Wiki shows Y levels 12 and 5 as being the hottest spots for diamonds. I prefer 12, because even though it has slightly lesser chance than 5, it often lets you find catacombs at that level with visibly exposed diamond sometimes, whereas there are no such catacombs at 5, and a lot more small lava pits. Also, there seems to be more gold to be found at 12 than 5 and might as well pocket some gold while you're diamond hunting.
Also, as the chart shows, level 13 drops off significantly, while level 11 is almost as good as 12. Therefore, I'd make sure you're actually standing at y:11, with eyes at 12. This way you cover both 11 and 12.
Using your F3 screen helps too, as it shows when you cross into another chunk's borders. Wiki says there's an average of 3 diamonds per chunk sized area. I call this about an average of 1 vein per chunk.
I strip mine, at y:11, starting at the 7th row in the chunk, mining where all the shaded blocks are shown below. The yellow indicates the only torches needed to light the entire operation for the chunk.
This shows you what every block is, in the chunk at Y levels 11 and 12. Using this method I usually only have to search through 3 or 4 chunks at the most before finding diamonds again. Once you find a vein, odds are there are no others in that chunk, so move to the next one.
Once, during a sick day, I did nothing but strip mine like this and reached a stack of diamonds in less than like 4 hours. Of course never mine diamonds without Fortune 3. You too can easily manage getting a stack of diamonds in less than a day of playing. I'd also recommend using diamond picks for the mining to speed things up.
Find a cave which will take you down to 12, first. You can dig a vertical shaft, but it is slow and extremely boring, comparitively. Once you get there, find lava, with a solid wall on one side of it.
Dig into said solid wall using this pattern, making your passageways two blocks high. As you can see, it spans an entire chunk, so you can therefore use it to clear each chunk systematically. If you don't find diamonds within that chunk on level 12, then simply go two blocks up (or down, but you'll have to dodge lava) and use the same pattern. Do that on every floor between 5 and 16 for the same chunk, until you find diamond. You will most likely find a lot of other materials using this method, as well.
Don't mine like this for too long, however. It is the most efficient mining technique in the game that I know of, but it is also highly repetitive, and you will get extremely bored, very quickly. Alternate mining with farming, exploring, or fighting mobs.
There is a faster way: Get an efficiency 5 pick and a level 4 beacon. Then instead of mining in lines just spam click that stone dozens at a time. What remains are the ores and you can use a fortune pick on them.
I'd have to say that the easiest way to get diamonds would be through strip mining. Yeah, I know, it takes forever and you end up with loads of stone, but it's also the most efficient way. You could also find them in generated structures, such as a stronghold, a temple, or even a village. In one of my worlds, I found a village. I raided the village of its wheat first and saved the chest for last. Once I opened the chest, I found four diamonds.
The easiest way to find diamonds is probably with strip mining, or with the efficiency-beacon combination mentioned above. For optimal strip mining conditions, your F3 debug screen coordinates should read Y=11 with the eyes in Y=12. This will put you level with the top of almost all lava pools, meaning you can simply use a water bucket in order to turn them into obsidian and continue on your way. It is also nicely situated at a depth with large amounts of diamonds. As for the tunnels to dig, I recommend starting with a 2x2 or 3x3 main tunnel roughly 100 blocks long, then digging 150 block long branches with 3 blocks between each branch. The 3x3 main tunnel will make the main part of your mine feel much more spacious, and it can be decorated with supports without restricting easy movement through the mines.
Mining lines is faster than just digging out everything, just use a eff5 and a beacon, it's much better
That's true, but a beacon's range is so limited that your branch mine will have to be tiny. At that rate, if you're going to stay within range of the beacon, it's probably more efficient to just dig out the entire area anyway (rather than spending time navigating through tunnels.
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Branch mining works fine - make a long tunnel at y=11 and then dig branches out to left and right every 4th block in the tunnel.
Why y=11 instead of y=10?
- because lava pools are at y=11 and it's easier to pour water over lava than have lava coming at you.
Why a branch every 4th block instead of every 3rd block as Club727 has it?
- Because with 3 blocks between one branch and the next, it is impossible for a 2-wide diamond vein to hide from you at that height, so digging branches with 2 blocks between is making the comb excessively fine - 25% more digging for very nearly the same yield.
If you didn't care about being 'thorough' and don't mind walking, then yes an infinite tunnel 2 high at y=11 would be best. That is even more boring though.
You should have a diamond pickaxe with Unbreaking and Efficiency for most of the digging, and a Fortune pickaxe for the diamonds themselves.
With the above branch technique, with tunnels 3 high, you should find about one diamond vein for each 200-block-long branch tunnel. This works out well for me because my pack is full of cobble and ores by that time anyhow.
You would get an increase in efficiency (less running) if you turned around after 100 blocks and tunneled the return branch back to your main tunnel at that time.
Branch mining works fine - make a long tunnel at y=11 and then dig branches out to left and right every 4th block in the tunnel.
If you didn't care about being 'thorough' and don't mind walking, then yes an infinite tunnel 2 high at y=11 would be best. That is even more boring though.
With the above branch technique, with tunnels 3 high, you should find about one diamond vein for each 200-block-long branch tunnel. This works out well for me because my pack is full of cobble and ores by that time anyhow.
being thorough literally means digging more cobble per diamond ore. making 3 high tunnels is a pain. a 2 high tunnel that digs out the same number of blocks as a 3 high tunnel takes less time to make. one diamond vein per 200 blocks isnt that great. for some perspective i dig 500 long tunnels per mining trip and get over a stack of diamonds because of the caves i explore along the way. if you dig tunnels only 5 blocks away from each other you will find the same caves on every trip greatly reducing your output. after taking the fortune three into account im still 4 or 5 times more efficient than you because i find 8-10 veins per trip instead of 2.5 (i extrapolated your output out to 500 blocks). sometimes i even get up to two stacks of diamonds so if you are looking for a fast way to get diamonds, strip mining is not the way to go. also, take an enderchest, you can dig farther than 200 blocks if you do that.
being thorough literally means digging more cobble per diamond ore. making 3 high tunnels is a pain. a 2 high tunnel that digs out the same number of blocks as a 3 high tunnel takes less time to make. one diamond vein per 200 blocks isnt that great. for some perspective i dig 500 long tunnels per mining trip and get over a stack of diamonds because of the caves i explore along the way. if you dig tunnels only 5 blocks away from each other you will find the same caves on every trip greatly reducing your output. after taking the fortune three into account im still 4 or 5 times more efficient than you because i find 8-10 veins per trip instead of 2.5 (i extrapolated your output out to 500 blocks). sometimes i even get up to two stacks of diamonds so if you are looking for a fast way to get diamonds, strip mining is not the way to go. also, take an enderchest, you can dig farther than 200 blocks if you do that.
Good thought on the ender chest, needs a silk-touch pick to make it work tho right?
Sure, if you like to hop around in caves then more power to you. it's not diamonds per trip though, it's diamonds per time. I got really used to branch mining when I was trying to finish with a hardcore character. There's a lot more mortality in caves, I noticed. So you spend a lot of time in caves doing 'other things' like trying not to die. Caves don't really have a lot of diamonds - I wish caves intersected more with the diamond layers - the floor of most caves/ravines is above y=15. Maybe this changed in the 1.7.2 ... anyhow, if just randomly caving seems like you find tons of iron/redstone/gold but diamonds are still rare.
I just dig a 3-high tunnel because I like it. I agree a 2-high tunnel is more efficient (more diamond blocks exposed per pick strike.)
I agree it's kind of nutty to try to be 'thorough' in most cases. I just like it. Really for max diamonds from branch mining, your branches should be 16 apart so you aren't sometimes making a tunnel through the same chunk where you already found diamonds (since there is one vein per chunk.)
If you really like being thorough, try the exhaustive approach:
Make tunnels along chunk borders (x,z both divisible by 16.) Explore each chunk with little branches until you find the vein of diamonds in that chunk, then stop exploring that chunk. In theory, this gives you the best diamonds per cobble (if mining and not caving for diamonds), but of course there's some thinking/effort involved in tracking chunks and chunk boundaries. For the mildly OCD, it's kind of nice being practically guaranteed one vein per chunk, but sometimes the vein is a crappy tiny vein next to bedrock. Anyhow, this approach works pretty well too - you do get diamonds at a pretty good rate. Of course busting out the calculator to divide by 16 is a drag - if only F3 displayed X and Z in hex!
Wiki shows Y levels 12 and 5 as being the hottest spots for diamonds. I prefer 12, because even though it has slightly lesser chance than 5, it often lets you find catacombs at that level with visibly exposed diamond sometimes, whereas there are no such catacombs at 5, and a lot more small lava pits. Also, there seems to be more gold to be found at 12 than 5 and might as well pocket some gold while you're diamond hunting.
Also, as the chart shows, level 13 drops off significantly, while level 11 is almost as good as 12. Therefore, I'd make sure you're actually standing at y:11, with eyes at 12. This way you cover both 11 and 12.
Using your F3 screen helps too, as it shows when you cross into another chunk's borders. Wiki says there's an average of 3 diamonds per chunk sized area. I call this about an average of 1 vein per chunk.
I strip mine, at y:11, starting at the 7th row in the chunk, mining where all the shaded blocks are shown below. The yellow indicates the only torches needed to light the entire operation for the chunk.
This shows you what every block is, in the chunk at Y levels 11 and 12. Using this method I usually only have to search through 3 or 4 chunks at the most before finding diamonds again. Once you find a vein, odds are there are no others in that chunk, so move to the next one.
Once, during a sick day, I did nothing but strip mine like this and reached a stack of diamonds in less than like 4 hours. Of course never mine diamonds without Fortune 3. You too can easily manage getting a stack of diamonds in less than a day of playing. I'd also recommend using diamond picks for the mining to speed things up.
so thats why i have been having trouble findin diamonds. i was mining at layer 16. wow all this time. oh well, time to go mining! thanks for postin this
Good thought on the ender chest, needs a silk-touch pick to make it work tho right?
Sure, if you like to hop around in caves then more power to you. it's not diamonds per trip though, it's diamonds per time. I got really used to branch mining when I was trying to finish with a hardcore character. There's a lot more mortality in caves, I noticed. So you spend a lot of time in caves doing 'other things' like trying not to die. Caves don't really have a lot of diamonds - I wish caves intersected more with the diamond layers - the floor of most caves/ravines is above y=15. Maybe this changed in the 1.7.2 ... anyhow, if just randomly caving seems like you find tons of iron/redstone/gold but diamonds are still rare.
I just dig a 3-high tunnel because I like it. I agree a 2-high tunnel is more efficient (more diamond blocks exposed per pick strike.)
I agree it's kind of nutty to try to be 'thorough' in most cases. I just like it. Really for max diamonds from branch mining, your branches should be 16 apart so you aren't sometimes making a tunnel through the same chunk where you already found diamonds (since there is one vein per chunk.)
If you really like being thorough, try the exhaustive approach:
Make tunnels along chunk borders (x,z both divisible by 16.) Explore each chunk with little branches until you find the vein of diamonds in that chunk, then stop exploring that chunk. In theory, this gives you the best diamonds per cobble (if mining and not caving for diamonds), but of course there's some thinking/effort involved in tracking chunks and chunk boundaries. For the mildly OCD, it's kind of nice being practically guaranteed one vein per chunk, but sometimes the vein is a crappy tiny vein next to bedrock. Anyhow, this approach works pretty well too - you do get diamonds at a pretty good rate. Of course busting out the calculator to divide by 16 is a drag - if only F3 displayed X and Z in hex!
yeah, theres a lot of other factors. i spend about an hour per trip though 10 minutes is walking to and from the mine. so if you can get over a stack per hour branch mining go for it. you would need to dig a lot more though and i think that is the biggest eater of time rather than the distance walked in caves even if you use efficiency 5 diamond picks.
Also, as the chart shows, level 13 drops off significantly, while level 11 is almost as good as 12. Therefore, I'd make sure you're actually standing at y:11, with eyes at 12. This way you cover both 11 and 12.
Using your F3 screen helps too, as it shows when you cross into another chunk's borders. Wiki says there's an average of 3 diamonds per chunk sized area. I call this about an average of 1 vein per chunk.
I strip mine, at y:11, starting at the 7th row in the chunk, mining where all the shaded blocks are shown below. The yellow indicates the only torches needed to light the entire operation for the chunk.
This shows you what every block is, in the chunk at Y levels 11 and 12. Using this method I usually only have to search through 3 or 4 chunks at the most before finding diamonds again. Once you find a vein, odds are there are no others in that chunk, so move to the next one.
Once, during a sick day, I did nothing but strip mine like this and reached a stack of diamonds in less than like 4 hours. Of course never mine diamonds without Fortune 3. You too can easily manage getting a stack of diamonds in less than a day of playing. I'd also recommend using diamond picks for the mining to speed things up.
Dig into said solid wall using this pattern, making your passageways two blocks high. As you can see, it spans an entire chunk, so you can therefore use it to clear each chunk systematically. If you don't find diamonds within that chunk on level 12, then simply go two blocks up (or down, but you'll have to dodge lava) and use the same pattern. Do that on every floor between 5 and 16 for the same chunk, until you find diamond. You will most likely find a lot of other materials using this method, as well.
Don't mine like this for too long, however. It is the most efficient mining technique in the game that I know of, but it is also highly repetitive, and you will get extremely bored, very quickly. Alternate mining with farming, exploring, or fighting mobs.
My thread: Life as a Nomadic Trapper: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1664475-my-life-as-a-nomadic-trapper
The darkness listens...
See ya later, guys. Don't reply to this.
i wrote something about it here. the numbers are a little different with a generic strip mine, but it is the same idea.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/285834-phoenix-mining-x-mineexpandable-v02/page__st__220
the post is in the middle of the page. you can see what people wrote back. they also had valid points.
YEAH! The Ellian Detector mod or Material Detector (i think) is a mod that shows you all the blocks around you. I found more than 64 diamonds in 1 day!!! Really recommended mod.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/193443-v172-ellians-materialdetector-v30/
That's true, but a beacon's range is so limited that your branch mine will have to be tiny. At that rate, if you're going to stay within range of the beacon, it's probably more efficient to just dig out the entire area anyway (rather than spending time navigating through tunnels.
v
Why y=11 instead of y=10?
- because lava pools are at y=11 and it's easier to pour water over lava than have lava coming at you.
Why a branch every 4th block instead of every 3rd block as Club727 has it?
- Because with 3 blocks between one branch and the next, it is impossible for a 2-wide diamond vein to hide from you at that height, so digging branches with 2 blocks between is making the comb excessively fine - 25% more digging for very nearly the same yield.
If you didn't care about being 'thorough' and don't mind walking, then yes an infinite tunnel 2 high at y=11 would be best. That is even more boring though.
You should have a diamond pickaxe with Unbreaking and Efficiency for most of the digging, and a Fortune pickaxe for the diamonds themselves.
With the above branch technique, with tunnels 3 high, you should find about one diamond vein for each 200-block-long branch tunnel. This works out well for me because my pack is full of cobble and ores by that time anyhow.
You would get an increase in efficiency (less running) if you turned around after 100 blocks and tunneled the return branch back to your main tunnel at that time.
being thorough literally means digging more cobble per diamond ore. making 3 high tunnels is a pain. a 2 high tunnel that digs out the same number of blocks as a 3 high tunnel takes less time to make. one diamond vein per 200 blocks isnt that great. for some perspective i dig 500 long tunnels per mining trip and get over a stack of diamonds because of the caves i explore along the way. if you dig tunnels only 5 blocks away from each other you will find the same caves on every trip greatly reducing your output. after taking the fortune three into account im still 4 or 5 times more efficient than you because i find 8-10 veins per trip instead of 2.5 (i extrapolated your output out to 500 blocks). sometimes i even get up to two stacks of diamonds so if you are looking for a fast way to get diamonds, strip mining is not the way to go. also, take an enderchest, you can dig farther than 200 blocks if you do that.
Good thought on the ender chest, needs a silk-touch pick to make it work tho right?
Sure, if you like to hop around in caves then more power to you. it's not diamonds per trip though, it's diamonds per time. I got really used to branch mining when I was trying to finish with a hardcore character. There's a lot more mortality in caves, I noticed. So you spend a lot of time in caves doing 'other things' like trying not to die. Caves don't really have a lot of diamonds - I wish caves intersected more with the diamond layers - the floor of most caves/ravines is above y=15. Maybe this changed in the 1.7.2 ... anyhow, if just randomly caving seems like you find tons of iron/redstone/gold but diamonds are still rare.
I just dig a 3-high tunnel because I like it. I agree a 2-high tunnel is more efficient (more diamond blocks exposed per pick strike.)
I agree it's kind of nutty to try to be 'thorough' in most cases. I just like it. Really for max diamonds from branch mining, your branches should be 16 apart so you aren't sometimes making a tunnel through the same chunk where you already found diamonds (since there is one vein per chunk.)
If you really like being thorough, try the exhaustive approach:
Make tunnels along chunk borders (x,z both divisible by 16.) Explore each chunk with little branches until you find the vein of diamonds in that chunk, then stop exploring that chunk. In theory, this gives you the best diamonds per cobble (if mining and not caving for diamonds), but of course there's some thinking/effort involved in tracking chunks and chunk boundaries. For the mildly OCD, it's kind of nice being practically guaranteed one vein per chunk, but sometimes the vein is a crappy tiny vein next to bedrock. Anyhow, this approach works pretty well too - you do get diamonds at a pretty good rate. Of course busting out the calculator to divide by 16 is a drag - if only F3 displayed X and Z in hex!
so thats why i have been having trouble findin diamonds. i was mining at layer 16. wow all this time. oh well, time to go mining! thanks for postin this
yeah, theres a lot of other factors. i spend about an hour per trip though 10 minutes is walking to and from the mine. so if you can get over a stack per hour branch mining go for it. you would need to dig a lot more though and i think that is the biggest eater of time rather than the distance walked in caves even if you use efficiency 5 diamond picks.