Tutorials/The third day

Survivin' and thrivin'!

General
This guide focuses on Survival Mode, on the standard NORMAL difficulty setting. Be warned.

On the first day, you built your shelter and gathered your basic resources. It was close. On the second day, you ventured out from your sanctuary, braved the lurking Creepers, and gathered more resources, improved your shelter.

Today's the third day.

What will you do?

The Third Day
Now you've got a safe shelter. You've got resources, but you're not sure how long they'd last. You're not sure if your shelter is safe enough. Now it's time to build them higher and/or improve your house (Ex. Getting a sunroof). Or if your adventurous, you can go find caves/dungeons to fight monsters and/or finding ores to build more durable materials. If you don't like to go into the depth, you can just explore in the overworld.

Note: Since Minecraft is a very open and often personal game, you should decide what to do yourself. A whole bunch of gameplay methods exist at this point of your adventure, try doing different things and look for your favorite activity.

Gathering Resources- Supplying Your Tools And Safety
Resources aren't just the blocks that make up the very world you reside in (I'm talking about Minecraft, not Planet Earth, of course). Resources are the blocks that helped you survive your first night, protected you from the hordes. Resources are the blocks that helped you survive, thrive, mine, and craft. Resources are everything. They're not only supplies for your tools, but also your safety. So it's important to make sure that you NEVER run out of resources- either get used to farming day and night, or try to find rarer, non-renewable resources. Sure, you can walk out and the very first thing you step on is a non-renewable resource- soil. But we're talking about the more serious stuff- dungeon loot, rare metals (iron, gold etc.).

So it's best to prepare.

Preparation Before Exploring
Before you even think about exploring, you should craft the following items:


 * A bed, these are useful as you can very quickly dig a hole in a hillside, and block it off for a shelter.
 * Weapons (You never know when you're going to encounter monsters)
 * (Stone/Iron)* Pickaxe
 * (Stone/Iron)* Shovel
 * Food. One of the most efficient types of food is porkchops, collected from pigs. These heal 1 and a half hearts. Light pigs on fire to collect cooked porkchops, which heal 4 hearts.
 * Place any unnecessary items in a chest. (Just in case you die)
 * Optional: Clock (If you're in a cave and you want to see what time it is) Constructed from gold and redstone.

Searching for Landmarks
To avoid wasting valuable daylight time, Search for certain landmarks, blocks, and formations. Things to look for include:


 * Congregations of mobs/mob drops: This means that, at the least, there is a cave entrance, at most a Dungeon, nearby. If the drops are Wool than there are likely Wolves nearby, great rewards in their own right.


 * Moss Stone, Cobblestone, or Chests: These three (assuming they weren't placed by you) are all positive indicators of a Dungeon. Beware, however, as there is always a Monster Spawner guarding the loot. Cobblestone can also indicate the presence of Lava, but Lava is a reward as well.


 * Mountains: Mountains may contain caves, which in turn likely hold resources. It is even possible, though unlikely, that the mountain may contain a path to a cave network. Again beware, as darkness allows hostile mobs to spawn.


 * Fire: Fire is an indicator of either a burning mob (see above) or something flammable. The only 2 naturally occurring sources of fire are lightning or Lava. If it isn't storming and you happen to have a bucket, by all means check it out. A conspicuous lack of trees in an otherwise heavily forested area (clearings in a rainforest, for example) can indicate the same thing.


 * Beaches: Beaches are a source of water, sand (obviously), Clay, and the occasional Cactus. If you have any need of these (though cacti are better found in deserts) a beach is a good place to look.


 * Square, even, dry basins on the ground. No, that's not the work of Herobrine, that's the work of a Dungeon, which never spawns with a roof.

Add more, if you would like to!

Midas' Touch
When you have found a suitable area for finding resources, mine! Dig down and you might find valuable resources, like gold and redstone, or the precious diamond. With these materials, craft new tools, prepare yourself, and mine some more!

Expansions to Your Shelter- A Shelter Within Your Shelter
On your first night, you either built a shelter, and cowered in there, waiting for first light, or you went berzerk, trying to fight Creepers with your bare hands. Well, I'm assuming that you built a shelter. Speaking of Creepers, what if one managed, through the lines of code that make blocks solid, through your defenses, through your wall, through your epic human intelligence that built this shelter...what if a Creeper managed to get in your base and blow everything up?

It's best to expand.

Your Shelter Is Safe...For Now
With recent updates, wood houses are at the mercy of lightning from thunderstorms, and shelters are no longer safe with very rare Ghasts spawning above ground.

"Oh no," you whine. "What about my beautiful wood shelter?"

Well, either you a)Ditch the 'beautiful' thing, or b)Expand. Either way, you're still at risk via exploding Creepers, annoying glitches, and the mysterious Herobrine (removed in Beta 1.6.6).

That's life in Minecraft.

Expanding For Dummies
The first thing you'll want to check out is the time of day. It should be preferably morning. That's right, you're in for a day of renovation. Hurray! This is because unless your base is underground, hostile mobs may spawn and attack you. Expanding requires you to expose yourself to the outside.

After that, think about your extension. Would it be made of dirt or stone? Mine a few stacks of the material you're going to build your extension of.