Tutorials/Exploring caves

Caverns or caves are naturally formed cavities in the stone layer of a map. Most caverns have tunnels branching off as catacombs and winding in all sorts of directions. They are often very deep and can go from the surface all the way to bedrock. Caverns are not ravines but will often lead into them. Because of the lack of any illumination, they will often have enemy mobs like skeletons, zombies, spiders and etc.

One should never go into a cavern without a good supply of any lighting and weapons. Leave all your valuables back in a safe place on the surface. But if these valuables are from the cavern itself, make sure to have a chest to put them in.

Caverns are huge and can have numerous intersecting tunnels, making them easy to get lost in. Getting lost in a cavern can be very dangerous, since getting lost in a cavern for too long may easily drain your food supply and weapon and armor durability, leaving you hungry and vulnerable to attacks, that can cause your death.

Recommendations
These are some of the recommended items you should bring with you into caverns.


 * Weapons - Because of a cavern's low light level, mobs such as zombies, spiders, skeletons, and possibly other aggressive mobs will spawn on the dark areas of the cave, making exploration dangerous. It is recommended the player brings weapons such as swords, or bows and arrows to fight off said mobs.


 * Armor - As said before, lots of mobs spawn in caverns because of the low light level. Armor may be needed when exploring caverns, so as to give the player better protection against mobs. Armors can also be enchanted to have Fire Protection (for lava and burning), Projectile Protection (for skeleton's arrows), Feather Falling (for falling from a too high place), and etc.


 * Tools - Because of caverns being found at stone level, lots of ores such as iron, coal, gold, redstone, lapis lazuli, or on rare occasions, diamonds or emeralds, so it is recommended you bring pickaxes along with you to mine ores. Shears are also recommended, it is if you run into cobwebs.


 * Lighting - Caverns can be and will be very dark. Be sure to bring along any source of illumination, such as glowstone, torches, or jack o'lanterns, not only for aiding in exploration, but also to reduce the amount of mobs spawning.


 * Food - Cavern exploration may take quite a long time, draining your hunger. Also with mobs spawning, and the fact that you can get lost may further help drain your hunger. Bring high-saturated food such as cooked porkchop and cooked salmon. Cakes may bring up much hunger points, but will drain more easily.
 * Optionally, any golden food, for instance, a golden apple, can give you status effects that can aid your survival, like regeneration and absorption.
 * Optionally, a fishing rod, for fishing. Water can be found in caves, so it may not be much of a bother. However, it may take quite a while to catch a fish, and may take a while to catch a fish that is edible.
 * Optionally, a bucket of milk can help remove any status effects inflicted on you, especially by cave spiders.
 * If the player runs out of food, and gets lost, they can kill zombies, and use rotten flesh as an alternative. Although it can give the player food poisoning, it will still keep up the player's hunger bar.


 * Wood - In the case of emergencies, for instance, running out of torches, chests, or simply any other optional blocks that may aid your exploration, bringing in stacks of wood can help aid your survival.
 * The most usual occurrence of needing to use wood is to craft more torches, in the case of having a low supply of them later on. It is advised to not turn all of your wood into wooden planks, and then all of those into sticks, because it may take up much of your inventory space. Only craft a few wood into planks, and a few of those into sticks. Then, along with coal, you can craft it into torches.


 * Others - other items and blocks can help you aid survival, and reach any exploration goals.
 * Water Bucket - This is useful for turning lava into obsidian, allowing it to be safely walked on, or mined (there can still be lava below it though. Keep the water flowing). This also useful for putting yourself out of fire.
 * Blocks - A few stacks of cheap blocks, for instance, dirt or cobblestone, can help reach certain places of the caves.