Minecraft How To Mine

/12 Be Prepared For Combat

If you’re the type of player who loves to make things as safe as possible when you decide to mine for ore and other resources in Minecraft, you may assume that you won’t have to worry about fighting. The truth is, that real mining is an adventure all its own and digging tunnels can lead to the discovery of hidden rooms and caves.

In the darkness, these spaces are often occupied by enemies, and that means that you must be prepared to fight for your life with either a sword or other weapon.

Once You Get To Layer 15 Keep Digging

You’ll hit diamond territory at layer 15, but go ahead and keep digging. Diamonds only get more common the deeper you go, so go as deep as possible for the best results.

But remember that diamonds are rare, even in low layers. It might take a long time for you to find any. And of course, there’s always a chance that you won’t find any at all before you need to head back home.

But once you find diamond ore, mine it with the iron pickaxe and collect your prize. Most diamond comes in a “vein,” meaning that there will be multiple diamond ore blocks connected to one another. Mine all the diamonds you can see, and then move on.

What Is The Best Level/height To Find Coal Ore

Coal used to appear between evenly between Y=0 and Y=125. This made things incredibly easy. Whatever material you were looking for would also help you uncover all the coal you could possibly need. With the newer ore distribution, however, coal is completely nonexistent below Y=0, where youre likely digging for diamonds.

You can find coal ore between levels zero and 256. There are two different sections of coal. One is a triangle shape, between Y=0 and Y=192, becoming more common as you approach Y=96 and less common as you reach those outer extremities. Because of this Y=96 is the best place to mine for coal in most areas. This isnt true 100% of the time, however. Theres a secondary distribution of coal that is only available in extremely high world heights. This one begins at Y=136 and extends all the way up to the world generation limit at Y=256. This shape is a rectangle, meaning the odds are static the entire way through. This second section does overlap with the first in some points meaning Y=136 is likely to have the most coal per chunk, making it the true best level to mine.

If you dont know what level youre at, hit F3 to display your current information and look for the XYZ values.

Its worth noting that you can still find copper, iron, emerald, and gold at these levels, but there are now more optimal heights if youre searching specifically for those materials.

Want to see the changes for yourself? Heres the official ore distribution map from Mojang.

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What Is A Chunk In Minecraft

Before going ahead with the mining guide and ore distribution, you may want to know what is called the chunk in Minecraft.

Its important since if you pay enough attention, you may know how many ores you can mine left in the current chunk or just go for a new place to mine.

A Minecraft chunk is a world area with the size of 16x16x319 blocks. Thats a total of 81664 blocks, including the air block.

To see chunks in Minecraft, simply press F3 + G. You will notice a lot of vertical lines indicating each chunk in the world.

Mining In The Overworld

Before Minecraft 1.18, the most effective form of mining was strip mining. This entailed digging down to the bottom-most layers of the world and mining in repeating lines two to three blocks apart. As its name would suggest, this method leaves the area you selected stripped of its resources without the risk of missing anything.

Now with the generation of 1.18, it is far more effective to simply explore large caves while keeping an eye out for ore and diamonds. That is not to say strip mining isnt an option. It still exists as a much safer and less involved method for those who enjoy watching other forms of media while mining. After all, the new caves are very unforgiving to those not paying attention.

In either case, make sure to equip armor and weapons to deal with the many mobs that call these massive caves home. Additionally, include a water bucket, shovel, food, and torches alongside your pickaxe for a complete mining kit. The water bucket quickly clears away lava while the shovel deals with any random dirt or gravel.

If that sounds tedious, there is another mining method for those who prefer the sea. Ravines spawn naturally along the ocean floor, and it is not uncommon for them to reach very deep levels. If you have the water breathing potions needed to dive them, it is a very safe way to casually mine a lot of resources.

Remember, diamonds only spawn below Y = 15, so keep an eye on your coordinates!

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The Tools You’ll Need To Mine For Diamonds

Before you set out on your caving or mining adventure, you need the right tools.

• The most important item is an iron pickaxe. Diamond ore can only be mined with an iron pickaxe or better . If you try to mine diamonds with a stone or wood pickaxe, the block will break but you won’t get anything from it.

• Bring along a generous supply of torches. Torches will light your way as you mine, making it harder for enemies to get the drop on you. You can craft torches by placing a piece of coal on top of a stick. Craft coal by burning wood, if you don’t find some while digging.
• You’ll need food to heal and stave off hunger. Anything edible will do, but if you can cook steaks or chickens before heading off, do it you never know when you’ll need the extra health.
• Extra weapons can help you out in a pinch. While you can use your pickaxe if you need to, having a good sword and shield is always a better option.

You can craft these tools as you dig, but don’t break or use them all before you find your diamonds remember that you’ll have to make a return trip.

Vertical Mineshaft With Water Drop

Cutaway of the top of the mineshaft. Entrance passage Ascent shaft Descent shaft.

Cutaway of the bottom of the mineshaft. Note the placement of torches in the ascent and descent shafts. Ascent shaft Descent shaft Water pit Side passage to utility room/mining area.

A vertical mine shaft can be built quickly and allows safe, fast access to the deepest regions of the map. To descend to the bottom, simply walk into the shaft. The player will pass over the ascent shaft, fall into the descent shaft, and land in the water pit. To ascend, climb the ladder and hop out.

This guide describes the construction of a vertical mine shaft with the following properties:

• Provides quick access to the lowest mining levels
• Fast construction

Details

First, gather and manufacture the materials. Be sure to fill the buckets with water. The shaft will be constructed to the side of an existing room. Start by excavating a 3-block deep alcove. If the top of the shaft is above ground, it should be surrounded by fences or walls with only one entrance on a narrow side. Place one torch in the end of the alcove as illustrated.

The water trough in the utility room.

Fill the buckets again from the center of the water trough. Use the water to fill the pit at the bottom of the descent shaft. Be sure that the pit is 3 deep, and each block is filled with water.

Alternate landing

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Where To Dig For Diamonds

Every Minecraft world is divided into layers think of it like altitude. Sea level in Minecraft is roughly layer 64, for instance. The world goes down to layer -64.

Diamonds only spawn at layer 15 and lower, and get more common the deeper you go.

Quick tip: If you’re not sure what layer you’re on, you can check your coordinates. In the Java version of the game, press F3 . In the Bedrock version, open the Settings menu and enable the Show Coordinates option.

Your current layer is the Y coordinate in this image, 12.0000.

To get there, find a cave or start digging diagonally down into the earth. Never dig straight down if you accidentally dig through the ceiling of a cave, you could find yourself falling into lava or into a massive ravine. Place torches as you go to light the way and track your route.

As you go, you’ll likely run into enemies like spiders, skeletons, zombies, and witches. Stay alert and either avoid these enemies you’ll usually be able to see or hear them before they notice you or carefully take them down.

If you need to run, use your blocks to build a tower and escape to higher ground. Just don’t slip and get killed by the fall damage. Or if you’re at a dead end, quickly mine into a wall and then place blocks to seal the exit.

Start Your First Branch

Begin by digging into the wall, in any direction, 20 blocks deep. Be sure you are digging horizontally, not vertically. This will be your first branch.

Now dig anywhere from 2-5 blocks to the right or left and dig 20 blocks deep again.

As you can see, there are different methods as to how much you can mine in your branch mine and each has their own benefits. Decide what works best for you.

Now do you same on the reverse side, or behind you. The space in between each set of branches is your mine shaft.

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How To Find Diamonds In The 118 Update

The 1.18 Caves and Cliffs update added more underground layers in the Overworld. Now players can dig even further underground without hitting bedrock. Usually, Diamond is found under layer 12, but now if you get to these -Y levels, the odds of finding diamond significantly increase: -50, -64, -59, and -58.

It’s important to mention that bedrock now appears at Y level -60.

Setting Up A Mining Station

Before you go exploring down into your mines it is a good idea to set up a mining station. What you put it in is up to you, but here are some suggestions and the reasoning behind them.

It helps to have one of these at the surface of your mine, but you can have it wherever and you can make more as your area of exploration expands.

• Bed – if you die, you will spawn back here instead of somewhere far away
• Chest – hopefully you will mine many things and you won’t be able to hold it all, having a chest in a safe place is a good way to save your items especially if you were to die
• Furnace – so you can smelt the ores you find
• Crafting Table – you will undoubtedly need more tools and other various items while mining, it is good to have a crafting table nearby

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How Do I Play On The Minecove Minecraft Server

Open the Minecraft launcher, next click the “Play” button, then select “Multiplayer” from the main menu.

Once the connection to the server is verified by Mojang session servers and is available, the connection icon will turn green and you can click on the “Join Server” button to play on MineCove and experience their latest updates and gamemodes!

Never Dig Straight Down

Digging straight down is the worst way for players to mine in Minecraft. This can cause lots of accidents, and players should not do this hence they have an increased chance of death.

Digging straight down can cause a player to end up in a lava pool. Lava tends to be located underground inside caves and ravines very commonly. When a player digs straight down, they have an increased chance of falling and drowning in one of these lava pools.

Players can also take fall damage when doing so. To avoid digging straight down, players should dig in a staircase fashion.

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Begin Mining With Your Pickaxe

Now that you have your tool with you, its time to start mining.

Go and locate the nearest source of stonepreferably in a caveand begin mining.

You will most likely encounter different resources other than stone and cobblestones halfway through mining. Common mining materials are cobblestones, coal, iron, and copper. Some rare materials include diamond, lapis lazuli, and emerald, to name a few. These mineral blocks are scattered in each layer of the overworld, so make sure to collect most, if not all, of the resources that you can find while mining.

However, you cannot simply use a wooden pickaxe to mine everything. Take note that a specific pickaxe tier is needed for each resource to obtain the item. Using the wrong pickaxe on a mineral will break the block and drop nothing, so be sure to use the correct tool, especially when mining high-level minerals such as diamonds and emeralds. Weve listed down most of the resources you can obtain while mining and the specific pickaxe tier you should use below:

Other Aesthetic Mine Ideas

Central Mine

The player should change the rail-torch-rail combination to powered rail–redstone torch–powered rail combination every 34 blocks.

Players will have a central rail system with smaller hallways for pedestrian traffic. On interesting locations, players should add some kind of rail station with access to the rail.

Side Mines

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Using The Right Tool For Mining

Before you start mining, make sure that you have the right tool. There are various tools in Minecraft that players can use, such as an ax, shears, and a shovel that can help specific tasks become more efficient. For mining, you will need a pickaxe.

The first pickaxe that all players will obtain is a wooden pickaxe. You will need a crafting table to craft your first pickaxe, so make sure you already have one. Then, you will need the right ingredients for the crafting recipe to craft the pickaxe tool.

The pickaxe recipe requires 3 specific items and 2 sticks. The 3 main ingredients needed must coincide with the corresponding tool tier. For example, a diamond pickaxe should have 3 diamonds in the recipe, and a gold pickaxe should have 3 gold ingots.

You will need 3 wooden planks of any type for a wooden pickaxe. You can use any wooden planks interchangeably, such as oak planks, birch planks, or jungle planks, to craft the pickaxe. Below is a list of all the pickaxe tiers and their corresponding ingredients:

The pickaxes durability will dictate how many times you can use the tool before it breaks. Each tier also affects the speed at which you mine.

Once you have all of the ingredients needed for the wooden pickaxe, its time to craft your first pickaxe.

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How To Find Your Coordinates In Minecraft

Minecraft is an open-world game, and with that being said, there is no limit or exact place that you can find to mine the ores. But you can still use your coordinates to mark important locations such as biomes, structures, and more!

There are two reasons why you need to know your coordinates:

• First, ores have a pre-defined coordinate to spawn. This means if youve come to their location, you can find the ores easier.
• Some special biomes such as Extremely hill or Dripstone cave biome are well known for their minerals. So knowing the location of these biomes is quite useful!

To find your position, simply press F3 to open the debug screen, in which you can find X, Y, and Z letters followed by the set of numbers. Thats your coordinates.

If you cant turn the debug screen on, try typing this command in the chat to find your location.

/tp ~ ~ ~

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Branch Mining: Mine Smarter Not Harder

There are many different ways to pull ore from the Earth, but some are more efficient than others. If you can get your hands on enough TNT, the job is pretty straight forward, but that stuff is hard to come by.

There are many great examples on the web of mining, from digging quarries to using water elevators to spiral staircase mining. By far, the most mathematically efficient method of ore collection is a method called branch mining. There have been dozens of tutorials for branch mines on the web since Minecraft Alpha, but they are often confusing and can be misleading. Let’s keep it simple and sensible, and explain what branch mining is and how to best go about doing it.

When you think of branch mining, think of the branches of a tree. Branch mining is essentially digging through stone, dirt and ore in the shape of branches. It optimizes the amount of ore you can potentially come into contact with, while minimizing the amount of work required. When done properly, branch mining will reveal all sets of ore in a given area while only requiring that you remove 45% of all non-ore blocks.