Tutorials/Mining

Staircase mining is a common mining technique for quickly reaching lower levels of the map while continuing to gather Stone. It essentially consists of mining downwards in such a way that the player can always climb back up to the mine entrance.

Since the player can only jump up one block at a time, the path can never drop down more than one block.

Method
The most basic strategy is to mine in a straight line at a 45° angle downwards, moving one block across for every block down. To climb back up these stairs afterwards, you only need to hold down the jump key while moving forward. Spiral staircases are slightly more complicated since they have frequent turns, but have the advantage of leading straight down.

Minecarts and Stairs can be added to make traveling easier, but are not necessary.