Guide:Mining

Are you ready to experience true wealth?

Tired of endless equal-value trades of worthless commodities?

Ready to enter the big leagues of wealth, riches, weapons and armor?

If so, mining is what you should be doing, not pulling up potatoes or endlessly knocking down trees in your tree farm.

Level up. Go mining.

## The Sources of Ores

Reports on the ground indicate that ores are principally divided among the biomes, with specific concentrations of ores in specific biomes.

We'll cover each biome and ore type in turn.

### The Nether

Before you start serious mining, you need serious tools. Stone tools get tiring after the first dozen DC; don't settle for less then the best.

And for the best, you need experience. Since this is a mining guide, we'll discuss getting XP via mining, and the best place to do that is in the Nether.

Find a portal -- most likely major towns have one -- and enter the nether.

You are here for quartz; an abundant decorative ore/mineral that also gives XP for breaking it. This will be your primary source of XP; when you eventually get silk touch, you can use it to "store" XP for future use by storing Quartz Ores.

Pick a direction, and start digging. A few critical notes:

* Single source lava blocks are found randomly in the nether.
	+ Be wary as you dig; keep a few blocks between you and where you dig
	+ ALWAYS have blocks on your hotbar.
	+ If you discover a lava source block, back up a few steps and place blocks to stop up the tunnel.
	+ Carefully place blocks until you are close enough to the lava to replace it with a block.
	+ Continue digging.
* Lava lakes are common. Follow advice similar to the single lava sources note above. Resist the urge to go for a swim at all costs
* You will encounter tunnels. They will be rich in quartz ores, but contain blind drops and sometimes open under lava pools. Be careful.
* Subsurface is a plentiful source for easy ore access. However, ghasts may spawn; and in the nether, you never know if the surface you are walking on opens over a lava lake.
* Don't dig straight down, ever. Ever.
* Don't dig straight up, ever.
* If you dig diagonally up, take special note of the source lava instructions. Lava moves FAST in the nether.

Follow these guidelines, and you'll soon be rolling in XP levels. Just don't die.

### Diamonds

Once you master the Nether, you'll have endless XP -- so you now need Diamonds to make proper tools to enchant.

Diamonds are found in two areas on the map -- the Northwest Ice Plains (maybe), and the Southern Island (definitely). The southern island has a much higher concentration of ores, from reports; some reports claim the northwest ice plains lack diamonds entirely.

Ores do not spawn like in Vanilla; they more frequently form "veins" of 4-8 diamond ore (or more), and spawn at 36y and below (no reports yet of diamonds higher).

Digging long, straight tunnels in a regular, dense pattern is the only truly effective method of diamond retrieval. You can also explore caves to find "accessible" ores, if you're lucky enough to encounter them.

Be efficient. Your first objective is to obtain a Fortune III pickaxe, which you will use from that point on to break diamond ore. Break as few diamonds without a fortune pickaxe as possible, only enough to enchant one or buy one from a producer.

If you're familiar with dense vanilla mining techniques, they work well here. For those unfamiliar, the technique involves staggered, long tunnels, starting at the top of the "spawn" area for the ore you seek, running parallel.

Looking "down" your tunnels, with X being a dug out line and O being untouched, with B as bedrock:

```
 36 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

 35 OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

 34 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

 33 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

 32 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

 31 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

 30 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

 29 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

 ..(continue pattern)..

  8 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

  7 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

  6 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

  5 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

  4 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

  3 OXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXO

  2 OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

  1 OOOXOOOXOOOXOOOXOOO

  0 BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

```

So you can see, from levels 34 to level 5 (all levels based on foot position) it's just staggered tunnels 2-high separated by 3 blocks. If you follow this pattern guide, you fill find 100% of diamonds in your mining zone. Use a less dense pattern if you don't mind missing some, however, this is not recommended.

It is also worth noting that besides the special-case tunnels at the top and bottom of the pattern, every block you dig reveals 3 blocks for good efficiency of digging. The other advantage of this pattern is consistency and simplicity; once you start into a tunnel, you can dig very efficiently and quickly as you do not have to move your character's face to continue the pattern within a tunnel.