially for mineshafts. The ocean is much easier to look through when it's dark out. Look for collapsed sand. If you're sailing in shallow water, you might actually hear the water flowing into the cave. If there's light coming from it, you've probably spotted a mineshaft. See weird blocks of air scattered through the water? It's a bug that occurs above mineshafts. Just remember that caves under ocean without much nearby land will be have more monsters because there is nowhere else to spawn.
Eyes and ears
I keep my ears open for cave noises, flowing water, and monster calls. Headphones, good stereo, or surround sound will make it easier to pinpoint where the monster is. When you're in a cave and you think you have it explored but hear monsters, dig for them. Remember that there is no way to tell by ear if they are above or below you. This is a good way to find dungeons. They are usually quite noisy.
Mining
Simple enough. Dig deep and start a branch mine on lava level (F3 will read 11 for X at the right elevation), and listen for cave sounds, monsters, or the sound of water or lava. Or just dig straight into one by accident. That happens often enough, and the systems you find this way are usually very deep and rich.
Mapping UtilitiesDon't know of any good ones for the current version, sorry
I used to use Cartograph G, but last time I checked, it wasn't updated for the newest update. Not sure if it works. But anyway, if you can find a mapping program with a cave mode, you can compare the cave images with a surface image of the same area, and find unique systems that way.
This guide is very helpful, specially for newer people (like me :biggrin.gif:).
Suggestions:
You MUST mention the SW ore generation bug, until they fix it. LINK: getsatisfaction It affects spelunking just as much as any other type of mining.
Tips on finding nice caves would be great
Placing torches on the left, or right wall consistently helps a lot.
Blocking off explored sections of the cave helps prevent getting lost.
Dealing with the different types of dungeons would be nice.
My worst cave-nightmare is a dark vertical shaft, specially when dispensing skeletons and creepers. Any tips?
Thanks for the guide!
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PostAblindmind1:Tnt can also be uses to see caves underground...unless they removed that bug.
Malacodor: With enough TNT you can see caves without using bugs.
Whoops, fixed the title that said "lava pushing you into water". Thanks for pointing that out.
@biclopse I never really did the "torches on the right" thing. I think it probably works almost as well as the markers, but I just don't like it. I do, however, sometimes make arrows out of torches to point to the way out from a hub room. And I personally don't use gravel pillars to climb or drop from shafts. I almost always dig or place a stairway that spirals up or down their perimeter. I don't use ladders because that's just one more thing to carry where I could have a stack of mossy cobble or something. As for diamond, I absolutely advise bringing diamond tools. It seems you do to, but you sound like I disagree with you. I'll edit my post to make it more clear.
And actually, I used to use flaming netherrack to mark the point out, but I dropped it in favor of more free inventory.
You should try the torches thing. Its always usefull knowing wich way is out in ANY point of a cave.
I place lightning-only torches in the ground because they cover more area that way, and place my indication toches on the left wall as i advance.
Thanks again for the guide!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
PostAblindmind1:Tnt can also be uses to see caves underground...unless they removed that bug.
Malacodor: With enough TNT you can see caves without using bugs.
I do pretty much the exact stuff except I play on peaceful now.... killing mobs got so easy it became boring and useless to me so I prefer now to just gather stuff. Instead of marking with pillars, I just create a gravel wall over the tunnel with the dead-end. Also, when my inventory is getting near full... I dig to the surface and place 2 chests, empty my inventory and write down the coordinates for later retrieval, then I go back down and continue.
If I encounter a 'hub' with multiple exits; I make a floating block (Dirt or cobble) above the tunnel I ENTERED from
Awesome idea... can't believe I didn't think of it before. Simple and effective!
I will never spelunk again, hell, I get scared when I break into one and have to create a covered walkway.
Haha! I do this even though I play on peaceful... mainly because it needs to look neat... OCD kicking in here lol.
I have a question... do you guys pick up your torches form your dead-ends or just leave them and make new ones? I did a cartograph of just torches and had almost 4300 placed in my world so far lol. I pick them out of my branch mines before I close them off but I leave them in my caves.
I love the idea of a spelunking guide, like the warfare one. Personally, I find SMP too laggy for reliable fighting. This lag is usually tiny at best, but always enough to throw off a fighter's blows, what with all the sudden, jerky movement.
Personally, I love spelunking. Caves are like pre-dug shafts, with lots of exposed ore showing and even a few spawners. They are high in resources, and with the correct carpeting and recessed lighting, can turn into beautiful homes with a nice natural feeling to them. Caves are unpredictable, leading to more excitement as you find yourself running in circles or nearly falling to a violent molten death below. A cave system is the best way to find ores with no labor at all. Simply point and mine!
Very nice job, this is a great guide for people. The only thing I think needs to be pointed out is that:
Quote from DoubleDongle »
Southwest
It's been confirmed with Cartograph and some examination of the game code that the mineral deposits in the southwest are bigger than other quadrants of the world.
You DEFINITELY need to add the fact that you should make a few infinite water springs here and there during your trip underground. Water works MIRACLES. The springs are convenient because you have access to enough water to make farms, and EFFECTIVELY flood dungeons. Also, a bucket of water CAN substitute ladders. You can also horizontally climb walls with water. All you have to do (horizontal climbing) is place water above you, then quickly take the water and place it one or more blocks to your left/right. You can also do this vertically. If I want to drop from high places (VERY useful in overworld aswell) just place a bucket of water somewhere where it creates a waterfall, and then wait for it to touch the ground (not NECESSARY, but helps). Then, quickly take the source water block, and jump into the waterfall as it starts to drain. If done correctly, you will have just made a type of water elevator. The downside to this is that if you're climbing up using water, and trying to escape baddies, well, may you R.I.P. (unless of course you are INCREDIBLY fast).
P.S. I use Beta 1.6.4, so the water system may already/will be changed.
~Shadonic :wink.gif:
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This is my signature. If you don't like it, then that's too bad.
Bookmarked! I already knew/used most of this, but still very helpful. I didn't know about the southwest thing and it's good to know the lava level coordinates too. And I like the idea of building an actual base in the dungeon, or at least a chest and a bed >.>
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Sadface that the new accounts are... new... I've been a member since the beginning and now look like a noob.
Read this when it was first posted and liked it a lot. Most of it was already known to me, but still useful.
When i first started, spelunking was my preferred method of mining as well as the primary motivation for continued exploration. Some time afterwards (mainly from looking at cartographs in "cave mode") i got a better idea of just how abundant large cave systems are in the world and i got a bit dejected with the whole thing. Throw a dart at any given hectare on a map and it will contain part of a massive cave system. Explore for days on end and you're still not making much of a dent. Kinda kills motivation when whatever spelunking progress you make doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Kills it further when you've seen enough caves that they all look the same, with nothing new to offer.
When my grand railway project became my prime motivation, i needed vast amounts of redstone (approx 3 for every metre of track!). Traditional spelunking simply couldn't supply redstone in the quantities i needed, and certainly not in the timeframes i desired. So, reluctantly, i switched to branch mining.
Branch mining was good for a while. It supplied me with enough redstone to keep making progress on the railway project without the extra time and effort (and mental stress) associated with spelunking. But ****, how boring is branch mining? I did occasionally get lost in my own branch mines which is kinda interesting, but all in all, it satisfied the resource demands only, nothing else. I've played long enough to know that the gathering of resources should be just as much fun (perhaps more so) than building with them, and so i switched to something different. Something which combines spelunking, branch mining, exploration, construction and, hehe, creative deconstruction all in one hit. I give you Pit Mining!
I'm using MadMaxHH's World in the Air as my primary world, which is rich in amazing land formations simply begging for *something* to be built there. So many in fact that you just can't do something with all of them. I was constantly walking past cool circular ridges and thinking: "I can't build anything there that i haven't already done, but you know what would look good in the middle of that? A big **** off hole going right down to the bedrock!" The railway project had called for large quantities of TNT for tunnels and hollowing out mountains and what have you, so a mob grinder had already been constructed to meet demand. Without it, Pit mining just isn't feasible. And so at the centre of one such circular ridge, i levelled the ground and dug 1x1 columns down to level 22 (just above redstone level and well above lava level), mining out the resources as i went and partially exploring the caves that i dropped into. Then i pillared back up the columns with a 1:2 mix of tnt and gravel, set some redstone timed fuses, climbed to a nice vantage point at the top of the ridge and flipped the switch...
The resulting conical pit had a dozen natural, unexplored tunnels branching out from it, clearly visible access into the lava lakes as well as a nice little waterfall featured pond at the bottom. I spent a day or two (minecraft days) cleaning up the rim and building stairway access from top to bottom. Then i built a little outpost at the bottom and started exploring the cave system that the pit had conveniently breached into. A few more minecraft days and i blasted an underground railway tunnel to link up with my existing obsidian mine rail track a few hundred metres to the north. I'm now at the final stage of the life of the pit mine and the primary commercial stage. A 200x200 branch mine spiralling out from the centre of the pit at lvl 16 and at level 12. Should provide enough redstone for the next several legs of the rail project.
The exercise has been so rewarding that i don't think i'll do anything other than pit mining in the future. It negates all negative aspects of branch mining and spelunking as well as satisfying exploration and construction needs and is 99% practical at every step of the way. (For me, impracticality is the killer of all possible minecraft builds). The process itself creates practical build opportunities in transport and access and it satisfies the need to utilize and/or improve those interesting land formations that i otherwise wouldn't be able to do anything with. I've already scoped out locations for a handful of pit mines. The next one will be larger and in a better ridge formation. I'll incorporate a spiral rail track as well as a central spire with a piston based elevator setup and access bridges radiating out at various levels. Every bit as aesthetically pleasing as the project for which the resources it produces are intended...
Most of us have encountered at least one mind-bogglingly hugemongous cave system that we couldn't even begin to navigate unaided. Most of us have died in at least one of these and lost a hefty fraction of the minerals it contained. I spent most of Beta deep underground, looking for and looting the biggest caves I could find. I like to think I've gotten quite good at it; I die in my base more than I do in caves. This guide is a summary of the strategies I use to navigate them successfully and safely.
EQUIPMENT LIST
There is not a whole lot if disagreement over what to bring, but this is what usually comes with me when I step into the shadows of a likely tunnel.
You will find more, but it's good to have some before you enter. Same thing with iron.
NAIVGATION SYSTEM
My navigation system isn't very complex, but it works perfectly for completely searching cave systems. It doesn't work well for the strategy of lighting caves up then going back to mine the ores, but I always mine as I go. This whole guide is built around the idea of using what you find down there to keep going.
The primary rule is always turn right. Right, right, right (left works too, as long as you always go the same way), until you hit a dead end. Then you mark the dead end with a cobble pillar at the last intersection that has an unexplored option. With the rightmost path marked off, it's time to try the next path to the left. This means that when I enter a large room with many paths coming off it, I tend to go counterclockwise around the room as I explore each path. And if I come across a section of cave I've already been through, I mark the meeting point like a dead end. This often results in one meandering and excessively long path through the cave system, but at least it's one path. To prevent getting lost if I make any mistakes, I also place torches on the right. If I get confused, I can just keep walking walking with my torches on the left and I will always approach the exit.
CERTAIN DIFFICULT SITUATIONS
Sometimes, the cave will say, "**** you. I don't want you to get out alive today. Good luck surviving THIS." This section explains how to survive those situations with as much grace and remaining health as possible. The first and best way to survive anything is to be prepared for it, though. ALWAYS keep your health high and replace destroyed armor, even if it means stopping right there and making a workbench and furnace. Skeleton squad got you down to three hearts? There may be a creeper squad around the corner, so get ready for it before they catch you off your guard.
Lava pools
Weak sauce. You got that water bucket? Stand somewhere where the flow won't push you into the lava, and let it spread out over the lava and make a nice, safe obsidian floor. Then scoop it back up, repeat until it's all frozen, and be on your way. Don't feel obligated to mine all the obsidian.
Water pushing you into lava
Holding SHIFT will keep you from falling into the lava. Freeze the rest of the lava with your water bucket (or at least enough to make it unlikely to kill you), then find the source of the problem flow and scoop it up.
Skeletons below you
Goddamn it's hard to shoot those buggers without getting shot. Having the high ground is good in a real firefight, but bad in a Minecraft firefight. Either jump down and take the hit, or pour lava on them. It goes around corners.
Creepers above you
Shoot them if you have space. Run if you don't. If you hear hissing and don't know where the creeper is, turn around and spam punch while backing up. I consider gunpowder to be a bit of a trophy, so letting them blow up in a safe place is a last resort.
Endermen
Do not engage endermen in a cave. It will teleport away, then five minutes later it will pop up behind you while you're digging something up in a ravine wall or next to lava. Every goddamned time. They KNOW. Only hunt endermen on the surface.
Where the hell is that goddamned spider?
Spiders lost their telepathic player detection in some update and this section is only preserved as a tribute to deaths long past.
Dungeons
For all dungeons, remember that the brighter it is, the less frequently monsters will appear. Light that sucker up at the FIRST opportunity. Engage dungeons hard and fast. The longer you wait, the more monsters will be there.
Spider dungeons are easy, unless the opening to the dungeon is actually big enough to let them out. If that's the case, it totally doesn't make you a ***** to place blocks so that they can't reach you while you fight off the existing swarm and approach the spawner to disable with torches before many more spawn. You have been gifted with the ability to change the terrain, and you can use it to save your ass any time you please.
Zombie dungeons are not hard.
Skeleton dungeons are consistently difficult for me. I usually approach them through walls, open a 1X1 hole at the bottom of the wall, place a torch, and let most of them shoot each other while chopping at their feet. This also works for zombies.
If I'm really not in the mood to be f***ed with, I'll come in through the roof and drop some lava or water on it. Water will always turn the whole floor into an un-spawnable surface, and while complete coverage is not guaranteed with lava, it will kill anything in there and light it up. Chests do not burn.
Cave Spiders
As if regular spiders weren't hard enough, sometimes a mineshaft appears and says "**** your ****, you can't have my melon seeds! Just die already goddamn you!" That is what cave spiders are saying in their screech, sped up and distorted. I promise. Cave spider spawners are the most dangerous thing you will find underground. The spiders don't hurt much, but the poison will take you down to half a heart easily. They can fit through any hole, ignore the cobwebs that will trap you. If you can locate the spawner, I recommend coming in through the roof and dumping lava on it until you stop hearing the little buggers' screams. Watch out for burning wood. It shouldn't spread very far. If coming in through the roof is not an option, get a good sword out and clear as much of the cobwebs as possible (you will get stuck running and fighting if you don't), then get to a place where the spiders will not path to you but you can reach the spawner. Break it and then deal with the spiders. Take note that spiderwebs are destroyed by water.
How to not die in a cave
INVENTORY OPTIMIZATION
This isn't a really complicated topic, but it's worth discussing a little. There's a lot of information in the equipment list too. Bring logs, not planks. Diamond tools, only one bucket of each liquid, making everything you can as you go so it isn't taking up space until you run out. The only important factor that hasn't been explained is taking the time to smelt iron once you have more than two stacks. At that point, you're guaranteed to save an inventory slot after smelting metals and converting to blocks. You'll also want to convert lapis to blocks.
Using cobblestone as dead-end markers will also save you inventory space. If you aren't out to mine much coal or redstone, you can use those tricks to spend afternoons down there without running out of space. But if you are out to mine all the minerals you see, you might want a mini-base.
MINI-BASE
If you need to travel far for caves and you want to bring back everything in them, you might want to construct a base within the cave. An ideal spot has plenty of room but few entrances.
In the forward base, you probably want to place a bed. Much better than writing down the coordinates of the entrance and running for your stuff across the overworld. Aside from the obvious furnaces and chests, you might want to set up a small farm or two. Wheat, melons, potatoes, and carrots are all good. Carrots are unique in that they can be planted directly in their edible state, saving inventory space. Melons and mushrooms are poor choices, but they can be found underground if you're running out of food.
If you're in for the REALLY long haul, or you think you might die and lose all your wood, bring a sapling (not pine, pine sucks for farming) and read this article. If you plan on using a tree farm, look for a place with a lot of headroom for your base. Ditto with a bonemeal-based mushroom farm.
FINDING GOOD CAVES
If you're playing the current version of Minecraft, all you need to do to find good caves is find a cave, usually. The newest terrain generator makes great caves everywhere. But I actually wish there were fewer caves. It used to be that you could completely explore a system. Now, caves seem to make up an infinite network and I never get that satisfaction of finishing one off.
Sailing at Night
You wouldn't think hanging around the ocean at night would be a good way to find caves, but it is, especially for mineshafts. The ocean is much easier to look through when it's dark out. Look for collapsed sand. If you're sailing in shallow water, you might actually hear the water flowing into the cave. If there's light coming from it, you've probably spotted a mineshaft. See weird blocks of air scattered through the water? It's a bug that occurs above mineshafts. Just remember that caves under ocean without much nearby land will be have more monsters because there is nowhere else to spawn.
Eyes and ears
I keep my ears open for cave noises, flowing water, and monster calls. Headphones, good stereo, or surround sound will make it easier to pinpoint where the monster is. When you're in a cave and you think you have it explored but hear monsters, dig for them. Remember that there is no way to tell by ear if they are above or below you. This is a good way to find dungeons. They are usually quite noisy.
Mining
Simple enough. Dig deep and start a branch mine on lava level (F3 will read 11 for X at the right elevation), and listen for cave sounds, monsters, or the sound of water or lava. Or just dig straight into one by accident. That happens often enough, and the systems you find this way are usually very deep and rich.
Mapping Utilities Don't know of any good ones for the current version, sorry
I used to use Cartograph G, but last time I checked, it wasn't updated for the newest update. Not sure if it works. But anyway, if you can find a mapping program with a cave mode, you can compare the cave images with a surface image of the same area, and find unique systems that way.
How to not die in a cave
Suggestions:
You MUST mention the SW ore generation bug, until they fix it. LINK: getsatisfaction It affects spelunking just as much as any other type of mining.
Tips on finding nice caves would be great
Placing torches on the left, or right wall consistently helps a lot.
Blocking off explored sections of the cave helps prevent getting lost.
Dealing with the different types of dungeons would be nice.
My worst cave-nightmare is a dark vertical shaft, specially when dispensing skeletons and creepers. Any tips?
Thanks for the guide!
Malacodor: With enough TNT you can see caves without using bugs.
@biclopse I never really did the "torches on the right" thing. I think it probably works almost as well as the markers, but I just don't like it. I do, however, sometimes make arrows out of torches to point to the way out from a hub room. And I personally don't use gravel pillars to climb or drop from shafts. I almost always dig or place a stairway that spirals up or down their perimeter. I don't use ladders because that's just one more thing to carry where I could have a stack of mossy cobble or something. As for diamond, I absolutely advise bringing diamond tools. It seems you do to, but you sound like I disagree with you. I'll edit my post to make it more clear.
And actually, I used to use flaming netherrack to mark the point out, but I dropped it in favor of more free inventory.
How to not die in a cave
I place lightning-only torches in the ground because they cover more area that way, and place my indication toches on the left wall as i advance.
Thanks again for the guide!
Malacodor: With enough TNT you can see caves without using bugs.
That said when I used to go spelunking I never got lost. I have an uncanny ability to ALWAYS know where I am going and where things are.
Great Guide though, but I will never spelunk again, hell, I get scared when I break into one and have to create a covered walkway.
How to not die in a cave
Awesome idea... can't believe I didn't think of it before. Simple and effective!
Haha! I do this even though I play on peaceful... mainly because it needs to look neat... OCD kicking in here lol.
I have a question... do you guys pick up your torches form your dead-ends or just leave them and make new ones? I did a cartograph of just torches and had almost 4300 placed in my world so far lol. I pick them out of my branch mines before I close them off but I leave them in my caves.
BOOM! :cool.gif:
p.s. I'm sledge
Personally, I love spelunking. Caves are like pre-dug shafts, with lots of exposed ore showing and even a few spawners. They are high in resources, and with the correct carpeting and recessed lighting, can turn into beautiful homes with a nice natural feeling to them. Caves are unpredictable, leading to more excitement as you find yourself running in circles or nearly falling to a violent molten death below. A cave system is the best way to find ores with no labor at all. Simply point and mine!
Is no longer the case, Notch fixed this in 1.6.
Cheers
P.S. I use Beta 1.6.4, so the water system may already/will be changed.
~Shadonic :wink.gif:
When i first started, spelunking was my preferred method of mining as well as the primary motivation for continued exploration. Some time afterwards (mainly from looking at cartographs in "cave mode") i got a better idea of just how abundant large cave systems are in the world and i got a bit dejected with the whole thing. Throw a dart at any given hectare on a map and it will contain part of a massive cave system. Explore for days on end and you're still not making much of a dent. Kinda kills motivation when whatever spelunking progress you make doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Kills it further when you've seen enough caves that they all look the same, with nothing new to offer.
When my grand railway project became my prime motivation, i needed vast amounts of redstone (approx 3 for every metre of track!). Traditional spelunking simply couldn't supply redstone in the quantities i needed, and certainly not in the timeframes i desired. So, reluctantly, i switched to branch mining.
Branch mining was good for a while. It supplied me with enough redstone to keep making progress on the railway project without the extra time and effort (and mental stress) associated with spelunking. But ****, how boring is branch mining? I did occasionally get lost in my own branch mines which is kinda interesting, but all in all, it satisfied the resource demands only, nothing else. I've played long enough to know that the gathering of resources should be just as much fun (perhaps more so) than building with them, and so i switched to something different. Something which combines spelunking, branch mining, exploration, construction and, hehe, creative deconstruction all in one hit. I give you Pit Mining!
I'm using MadMaxHH's World in the Air as my primary world, which is rich in amazing land formations simply begging for *something* to be built there. So many in fact that you just can't do something with all of them. I was constantly walking past cool circular ridges and thinking: "I can't build anything there that i haven't already done, but you know what would look good in the middle of that? A big **** off hole going right down to the bedrock!" The railway project had called for large quantities of TNT for tunnels and hollowing out mountains and what have you, so a mob grinder had already been constructed to meet demand. Without it, Pit mining just isn't feasible. And so at the centre of one such circular ridge, i levelled the ground and dug 1x1 columns down to level 22 (just above redstone level and well above lava level), mining out the resources as i went and partially exploring the caves that i dropped into. Then i pillared back up the columns with a 1:2 mix of tnt and gravel, set some redstone timed fuses, climbed to a nice vantage point at the top of the ridge and flipped the switch...
The resulting conical pit had a dozen natural, unexplored tunnels branching out from it, clearly visible access into the lava lakes as well as a nice little waterfall featured pond at the bottom. I spent a day or two (minecraft days) cleaning up the rim and building stairway access from top to bottom. Then i built a little outpost at the bottom and started exploring the cave system that the pit had conveniently breached into. A few more minecraft days and i blasted an underground railway tunnel to link up with my existing obsidian mine rail track a few hundred metres to the north. I'm now at the final stage of the life of the pit mine and the primary commercial stage. A 200x200 branch mine spiralling out from the centre of the pit at lvl 16 and at level 12. Should provide enough redstone for the next several legs of the rail project.
The exercise has been so rewarding that i don't think i'll do anything other than pit mining in the future. It negates all negative aspects of branch mining and spelunking as well as satisfying exploration and construction needs and is 99% practical at every step of the way. (For me, impracticality is the killer of all possible minecraft builds). The process itself creates practical build opportunities in transport and access and it satisfies the need to utilize and/or improve those interesting land formations that i otherwise wouldn't be able to do anything with. I've already scoped out locations for a handful of pit mines. The next one will be larger and in a better ridge formation. I'll incorporate a spiral rail track as well as a central spire with a piston based elevator setup and access bridges radiating out at various levels. Every bit as aesthetically pleasing as the project for which the resources it produces are intended...