I've read a lot of discussion ingame and scattered about on a couple different posts about different mining techniques. I've heard people swear by mining at y=9, as well as 10, 11, and 12. I've also heard debate about how to mine. Should the player just mine in a straight line as fast as they can, or should they take their time and check the surrounding blocks for ores? My method, which I have found works wonders for me when it comes to diamonds/redstone/lapis is as follows: (Looking down from above) O is where I mine; N is stone/dirt/gravel (Y=11) OOOOOOOOOOO NNNNNONNNNN NNNNNONNNNN NNNNNONNNNN OOOOOOOOOOO NNNNNONNNNN NNNNNONNNNN NNNNNONNNNN OOOOOOOOOOO So on and so forth. Basically, I mine in a straight line, and breaking 5 blocks deep every4th block to the right and the left. I have found SO many diamonds that were just 1 block in of another's straight line. What are some of the methods used by other people?
All depends on the mood... Sometimes I'll go cave scraping, sometimes I make 3x3 tunnels at y=7, and sometimes I just strip mine a large area at y=5 up about 10 blocks. There's a high potential of getting a nice inventory full of minerals any which way you do it. If you don't have multi-home or '/back' I feel the best method would be following caves. A few general tips: Grab all the minerals you see, coal included, they're all worth money. Always check behind dirt, especially closer to bedrock. If you see lava you have a decision to make: Go around it or go through it. Choice is up to you, but there is often good things near lava. If you're above-ground looking for a place to start mining, find an ocean. Head inland a little bit and dig diagonally downwards toward the water. Always sell your gravel, dirt, stone, etc. to the server so you have more space for the valuable items. That's all I can think of for now, hope it helps.
Most of the time I'll try to find some caves then go from there. also if i find lava ill make a straight line tunnel off from the lava. I've found a lot of redstone and diamonds that way as t=lots of things are close to lava. another good way is if u find coal at lvl 9-ish and find say iron next to it always dig around that coal seam as I've found coal then iron and then diamonds r something else valuable! hoe this helped
It just depends. If I'm looking for some quick ores I'll just /speed 8 and run along while mining a 1x2 tunnel with an eff7. That method takes tons of attention like gravel and dirt and lava and a lot of water needing to be placed. But it's very effective. If I'm bored and am leveling mining and don't really want to work I'll mine a 50x50x2 to 100x100x2 room at y:11 This levels mining, but you can go around dirt/gravel, need a lot of ereps, but lava and water is avoidable.
If you don't have the pyro+ feature I would recommend mining at y=11 to avoid mining face first into lava
Basically I run around the wild and find caves to venture into and go from there. I usually keep mining after the cave comes to an "end" and have been very successful at finding ravines, maybe like 3 undiscovered ones. I take every mineral, coal iron, etc. and sell it all. Why let someone else come in after you and take it for themselves? If i get bored from caves a will make a 30x30x3 room and make tunnels from each one, connecting them. With this method I have found countless minerals. Happy Mining!
Destroy all the blocks I say! Pretty much when I go mining and you find my trail, it looks like one of these went through the placc:
If you don't have eff7, eff5 unb3 fort3 is what you should use. With eff5, the best way to mine is a straight tunnel (2x1) at y:10, 11 or 12. You don't need to mine all those branches, you're just wasting time by walking more than you need to. Your goal is to get the most ores per hour that you can, not to satisfy some ocd need to never miss an ore. You say you might have left an ore behind that was just one block away from your tunnel? While you're searching for those ores, you are losing a lot more ores that you would have found if you had just kept digging straight ahead. The number of ores you get is directly proportional the number of NEW blocks you reveal per unit time. This means every block you break, you should be trying to reveal as many new blocks as possible. This also means that you should try to NEVER stop digging, because if your not digging, you are not revealing new blocks. The 2x1 tunnel reveals new blocks faster than any other shape. Every block you break reveals 4 new blocks that could potentially be ores. With other tunnel shapes, you sometimes only reveal 1 to 3 new blocks when you break a block, therefore they can never be as efficient at making money. Mine every ore and dig all the dirt you see (with an eff/unb shovel), this is to reveal more ores that are behind these blocks. I include dirt because it breaks so much faster than stone that it is worth digging. Invest in better tools and donations. Mcmmobonusplus is amazing for eff5 miners, fly/speed, multihome, pyro+ and e-reps are all good too. When youhave fly/speed and your superbreaker gets longer, use it wil sprinting staight ahead and stop for nothing. After superbreaker runs out travel back at high speeds and collect all the ores you revealed.
I reallly agree with this. Thank you for this information @_TANSTAAFL 2x1 is this two across by one high?
Ok, after re-reading your post I understand better what you're doing. Your method is close in efficiency to the simple 2x1 tunnel. The only problem is that when you turn your head right and left to dig your side tunnels, you waste a little bit of time where you aren't breaking a block (you start to break the block in front of you for a moment, then start to break the 'corner block' for a moment, then finally you start breaking the first block on your side tunnel). This loss of time is not insignificant and adds up over time for every side tunnel you make. However, your efficiency is fairly close to the 2x1 tunnel method, so feel free to do what you want.
I use a tatic with an Eff7 I like to call spray mining. Just mine huge random holes with random sizes. It's dimensions range from 5x2 to the biggest I have done which is around 50x2.
