Tutorials/Mining

In Minecraft, there are many ways a player can mine. This article explains several techniques that may be of use.

Cherrypicking
As no mining is required of anything except valuable ores, cherrypicking is the fastest and simplest of all methods. Pickaxes wear out least quickly, and thus is has the highest resource ROI (Return On Investment). However it is also the most dangerous since you can easily end up lost, and it exposes you to significantly more mobs than more systematic approaches. A sword (or bow) and provisions are virtually a necessity. Once the easily visible resources are depleted in a specific cave system, another cave must be found, or another method must be used to extract further ores.

The first step in cherrypicking is to find a cave system. This can be done from the surface, or you may run into a cave when using another method.

As every second in which the cave is dark, is a second that mobs can spawn, lighting the cave quickly is of benefit. However, proceeding too quickly can result in your becoming lost or falling (possibly into lava) and so it is important to also tread carefully. Simple rules like following the left wall can help in many cases, though remember that caves extend in all three dimensions and may have entrances at different heights.

One tactic which removes some risk of becoming lost but takes a bit more time is to always place torches at every entrance you come to. That way, if you want to exit, you just follow the exits with torches. You can also place cobblestone on the ground in pathways around the cave, with torches at every intersection leading the way you came for a fully systematic cave exploration approach. If you track on paper your paths, you can ensure every branch ends up mined. This may or may not defeat all the speed benefits of the cherrypicking method, and is certainly only to be considered for larger cave systems.

Exploiting resources from a high ceiling is simple. Simply select a stack of dirt, sand, gravel, cobblestone or anything easily rebroken, and place it underneath yourself as you jump. After exploiting the resources, get down safely by digging back down vertically through your stack. If you use gravel, you have the added benefit of converting some of it into flint each time you need to mine high ceiling resources.

As every miner runs into caves from time to time, cherrypicking is an important method for dealing with those.

Safety
The #1 safety rule when mining downwards is never mine the block you are standing on if you don't know what's below it &mdash; there can be lava or a cave into which you would fall. Falling into lava will not only lead to a speedy death, but will likely cause your entire inventory to burn up. Therefore, mining 1x1 shafts is considered dangerous. It is advised to carry a water bucket and/or some blocks of material somewhere in a quick-slot. A block can be used to quickly plug the leakage in cases of water or lava inflow from a side of a shaft, and water can be poured over flowing lava to turn it into cobblestone, as well as to put out fire.

Never dig directly upwards, because you may unexpectedly trigger falling sand, gravel, or lava. Standing to one side while mining blocks from the ceiling helps you avoid falling blocks and gives you a chance to react to a sudden lava outpour. If you do want to mine directly upwards, make sure to place ladders on the inside of the shaft, rather than placing blocks below you. The ladders prevent gravel or sand from falling on you and stop potential lava flows from killing you and wiping out your entire inventory. They also provide a quicker escape if you happen upon some mobs (by hitting a cave or a dungeon).

Staircases
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.

Straight
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.

After enough cobblestone (or wood) is collected, you can craft Stairs and place them at your downright tunnel. It will make the trip a lot smoother, easier and faster without any need to jump. Although an extra block from the ceiling of the staircase will need to be removed to accommodate the stairs.

Spiral
Spiral staircases are slightly more complicated since they have frequent turns, but have the advantage of leading straight down. They also have the benefit of being more contained and give you a more targeted dig. One design is a 3x3 horizontal grid. By digging one block down at a time, and moving around the perimeter of your 3x3 area, you will have enough head room as you move down the staircase. You can optionally leave the central column for a barrier or remove it to place ladders centrally, but it isn't necessary for the functionality of the staircase. You can also add stair blocks to this setup as well.

Spiral (2x2)

 * 1) Stand on the bottom-left block of your staircase. Dig one block down, so you have to hop to exit the stairs.
 * 2) Mine the block/s in front of you and the block beneath. Drop down.
 * 3) Turn 90 degrees. Periodically place torch above head when dark.
 * 4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 until desired result achieved.

Shaft mining
Shafts are mined vertical tunnels used to gain access to underground mining sites. They can be of any widths starting from 1x1 blocks. Shafts with widths of 2x2 and up are able to be turned into water elevators for fast vertical transportation.

1x2

 * 1) Pick a place where you want your shaft
 * 2) Mine a first block adjacent to the block you are standing at
 * 3) Step down
 * 4) Mine a block you were standing at and one below it
 * 5) Place a ladder every two blocks down
 * 6) Go to 2.1
 * 7) Continue in above pattern until you reach desired depth. From then on use a horizontal mining method of your choice

Shaft with water drop
With a separate descent shaft, getting to the bottom can be extremely fast; you simply fall into a water pit. Ascent is accomplished with a ladder. This arrangement can be accomplished by first stockpiling about 64 ladders along with 2 water-filled buckets, and then excavating a 3-block wide shaft. One side of the shaft becomes the water pit, while ladders are placed in the other side. The middle is then filled in to prevent falling outside the water pit while descending.

For detailed building instructions, see Vertical Mine Shaft With Water Drop.

Safety
Horizontal mining is not as dangerous as vertical. But there are some similar suggestions. Carry a water bucket and/or some blocks of material somewhere in a quick-slot. A block can be used to quickly plug the leakage in cases of lava, and water can be poured over flowing lava to turn it into a cobblestone, as well as to put out fire.

Branch Mining
An effective technique if you want to find rare resources with minimal effort. It is basically mining down to any level, usually to bedrock, and then mining outwards to the sides, much like a tree with a trunk and branches.


 * 1) Use the staircase method to dig down to bedrock.
 * 2) Go up 2 blocks and fill any space below you mined out.
 * 3) Dig a 3x3 room.
 * 4) Dig a straight 2x1 tunnel in a straight line then dig out 20 blocks every 4th block.

This method is based on the relatively low probability of desirable blocks being created without any neighbors, so it will occasionally miss small/narrow ore deposits that fall entirely between the branches, but it covers ground faster, so you'll usually get more ore for your time. If you'd rather be sure of 100% coverage, see the Strip Mining section below. Diagram: X = Tunnel "Trunk" B = Branch S = Staircase B      B                 B       B           B       B                 B       B           B       B                 B       B           B       B                 B       B           B       B                 B       B           B       B                 B       B           B       B       XXX       B       B X X X X X X X X X X X X X XXX X X X X X X X X X X X X           B       B       XXX       B       B           B       B        S        B       B           B       B        S        B       B           B       B        S        B       B           B       B        S        B       B           B       B        S        B       B Each branch can be any length, but about 20 blocks long is a good length to begin with.

Strip Mining
Strip Mining is an efficient way to discover resources as it uncovers every block down a certain length of tunnel. It involves digging tunnels (usually 20 spaces long) either side of a two-block thick wall.


 * 1) Dig a room that is 7 blocks long, 10 blocks wide and 3 blocks high. Have your stairway/ladder in the middle of one of the 10 block walls, preferably 2 spaces wide.
 * 2) Starting in one of the corners, dig parallel to one of the walls of the room you just dug, for 20 spaces, placing a torch every 5 blocks.
 * 3) Then, dig another 20 block tunnel that has two blocks between it and the previous tunnel.
 * 4) Continue until you reach the other side of the room.

Diagram:

Key: A = Air B = Stone block S = Staircase T = Tunnel A A A A A A A A A A T T T T T                 A A A A A A A A A A B B B B B                  A A A A A A A A A A B B B B B                  A A A A A A A A A A T T T T T                  A A A A A A A A A A B B B B B                  A A A A A A A A A A B B B B B                  A A A A A A A A A A T T T T T                  T B B T S S T B B T                   T B B T S S T B B T                  T B B T S S T B B T                  T B B T S S T B B T                  T B B T S S T B B T

By utilising Strip Mining properly you can uncover all the blocks in quite a large area, and the mineral yields are quite high. Having the stairs 2 blocks wide allows for most efficient strip mining as they can be strip mined around. Also, a good length for each tunnel is 20 blocks long.

Advanced Strip Mining
Advanced strip mining is the only method which allows you to mine 100% of the resources on multiple levels while only mining 25% of the ores. The picture at the right is a side view of this simple tactic. Each black box is part of a branch of the mine, while the red represents what you can see from each branch. Lastly, each green line represents the location of a staircase downwards.

In most cases, the staircases would not be placed in the same z dimension, as that is inefficient when constructing through caves. Instead place the stairs slightly apart from one another.

To most efficiently use Advanced Strip mining, proceed down a branch until you have used up half of your picks, or your inventory is half full. Then, mine your way to another branch and head backwards.

Quarry Mining


Quarry Mining is very similar to strip mining, sharing the prospect of taking all resources within an area. The difference between Quarrying and Strip Mining is that the process of Quarrying involves a large rectangular or square strip, continually mined downwards with a staircase running along the side. This method got its name by its similarity to real world quarry sites. Quarries are typically ceased when a large cave is discovered (This does not directly stop the excavation, it just makes it difficult to continue), the miner abandons the Quarry for another project, or the "end of the world" is reached.



The Construction of a Quarry is as follows:

1: Determine the size of the project, there is no standard so simply choose how big you want it to be, however it is advised that the area is large, to maximize resources within a single quarry. (A typical quarry can be 20x20 or 20x30, for example)

2: Begin Mining until the entire area is one block deep, save for one block which will become the stairs

3: Continue mining one block deep while keeping an extra block to extend the stairway, until the mine reaches bedrock or until you wish to abandon the project.

Example:

Key: - = Air B = Stone block S = Staircase

Top of mine:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB BSB B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

Next few levels down:

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB B-B BSB B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB B-B B-B BSB B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B B-B BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

The yielded amount of cobblestone, dirt/sand, coal, iron, and to some extent gold, will be enormous, and the possibility of lava is very high (Diamonds and Lapis Lazuli can be mined using this method, but due to their rarity the placement of the mine along with its size will determine the amount). This type of mining is suggested for getting large amounts of cobblestone, iron and coal, besides the ability to gain large amounts of resources, this type of mining exposes many caves for further exploration/mining.



Besides mining, Quarries also have some non-resource related benefits, such as keeping the area clean and fresh (not ruining the nature), and a handy trap as the mine is very deep.

Water blocks placed two high at the bottom of a quarry can allow quick descent (by just jumping into the water), and water elevators can be used to quickly return to ground level from the bottom.

Warning: Be extremely careful around this mine, as a fall will surely be fatal.