Mineshaft



Abandoned Mine Shafts are a type of structure added in Beta 1.8, along with Strongholds and NPC Villages.

Structure
The Abandoned Mine Shaft consists of: The starting point, a large room with a flat dirt floor, an arc ceiling and up to four exits (one in each direction); 3×3 block corridors featuring supports made from Fences and Wooden Planks (sometimes complementary with torches), crossings (wooden pillars), stairs, chests (containing resources such as Gold and Iron ingots, ores, food, seeds, diamonds or pickaxes), Cave Spider spawners surrounded by cobwebs. More miscellaneous cobwebs and broken minecart tracks are found throughout the mineshafts. The generator continues to add pieces on to an exit until it reaches a "depth" of 8 (eight pieces from an exit), meaning a maximum of twenty-four (24) pieces.

Abandoned Mine Shafts are generated before chunk features such as ores. Corridors carve out blocks rather than placing a border around, often resulting in floating features, such as inside a ravine. Jeb stated at MineCon that he will fix this. As of pre-release 12w05a, floating corridors will spawn on top of bridges made of wooden planks.

Since they generate large amounts of wood and cobwebs, as well as produce more abundant ores relative to normal caves, it is easy to craft essentials such as torches, beds (from string to wool) and powerful tools.


 * Obtainable items:
 * Diamond
 * Coal
 * Lapis Lazuli
 * Redstone Dust
 * Iron Ingot
 * Gold Ingot
 * Melon Seeds
 * Pumpkin Seeds
 * Wheat
 * Bread
 * Rails
 * Iron Pickaxe
 * Golden Apple
 * Wood planks
 * Fences
 * String
 * Cocoa Beans
 * Saddle

Exploration
Mine Shafts can be easily found in ravines or large caves, where it is likely that a mineshaft will intersect them. In Ocean biomes it is possible to find the upper part of the shaft complex exposed to water at some of the sections.

Abandoned Mine Shafts may be large and be akin to mazes, making it difficult to keep bearings. The venomous Cave Spiders are common and make exploration dangerous unless prepared. However, due to automatically placed torches, the presence of other mobs is much lower, making areas aside from the Spider spawners safer than caves. Gravel sometimes collapses into shafts, making them appear to be dead ends. Dig a few blocks past gravel walls to check if the shaft continues or not.

Using the large amount of resources found in Abandoned Mine Shafts, the player may cut down cobwebs, take out wood from the supports, and create a safe room with a bed within the shafts to work out of. This makes exploration easier, although becoming lost means losing resources within the room and possibly death from the Cave Spiders or other hazards within the elaborate structure. One should put caution before anything else when exploring these locations. If the need of food arises, melon seeds and wheat are found in loot chests and water can be found in caves around the mine. It is also likely to find bread in the chests as well.

This can also be a good source of rails, for anyone who wishes to make Minecart Tracks, it can help people who ran out of pickaxes, by crafting a Crafting Table, Sticks, and using the resources found during the mine expedition and Spider Spawners are a good place to make Mob Grinders. Mine Shafts, although dangerous due to the presence of Lava Lakes and mobs, also contain a lot of ore, diamonds and treasure.

How to explore
Abandoned mine shafts can be extremely difficult to explore, especially since some can be cut in half through ravines. The easiest ways to get the most out of an abandoned mine shaft without a ravine going through it is the following. Skip to the next part if you have found an abandoned mine shaft with a ravine cutting through it. The first thing one should do when finding an abandoned mineshaft is to make sure you don't have too many valubles in your inventory. That way if one dies, they won't lose all their items. Then walk through the mine shaft, but make sure everywhere you go, the hall is lighted well. If you do not do this, you may miss some minerals like iron ore, or coal, which may be embedded in the wall. There may also be passages into other parts of the mine shaft, which may not be visible in the darkness. Always keep two swords and two pickaxes with you, so that you don't run out of an important tool. For a mine shaft in a ravine, make sure you have a many stacks of a block that is not affected by gravity, preferably cobblestone, which can be found all over the place in any place underground. Often the wooden components of the mine shaft, like fences and wooden planks will be floating in midair, and often chests can be found in this fashion, so make sure to keep your eyes peeled for anything that one might possibly find in an abandoned mine shaft, because it could be floating or located in some crazy inaccesable location. One note is to remember that if you walk back far enough on a block without falling off, you can place a block beneath your feet without anything else around it: this is an extremely usefull tool when trying to navigate across the mine shaft. One important thing about ravines is that there are generally waterfalls that come down from the sides of the ravine. These provide water to the bottom of the ravine. If the mine shaft is at the bottom and you are at the top, don't be afraid to jump fromt the top into the water, as if you do it causes no damage unless the water is very sparse. The water falls can also be swam up to get to otherwise unnaccesable regions of the mineshaft, but be careful when actually exploring the mine shaft, as since it is in a ravine, there may be lava that penetrates into the mineshaft.

Bugs

 * Due to a world generation glitch, parts of an Abandoned Mineshaft may be floating in the air. This is most noticeable when an Abandoned Mine Shaft intersects an underground ravine, whereas the wooden supports for shafts can be found floating. Chests, spawners and mine cart tracks are also included in this. This bug has been fixed as of snapshot 12w05b.
 * If an Abandoned Mine Shaft intersects a Dungeon, it may destroy the dungeon's chests, causing the contents to fall to the ground.
 * When the Mineshafts are being generated, there is likely to be a spot where two shafts are generated on top of each other creating a very annoying obstacle if you are attempting to traverse the top shaft.
 * Sometimes some of the randomly placed torches will not give off light, but still give off flame particles.

Trivia

 * In the 1.8 Pre-Release 1 and 2, support beams in mines were only made of planks. Fences were added later in the 1.8 version.
 * Entrances to mine shafts can also appear underwater, causing the mineshaft to flood.
 * Sometimes lava will be found near an Abandoned Mine Shaft, which can make the Shaft's fence blocks and wood planks burn and disintegrate.
 * Torches can't be found in chests but are placed randomly around the shaft
 * Sometimes torches may not be attached to blocks but still give off light.