Caves or caverns are naturally-formed cavities in the Overworld and less prominently, the Nether. Most caves 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. Caves are not ravines but will often lead into them. Because they mostly lack illumination, they will often have groups of hostile 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 valuables back in a safe place on the surface. However, if these valuables are from the cavern itself, make sure to have a chest to put them in.
Caves 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 hunger, saturation, weapon and armor durability, leaving you hungry and vulnerable to attacks, both of which could cause your death.
Finding caverns
There are many ways to find caves.
- Exploring surface
- By exploring the surface of the map, there is a good chance that an exposed cave will be found. Surface aquifers may indicate the location of a potentially-expansive cave system, and azalea trees will guarantee a lush cave below.
- Digging
- Digging around might uncover caves, but it is not easy as the map is (very) large. Choosing a random location and digging a tunnel straight down will intersect a cave system roughly 40% the time, but is not recommended since mining straight down may cause the player to fall in lava, a deep underground cave, or a cave system full of mobs. A diagonal tunnel (downward staircase) takes 3 times as long to dig, but is much safer and can be traversed both ways. Make sure to look out for dripping water or lava above you as it may hint at an aquifer or a lava lake.
- Listening
- By following the source of ambience, or the sound of mobs coming from underground, there is a great chance to find a cave. It's also useful to follow sound of water and lava.
- Piston
- Dig down, place a piston and power it. Since pistons don't extend if there are 13+ blocks ahead of them, you can use pistons to find caves.
- The Nether
- Traveling to the Nether, going down roughly 20 to 30 blocks, along by at least 16 blocks, and creating a new portal will likely cause the new Overworld portal to spawn in a cave since a portal is spawned in the nearest suitable space for the portal.
- Cartograph
- Use 3rd party software (such as cartograph) to make maps of caves. This can easily lead the player to dungeons or caves.
Recommended materials
These are some of the recommended items the player should bring with themselves into caves.
- Weapons - Because of a cave's low light level, mobs such as zombies, spiders, skeletons, creepers, and possibly other aggressive mobs will spawn on the dark areas of the cave, making exploration dangerous. It is recommended the player bring weapons such as swords, axes, or bows to fight off said mobs.
- Armor - As said before, lots of mobs spawn in caverns because of the low light level. Iron or higher tier armor may be needed when exploring caves, so as to give the player better protection against mobs. Exploring without armor is very dangerous, as mobs can kill an unarmored player in just a few hits. Armor can also be enchanted to have Fire Protection (for lava and burning), Projectile Protection (for skeleton's arrows), Feather Falling (for falling damage), etc.
- Tools - Caves house a lot of ores and other types of rock. Due to this, it's always recommended to bring a pickaxe in order to get started with anything. A shovel is also helpful for digging gravel and dirt more quickly. Axes, along with their combat utility, are also useful for quickly tearing down mineshafts for fuel. Hoes and shears may also be useful for harvesting plants such as moss blocks and glow lichen.
- Lighting - Caves can be and will be very dark, so be sure to bring along any source of illumination. Rather than bringing many stacks of torches, bring wood and coal to craft them as needed. Stacks of sticks and coal would take twice as much inventory space if crafted into torches.
- The deepslate layer is clean of any coal ore, so you'll have less reliable sources of light. You may have to consider working with the dimmer light levels of sources like glow lichen, redstone torches, and redstone ore. Producing charcoal is another thing to keep in mind.
- 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 filling food such as cooked porkchop and cooked salmon if possible. Cakes can restore a lot of hunger, but will not fill hunger saturation and must be placed before eating.
- 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, fishing underground can be slow (no open-sky or rain bonuses), so it may take a while to catch a fish, especially a fish that is edible.
- Optionally, a bucket of milk can help remove any status effects inflicted on you, especially cave spider poison and witches.
- If the player runs out of food, and gets lost, they can use rotten flesh from zombies as an alternative, or pick off glow berries.
- Consuming rotten flesh may result in food poisoning through the form of the hunger effect.
- Log - Bringing in a stack of log will let players craft a variety of useful blocks in the field, without having to carry large numbers of all of them: Torches are the most usual, but players can also make a crafting table and then make such blocks as chests, ladders, fences and gates. Don't craft logs into planks or sticks until you need to; large quantities of either will take up more inventory slots than the original logs.
- If you find yourself running out of logs, you can stock up by chopping off the log supports of mineshafts, or growing azalea trees.
- Others - other items and blocks can help players to aid survival and reach any exploration goals, like a bed for instance.
(Water) buckets - Empty buckets stack (while water or lava buckets don't), but the player will want to keep at least one bucket already filled with water. This is useful for turning lava into obsidian, allowing it to be safely walked on or mined. Note that there can still be lava below it though, and the water should keep flowing. This also useful for extinguishing themselves when on fire. Empty buckets can let the player move water or lava springs out of their way, or collect more water or lava for their own purposes. Water buckets can also function as a ladder, and are needed to capture mobs like the tropical fish and axolotl. Lava buckets are also useful for fighting mobs, especally for slimes.
- Blocks - A few stacks of cheap blocks, for instance, dirt or cobblestone,sand,gravel, can help reach certain places of the caves.
- Compass - Sometimes when the player get completely lost, they can just simply dig up to the surface and use a compass to guide them home. It is only helpful if their house is near the world spawn or if the player has used the compass on a lodestone near their base.
Exploring tips
Bring a compass.
It is surprisingly easy to get lost in caverns. Below are a number of methods the player can implement while exploring to prevent this, especially trail markers. The navigation tutorial has much more information about markers and other navigation methods. (Summary: Torches, wool, signs, blocks (which can be placed in "arrows", and especially jack o'lanterns.)
One fairly easy marker method is the "torch on the right" rule. While exploring a cave simply place torches on the right side of the wall as players go deeper in. This way, no matter how complicated and even intertwined the caves get, you can always find their way back because if the torch is on the left of a cave wall, that means they are heading towards the exit. Conversely, if it's on the right, it means they are heading deeper in.
Another tip is to use markings such as colored wool, or other blocks, to find where the player came from. The player can also put signs for further clarification, pointing to the direction in which they came from. Optionally, they can make an arrow shape with the blocks themselves.
Also, a player can place magenta glazed terracotta to place on the wall or floor as it has an arrow pattern on it. This can help show which way is the exit.
While it will not help the player in navigating the cave itself, it may be wise to bring a map with them into a large cave, should the player get lost and need to dig the way out. Note that most caves occupy less area horizontally than they might seem, but interconnected caves and mineshafts can sprawl over huge distances. The player might well map some new surface as the player is exploring underground, but the cave itself will not be mapped.
Caves are structures that are naturally formed in the stone layers of the map. Most of the large caves have tunnels that branch out like crypts and may wind in all directions. They are usually very deep and can be accessed from the surface to bedrock in various ways. The cave itself is not a deep valley, but it generally provides access to a deep valley. Due to the lack of light in it, hostile monsters such as [[zombies], [creepers]], [spiders]], [skeletons], etc., often spawn in the cave, and brush cages may also appear.
When exploring underground mines, be sure to bring enough [torches]] and equipment and weapons, keep valuable things in a safe place on the surface, and if these valuable things are dug from the mine, be sure to prepare a box to keep them.
The mine is large and has countless cross-winding tunnels that make it easy to get lost. Getting lost in a mine is dangerous, because getting lost for too long can easily drain your food reserves and the durability of your equipment and weapons, leaving you weak and vulnerable to defeat and death.
Cave Discovery
There are countless ways to find a mine. Below is a table to make finding a cave easier.
Take advantage of the Nether Start by entering the Nether, digging down about 20-30 blocks, and then build a new Nether portal, so that the portal corresponding to the Overworld is likely to spawn in the cave. This is due to the fact that the Nether portal spawns in enough space closest to the corresponding location of the sister portal.| method | detail |
|---|---|
| Explore the surface | It's easy to spot some exposed mine caverns by exploring the surface map. |
| excavate | Extensive excavation may uncover new caverns, but it would be foolish to do so if the map was large. Pick a random place and dig a vertical tunnel, with about half the chance of intersecting a large cave system. An inclined tunnel (down the stairs) needs to be dug up to three times, but it is much safer and easier to get back and forth than digging vertically. Make sure to keep an eye out for water droplets and lava that may drip from it, as that may suggest a lake or lava pool. |
| listen | By following the source of the sound, such as the sound of a monster coming from underground, there is a good chance that there is a cave at the foot; In addition, the sound of water, the sound of lava, is useful, and it is also possible to find diamonds, because lava and diamonds are occasionally found on the same level. |
| Pistons
Dig down, put a piston and start it. Because if there are more than 12 blocks in front of it, the piston won't open, and you can use the piston to discover the cave. | |
| Minimap | Use third-party software, such as minimaps, to find caves. This allows players to easily find dungeons or caves. |
| Fluoroscope | See Tutorial/Perspective. |
| Re-enter map caving method | This method is suitable for players whose equipment is prone to stuttering. Re-enter the game after exiting underground and saving the world, and look around while the game loads the map to see nearby underground structures or other entities. |
Recommendations
Here are suggestions for items you should bring into the cave.
- Weapons': Because Brightness in the cave is low, [[Zombies], Spiders, skeletons, [Creepers], and other hostile creatures will spawn in the dark parts of the cave, making the exploration process dangerous. Players are advised to bring weapons such as swords or bows and arrows to repel creatures that come to attack.
- Armor': As mentioned earlier, many creatures spawn because of the darkness of the cave. Armor may be required when exploring the cave to better defend the player against monster attacks. Armor can also be protected by enchanted flames (to resist lava and flames), projectile protection (to resist skeletons' bows and arrows), drop cushioning (to reduce falling damage), etc. (iron and above armor recommended).
- Tools': Since caves are formed in stone, there are large amounts of ores such as copper, iron, coal, gold, ruby and lapis lazuli, as well as slightly rarer diamonds and emeralds, some of which can only be mined using iron pickaxes or above. So it is recommended to bring an iron pickaxe with you to mine ore, and you may also need a [spade] to clear the dirt and gravel that gets in the way. Scissors is also a good option if you come across spider web (swords are also an effective tool for breaking spider webs quickly if you don't want to bring scissors).
- Lighting': The cave will be very dark, so be sure to bring some light sources such as: glowstone, torch, lantern, and jack-o'-lantern, which will not only assist you in your exploration, but also reduce the generation of monsters in the cave.
- The noise cave generated from 1.18 is larger and more common than traditional caves, and exploring one of the layers often consumes an entire set of torches; Coal, the main raw material for making torches, is not generated at depths (when the Y coordinate is negative). Therefore, players should consider preparing about 5-7 sets of torches in advance, and 1 set is the most basic.
- Food and Potion': Exploring the cave can take a long time and drain your hunger value. Getting lost may further drain your hunger points. Cooked pork chops, Steaks, and cooked fish can give you a lot of hunger points. Players can bring the following items:
- Golden Apple and some buffing potions. They increase your survival status and give you the effect of regeneration and damage absorption.
- A bucket milk. Milk buckets eliminate the effects of any state, especially cave spiders.
- If the player runs out or loses food, they can kill the zombie and use Carrion instead, although this will give the player a hunger effect, but it will still maintain the player's hunger value as long as enough is consumed.
- Night Vision Potion, which can avoid monsters while exploring the mine, or shoot them from a distance, can also quickly find some minerals.
- Logs': In case of emergency, such as torches, chests, or any other optional items to help you explore, piles of logs can help you survive.
- The most common synthesis requires the use of wood planks to craft more torches. They consume minimal material. We recommend not turning all the wood into planks and then into sticks. Because this may take up a lot of your backpack. Just bring planks. Finally, with the coal obtained from exploring the cave, you can synthesize torches.
- You can also bring a furnace with you to replenish the torch by smelting charcoal.
- 'Mark Square: It's always good to mark the path you've walked. Carry some blocks that do not belong to the cave to mark them (Nether Rock, End Stone, etc.), or you can mark them with torches, see [[[tutorial/navigation | here] for details on how to prevent getting lost in the cave.
- Other: Other blocks and items can help you survive better or get where you want.
- Bucket': This can turn lava into a useful obsidian to help you get through the lava. It can also help you avoid falling injuries when falling. Of course, this can also help you when you're on fire. It also keeps you away from monsters when you're in danger!
- Blocks': A small number of easily accessible blocks (such as dirt, [cobblestone]], etc.) can be used as a stepping stone or help you reach certain parts of the cave.
Discovery Guide
It's easy to get lost in the cave. To prevent this from happening, here are some of the things players can do while exploring, but it's especially useful to mark their own trails. The Navigation Tutorial has more information about notation and other navigation methods.
A fairly simple method of marking is the "right torch" method: when going deep into the cave, simply place a torch on the right side of the wall. This way, no matter how complex or even intertwined the cave terrain, you can find your way back. Because if the torches are located on the left cave wall, this means that they indicate the direction of exit. Vice versa.
Another trick is to use dyed wool or other markers to show where the player is entering. Players can also mark for further clarification, showing which direction the player is entering. An optional method is to pose the marker in the shape of an arrow.
While the above is not beneficial to players who are exploring caves, it is still a wise choice to bring a map into the cave in case you get lost and have to dig a way out. Take note! Horizontally, most caves actually occupy less area than they seem. However, interconnected caves and abandoned mines can extend great distances.
Survive in a cave
- Getting lost in a cave is easy, and here are some ways you can prevent this from happening while exploring, especially on road signs. More information about markup and other navigation methods is available in the Navigation tutorial.
- One thing to remember in the cave is to always look around, especially upwards. In a previously developed cave, the most common source of monsters is in the ceiling or open walls. If you're in a ravine, watch out for monsters falling from above!
- A good Mining habit is to dig fully and illuminate a cave system before starting to dig for resources. In a dark cave, it is very dangerous to stop and collect. If you are killed, you will lose your loot. Check for possible sources of monsters, such as a broken natural pit overhead. If monsters can come out of these places, you should try to change the brightness of these places, and once you are sure that it is safe, you can start collecting the resources of this mining area.
- As part of the exploration, clear an area of possible hazards, collect leftover minerals, fill in small potholes to make the road smoother and safer. In the abandoned mine, you can clear most of the fences and planks to make it easier to explore. This will require a lot of axes, but it will allow you to see more things, and it will also make it easier for you to move around the pit and reduce the number of unpleasant things. (Because it can cover more coolies for fear of not being discovered by you!) )
- When exploring an unlit cave area, pass and place torches as quickly as possible. Because the spawn mechanics of monsters dictate that they cannot spawn around you. But beware of the undercurrents and pits beneath your feet!
- If there are some caves and minerals above, you can use stepping stones and ladders to reach the top. You can also build bridges to cross ravines and pits.
- Water flowing down from above is troublesome and may bring more monsters.
- It's a good idea to go upstream and illuminate the path where the water flows.
- Most of the water flow can be captured at the source with an iron drum. If not, you can also block them with any block. But in any case, watch out for monsters that have been blocked by the current before. Some flowing water may be useful, and you can use the current to swim up or down, across high cliffs. One thing to note is that you can swim along the outside of the current, which can keep you breathing.
- Some water comes from gaps in the ocean and caves, you can make some marks (such as doors, ladders, etc.) in this way to quickly reach the surface if you have lost your way. If you work a little harder, you can also completely close the opening, leaving ladders and markers for your own use (remember your marks).
In addition, you can make a pillar similar to sugar cane so that you can move quickly underground and on the surface of the sea, which also allows you to easily enter and exit the cave.
- Lava flows or lava pools can block your progress. Like water, lava flows can flow quickly. You can fill them with blocks, and for lava flows, you can block the lava flow with non-combustible blocks if it goes down and floods a large area that is difficult to trace up, and dumping buckets can turn large lava lakes into obsidian. Also, know where the monsters are blocked by lava and re-illuminate where the lava was poured.
- During battle, watch out for monsters pushing you into lava or accidentally walking into lava yourself, which will make you lose everything on your body.
- There will be large water lakes and lava lakes at the bottom of the canyon, beware of monsters or careless manipulation that can lead to prison.
- When you're done exploring a cave, you can leave the cave along your own path. It's also possible to dig vertically upwards, but this is undoubtedly very dangerous, watch out for gravity blocks falling down and suffocating you.
- When you leave the cave by stairs, you can tell the approximate location by using the map. Getting to the bottom of the sea is tricky, and your torches will be washed away. Of course, you can also use the remaining torches you have in hand to protect yourself from drowning (place the torches next to them to restore the underwater breathing effect given by the turtle shells).
- Beware of creepers, afraid of sneaking up on your back when you mine or put things in boxes! I believe that many players have the experience of being attacked by coolies in caves, and each time they are either dead or disabled. Therefore, everything you do in the cave must be prepared for the sneak attack of the coolies, and you should always carry a shield.
- If you hear a creeper hissing, turn around immediately and hold down the right button to defend with your shield, and do nothing at this time! (If you don't have a shield, don't say a word, Run! )