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Caving Tips
Hey guys, sa5mmm here. When I was first starting out playing Minecraft I'd always get lost caving or die trying to go caving, but I'm here now going to tell you some tips about going caving.
Now going caving is when you find an open hole somewhere in the ground or side of a mountain and go exploring in it. It's very dangerous because it's dark and if you're not prepared you won't be able to get yourself out of sticky situations.
First we'll talk about inventory going into a cave. You want your inventory almost empty so that you can store all the goods you'll mine, but you don't want it too empty that you won't have anything to save yourself from the Minecraft Goons or traps.
You'll need a pick or two or more, some torches, some wood, some food, a defensive item, and crafting supplies. I throw in an axe in case I run into a mineshaft. If you already know you're going into a mineshaft when you start you won't need as much wood.
Plugins and Mods, on the server I play on we have McMMO that has a skill called repair. You use an iron block to repair tools. So in the picture of my inventory I have an iron block in my inventory and only 1 pick. This is because I just smelt iron as I need it and place my McMMO anvil to repair my pick when it gets low on durability. If you are playing with a mod or other plugin that allows you to repair items easily take advantage of it and put what you'll need to do that in your inventory. This is one of the fastest ways to work up your McMMO repair skill and eventually you won't waste materials when you need a new pick. If you're McMMO skill is low and you're using a diamond pick this won't work because of the tiers of McMMO skills, I'd suggest using an iron pick for a while then when you can repair diamond switch to your diamond pick.
Vanilla repairing: You could bring an anvil with you mining, and place it whenever you need to repair your pick. Assuming you'll be mining coal and killing goons when you reach it you should have enough exp to repair your items. This might be costly though if you fall in lava and end up losing your anvil. It's your decision (I'll talk about not falling in lava later).
The amount of torches you start with is up to you, but the reason for the wood is so that if you run low you don't have to go to the surface to get some. Just make some sticks and use the coal you mine to make more torches. If you're out of wood you'll probably need to find a mineshaft or go back up to the surface and get some. If you run out of torches and wood then you should turn around and go get more. It's too dangerous to explore caves with no torches. An exception to this is if you use potions when you cave explore, which if you do then you're more advanced then me :)
Food: It's always good to plan ahead though. Make yourself a farm of high saturating foods, like beef, cooked pork, baked potatos, pie, cooked chicken. This way you won't have to eat as much which saves room for more mined goodies in your inventory. How much you need depends on how much you explore. If you find yourself low on food then killing zombies and eating their flesh will help you a lot more then it may seem. Yeah you could be poisioned by the flesh, but in the long run you'll work up your regeneration to full health and will be able to run away from future Minecraft goons. Remember any food is good food, so if you have a wheat farm and carrot farm only just bring along some bread and carrots, it's okay as long as your food bar doesn't get too low.
Defensive items: These are just things like swords and bows. I personally use a sword because I'm not the best aim when things are shooting at me (plus I never have enough arrows). This is up to you whether you add a bow into your mining kit or not, but if you do make sure you have a sword for close range combat and enough arrows to suit your bow (you know, like if you have infinity on your bow).
Crafting supplies: In my torches section I talked about having wood so you could make torches, this counts as a crafting supply, but the main concern here is the crafting table and furnace. Now, mining you'll be able to make furnaces whenever, if you have a table. Anywho, I find these items important, because what if you want to make a resting place. You'll need a crafting table to make some chests (this is good if you want to store some valuable items while you continue to mine). I bring a furnace because of McMMO, I need iron as ingots in order to repair my pick, this is also a good thing to have if you accidently break your pick and need a new one. These are just really useful items for if you plan to mine for a while. If it's a short caving trip then you probably won't need the crafting table or furnace. If you run out of picks and can't make any go to the surface.
Exploring the cave: How you approach the cave and how you place the torches is important to not getting lost or killed. Before you enter chose left or right, I chose right for all of my caves. If you're with friends make sure they know this too. Okay now when you go in place torches only on that side as needed. So walk in place a torch on the side you chose, then walk in more until it gets dark again then place another torch keep doing this until a significant amount is lit up then you can walk back and mine any exposed ores. Keep all the torches on the same side. For me when you walk in I place the torches on the right side. That way when I want to stop mining I follow the torches with them on my left side. So if I get lost I think, "Torches on the left points to the exit, and torches on the right point deeper into the cave." This is a good habit to start.
When you come to forks in the road I normally take the one on the right and light it up and come back to do the other, unless I'm low on torches. But you can chose to cover up either of the entrances with something to signal that you skipped that part. This could be a double placed torch or wool (If you chose wool make sure you brought some with you!). Don't skip over forks, if it's dark mobs will spawn and they can come through the entrances and get you.
Mining: Now that you've explored the cave and lit it up you're going to want to mine what you find. As a general rule I've noticed is. Lapis is near water and redstone is near lava. If you don't see the lava but you see redstone use caution when mining the redstone. Some things you can do in case lava touches you is to 1) stay full on hunger and 2) bring a water bucket with you. If you fall in lava it's a different story because it's hard to swim out of lava. I haven't mastered a way to escape lava after falling in. I guess you could bring gold apples with you and eat them while swimming out of the lava. The regeneration of the apples will give you more time to swim out of the lava to safety. Another thing to note is if you're mining something by lava you can use gravel to see how deep the lava is. Or one of the best things to do (I do this with diamond) is place a block around the ore then a block around that block. Mine out the first block you placed. Keep doing this until no lava will fall on you while you mine the ore or the ore won't fall into lava when you mine it. This creates a buble of air around the ore. Make sure to get it on all sides and even the bottom. You want to be able to stand under the ore and mine it.
That's all of my tips for now. If I missed anything please leave a comment on what I should add!
Hey guys, sa5mmm here. When I was first starting out playing Minecraft I'd always get lost caving or die trying to go caving, but I'm here now going to tell you some tips about going caving.
Now going caving is when you find an open hole somewhere in the ground or side of a mountain and go exploring in it. It's very dangerous because it's dark and if you're not prepared you won't be able to get yourself out of sticky situations.
First we'll talk about inventory going into a cave. You want your inventory almost empty so that you can store all the goods you'll mine, but you don't want it too empty that you won't have anything to save yourself from the Minecraft Goons or traps.
You'll need a pick or two or more, some torches, some wood, some food, a defensive item, and crafting supplies. I throw in an axe in case I run into a mineshaft. If you already know you're going into a mineshaft when you start you won't need as much wood.
Plugins and Mods, on the server I play on we have McMMO that has a skill called repair. You use an iron block to repair tools. So in the picture of my inventory I have an iron block in my inventory and only 1 pick. This is because I just smelt iron as I need it and place my McMMO anvil to repair my pick when it gets low on durability. If you are playing with a mod or other plugin that allows you to repair items easily take advantage of it and put what you'll need to do that in your inventory. This is one of the fastest ways to work up your McMMO repair skill and eventually you won't waste materials when you need a new pick. If you're McMMO skill is low and you're using a diamond pick this won't work because of the tiers of McMMO skills, I'd suggest using an iron pick for a while then when you can repair diamond switch to your diamond pick.
Vanilla repairing: You could bring an anvil with you mining, and place it whenever you need to repair your pick. Assuming you'll be mining coal and killing goons when you reach it you should have enough exp to repair your items. This might be costly though if you fall in lava and end up losing your anvil. It's your decision (I'll talk about not falling in lava later).
The amount of torches you start with is up to you, but the reason for the wood is so that if you run low you don't have to go to the surface to get some. Just make some sticks and use the coal you mine to make more torches. If you're out of wood you'll probably need to find a mineshaft or go back up to the surface and get some. If you run out of torches and wood then you should turn around and go get more. It's too dangerous to explore caves with no torches. An exception to this is if you use potions when you cave explore, which if you do then you're more advanced then me :)
Food: It's always good to plan ahead though. Make yourself a farm of high saturating foods, like beef, cooked pork, baked potatos, pie, cooked chicken. This way you won't have to eat as much which saves room for more mined goodies in your inventory. How much you need depends on how much you explore. If you find yourself low on food then killing zombies and eating their flesh will help you a lot more then it may seem. Yeah you could be poisioned by the flesh, but in the long run you'll work up your regeneration to full health and will be able to run away from future Minecraft goons. Remember any food is good food, so if you have a wheat farm and carrot farm only just bring along some bread and carrots, it's okay as long as your food bar doesn't get too low.
Defensive items: These are just things like swords and bows. I personally use a sword because I'm not the best aim when things are shooting at me (plus I never have enough arrows). This is up to you whether you add a bow into your mining kit or not, but if you do make sure you have a sword for close range combat and enough arrows to suit your bow (you know, like if you have infinity on your bow).
Crafting supplies: In my torches section I talked about having wood so you could make torches, this counts as a crafting supply, but the main concern here is the crafting table and furnace. Now, mining you'll be able to make furnaces whenever, if you have a table. Anywho, I find these items important, because what if you want to make a resting place. You'll need a crafting table to make some chests (this is good if you want to store some valuable items while you continue to mine). I bring a furnace because of McMMO, I need iron as ingots in order to repair my pick, this is also a good thing to have if you accidently break your pick and need a new one. These are just really useful items for if you plan to mine for a while. If it's a short caving trip then you probably won't need the crafting table or furnace. If you run out of picks and can't make any go to the surface.
Exploring the cave: How you approach the cave and how you place the torches is important to not getting lost or killed. Before you enter chose left or right, I chose right for all of my caves. If you're with friends make sure they know this too. Okay now when you go in place torches only on that side as needed. So walk in place a torch on the side you chose, then walk in more until it gets dark again then place another torch keep doing this until a significant amount is lit up then you can walk back and mine any exposed ores. Keep all the torches on the same side. For me when you walk in I place the torches on the right side. That way when I want to stop mining I follow the torches with them on my left side. So if I get lost I think, "Torches on the left points to the exit, and torches on the right point deeper into the cave." This is a good habit to start.
When you come to forks in the road I normally take the one on the right and light it up and come back to do the other, unless I'm low on torches. But you can chose to cover up either of the entrances with something to signal that you skipped that part. This could be a double placed torch or wool (If you chose wool make sure you brought some with you!). Don't skip over forks, if it's dark mobs will spawn and they can come through the entrances and get you.
Mining: Now that you've explored the cave and lit it up you're going to want to mine what you find. As a general rule I've noticed is. Lapis is near water and redstone is near lava. If you don't see the lava but you see redstone use caution when mining the redstone. Some things you can do in case lava touches you is to 1) stay full on hunger and 2) bring a water bucket with you. If you fall in lava it's a different story because it's hard to swim out of lava. I haven't mastered a way to escape lava after falling in. I guess you could bring gold apples with you and eat them while swimming out of the lava. The regeneration of the apples will give you more time to swim out of the lava to safety. Another thing to note is if you're mining something by lava you can use gravel to see how deep the lava is. Or one of the best things to do (I do this with diamond) is place a block around the ore then a block around that block. Mine out the first block you placed. Keep doing this until no lava will fall on you while you mine the ore or the ore won't fall into lava when you mine it. This creates a buble of air around the ore. Make sure to get it on all sides and even the bottom. You want to be able to stand under the ore and mine it.
That's all of my tips for now. If I missed anything please leave a comment on what I should add!
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