Mining. It is such a ubiquitous element of Minecraft that it's easy to forget how important it is. Nearly everything in the game revolves around mining at some point, and for just about every non-Creative game, it remains an important element throughout the lifetime of a world. Terraforming is part of it, but the single greatest drive to mine is resources: sweet, sweet ores!
Ever since ores were introduced, there have been countless methods attempted to find the most ideal mining methods. Do you mine in rows, with two blocks between each shaft? Fractal tunneling? Strip mining? The list goes on and on, ranging from amazing to insane theories on the best ways of going about it. Naturally, this opens up some debate on what, exactly, becomes the best method for it.
So, how do you mine? What secrets, tricks, and tips help keep your ores flowing? Do you have a preferred method, or do you just dig wherever the mood strikes?
I typically strip/branch mine, with tunnels every 3 blocks and torches every 10 blocks in each tunnel, placed on the left. Then depending on how I am mining I will dig an intersecting tunnel at each end of each main tunnel, placing torches in those every 8 blocks. Sometimes I will run the intersecting tunnels at 20 block intervals, though most of the time I place them at each end of the mine.
I will do this at multiple levels all the way down to Y=12.62. This puts the floor level just above lava. Or I will mine at specific levels to get one type of ore found most commonly there.
Since i am playing modded Minecraft (the FTB Direwolf20 modpack for 1.6.4 is what I am currently playing), I will only branch mine to get basic resources, or to get a specific type of ore.
FTB is boring...I played it and it felt like vanilla Minecraft because there is hardly anything that makes me feel like I'm playing a mod...
Vanilla: Cave exploration
Modded: Vein miner all the way! Or a quarry
I love that this topic is so busy.
Mining efficiency is actually a small fascination of mine. Here are some tips I have:
In the early days I would try to find a cave and carry enough torches to light the place up like a Christmas tree. I'd do minimal tunneling to reach the lower levels and just mine in the caves themselves. It used to seem like caves were the best source of certain resources (iron and coal, for example). To this day I definitely get more coal from spelunking than from my current method of mining.
Nowadays, I'll usually build a spiraling staircase down to the highest level where you can find Diamond and start carving out shafts with two blocks in between them. I can come up with a lot of resources that way, especially some of the rarer ones. If it takes too long to find something good, then I just move my operation to another area. Iron and Diamond are usually what I'm looking for in those areas, though often times I'll also get a stockpile of redstone and lapis from it.
I just go into a cave and mine all the ores that I find or that I just need at the time.
Sometimes I may mine a stairway downwards trying to find a cave, or mine into a cave wall and continue straight to see if I can find any ores that way.
Even with the addition of mods, i'll always stick to manual mining. It's disgusting to see so many mods trying to one-up easier ways to auto-mine to the point that auto-miners these days don't even mine, they just make ores on the spot.
As for manual mining, I dig a staircase to the required level and spread out a 2x1 tunnel in each direction. Every 5-6m apart, I mine a single hole into the wall of the shaft looking for ores. If I find some, I mine the rest of the way out there, clear the vein and perform another 1x1 hole in each direction to check for more resources. If none are found, I return to the main shaft and repeat the process further down.
It takes less time than stripmining and yields a larger amount of ore per minute, while covering 3x more space. Your average vein will be 2-3 blocks wide, so holes drilled 5-6m apart will be almost guaranteed to hit a vein if there is one.
You know, there should be more "bottom-up" mods. What I mean is mods that add simple blocks and items which, when combined among themselves and vanilla things, can create amazing, complex machines. Like how redstone, even with just solid blocks, redstone dust, and redstone torches, you can make huge, working computers! And with just three blocks! A lot of mods add "top-down" things, those being complex things which a intentionally designed as a single whole, like quarry mods or computer mods. A mod which simiply adds a block which can place other blocks, makes dispensers use tools that are put in them, and an item-extractor which takes items from containers would allow for mining machines to be made...
RedPower2 did that. Pity it died and Eloraam was just not developer-friendly to share.
In fact, she's intentionally gone around trying to shut down any mods which even hint at RedPower functionality.
Normally I hunt for the perfect cave... but somewhere around my base I always have a fancy stripmine as I go through a lot of cobble
So I normally have a balance of the two, caving and stripping. :3
In UHC on a server I mine straight down until y11(for diamonds)and strip mining until I find a good cave.
My method is 'don't be greedy'
Sure, ores and mining is a important base of pretty much all things in minecraft. There is very little in minecraft that doesn't involve mining.
At the same time, there is very little that requires a massive amount of mining either, and there are plenty of alternatives to mining as well.
I guess I just don't find much joy in doing a very repetitive action for hours on end to gather hoards of resources most of which I'll never really use.
A single good cave gives me more than a stack of iron, nearly triple the amount of coal, and if deep enough(and many caves are deep enough) a few bars of gold, plenty of lapis, nearly the same amount of redstone as coal, and maybe a few diamonds.
This is more than enough to last me a good while as I do whatever I want.
Before I say 'I'm going to dig a giant shaft to bedrock and branch-mine for hours till I get a stack of diamonds!' I ask myself, what do I need all those resources for? Is there something I'd do rather than mine(which can be quite repetitive) for hours?
I find myself enjoying myself much more this way than I would if I spent hours digging through tons of stone for things I won't use half the time.
I prefer to mine my way through caves digging up ore pockets as I go. However, to find diamond the best way to go a strip mine at low y level. Space your tunnels about 3-5 blocks apart and have a fortune pick with you and you should find plenty in no time.
I destroy a chunk. If I don't find anything, I have a problem in my minecraft. I place ladders at one side to go back to the top.
That's one sad picture... all those pretty ores and nothing but a stone pickaxe.
Mining in Minecraft is a really great experience for a new player. I wonder what Minecraft will be like without mining.
I mine in caves for iron and coal at first then once I get iron gear I staircase mine down to bedrock and then I strip mine for miles.
I dig down to level 15 (diamond level) then do a large straight tunnel that way I get every type of ore in a short amount of time.
Dig down to Y 12 and dig a 2x2 tunnel. Then keep digging. And digging. Until all my picks break, I already have a great haul, or the tedium is too much.
Like me