Mining: Gravel and Sand

      I just discovered this recently, and want to blog it before i forget, so excuse the somewhat low quality. That will be fixed later. Anyway I discovered a quick and easy way to be rid of gravel or sand wasting your tools mining it. In fact all you need is a torch and a pick axe.

Obviously a tunnel may complicate a situation a little more, but the concept is the same. In the picture to the right is an example of what a single column in your mine might look like. For the record I am aware that it is sand and cobblestone, not stone and gravel, but it will still work the same.




      Now I will explain how you are supposed to be rid of the sand with a minimal amount of tool use.
      First you have to create a space under the supporting block. In that space place a torch. The gravity physics of Minecraft will keep this block from falling.





      The next step is simple. Destroy the floating block. The torch you have placed has already taken up the space. Therefore the sand, or gravel, cannot occupy that space, the result is the destruction of the sand
(or gravel).
      Violala you have just destroyed some pesky gravel, or sand, without wasting valuable tool health.
     Since my last post my Minecraft world has grown significantly, right now it is about 38 megabits. So here are some more screen shots.

inside of my pyramid

Zen garden and Floating mansion

Inside of my mansion, it is self sustaining and you can only enter it by water elevator

this is a mine cart track, it is a 2 and a half minute ride
back to my obsidian tower

       For the record I use the Xssheeps texture pack. It's my personal favorite and does not require a patcher. Some structures that were not shown were: my lava rooms, upside down pyramid, skyway, and the full extent of the aqua duct next to my floating mansion.

      Any way I hope this technique helped.

Obsidian

 After jumping on the bandwagon and finally obtaining Minecraft I immediately set a lofty goal for my self: an Obsidian tower.

my tower

Well after 5 hours of straight up Obsidian mining, and that's only breaking down the blocks (building the tower and gaining access to the Obsidian are not included in that time). Anyway after about a week you can now see the finished product to the left. It reaches the 118 level out of 128 and for those who don't know that much about Minecraft its high enough that falling = death.
       Anyway if any of you out there plan on creating a large scale structure of Obsidian there are a few things you should know. First off it takes a long time to mine, and I mean a LONG time. With a diamond pick it takes 15 seconds per block, with any other material it takes at least 50 seconds and you DO NOT obtain the block. Also Obsidian can only be created when running water meets standing lava (on the right). Due to the specific conditions needed

Natural Obsidian

to create Obsidian it is rather tedious to find or create, not to mention hazardous. So some advice to those of you who plan on mining Obsidian; follow the basic rules of Minecraft. That means don't mine straight down, and don't mine straight up, simple enough. But I would like to add two additional rules for any Obsidian Miner: keep at least one bucket of water with you at all times, and some cobblestone, incase of the any accidents involving lava.

Okay, now that you have some basic rules and safety information involving Obsidian I can go over how to find the Obsidian you wish to mine. The first way is the most rare: Natural Obsidian (shown above). As I stated before Obsidian takes specific conditions to be created, and because of this it is rare to find naturally formed Obsidian anywhere in the natural cycles of Minecraft. Basically if you stumble across natural Obsidian then you are one lucky son of a.... yeah.

But wait I said "first way" that means there are others (3 counting natural Obsidian), Obsidian created by the player, a.k.a you. There are two ways to do this, one is just a little less rare but more hazardous than natural Obsidian. This involves finding a large reservoir or "lake" of standing lava and pouring water from your bucket into it. (below)

lava lake 

I already said this but I will say it again, This Is Dangerous! I nearly died 3 different times while creating that Obsidian so be careful. Your water has a tendency to push you towards the lava if you don't pick it back up fast enough. Another hazard involves the actual mining, the water will only turn the surface of the lake into Obsidian so there is lava under neath the very stone you are standing on, DON'T MINE DOWN!! I did and I can tell you from experience you can't mine the Obsidian fast enough to get out of the lava. But this layered system can be a plus too because it means more Obsidian, so rejoice! but don't die.

small lava trough

The last "technique" I will bring up is the most effective of the three: Obsidian Farming. It is the safest by far, the only danger being the collection of lava. Obsidian farming is relatively simple: make a 2x whatever trough out of cobblestone and fill it with lava (right) and then pour your bucket of water over it. Your finished product should be some safe to mine Obsidian in any amount you have the patients to create.

If this went well then:
YAY!!! you did it!!!

Running water + standing lava = Obsidian

If not try placing your water on the cobblestone boarder, if you place it in the lava it will not work, and if you got cobblestone as a result then your lava
was not stationary. My advice would be to place your lava on the inward facing side of each of your border blocks.

finished obsidian

There is a downside to Obsidian Farming that I should warn you about. As you should know by now lava is dangerous and if you die in it, it will destroy all of your items. Another fact about lava is that it is an un-renewable resource, you can only collect lava springs, you can't collect the flowing, in addition once your lava has been turned to Obsidian, or cobblestone, or destroyed it's gone forever. So be careful and don't waste it! My last piece of advice is to break up your construction into sections, this will give you a sense of accomplishment, and if you do fall into lava you won't lose everything you worked for.

Go forth and accomplish your Obsidian based goals just remember my advice, I learned it the hard way so learn from my mistakes.

These are just some extra pics. Enjoy!

tower at night

yes that is my tower... again

 Oh and if you can read between the lines in my pictures you will notice two things: 1. A very tall Obsidian tower (or any tower for that matter) is an excellent way to find your spawn point or your mine if you get lost so I advise you to build one. 2. I may be a little too proud of my tower but you have to understand it took me a long time.

Housing

As any person who has ever played survival mode or has ever made a mansion in creative they know how important a house is. Houses are the crux of all your operations in Minecraft as it's usually where you place your countless chests filled with cobblestone and dyes that you have absolutely no plan for. And as soon as you make a house that you think looks mob proof you go to bed and wake up to a creeper standing right above you trying to make friends. Luckily there are some housing styles that you can take a look at to see what will work best for you.

Glass/Cobblestone is for a minecart system

My first house that I always use I like to call the Hobbit house. It's not a free standing house as it's built into the side of a mountain or a hill.

The pros of building this are that it's easy to build when you're first starting out. This is essential when decided what type of house to make because you'll need plenty of resources for the various housing types. And with Hobbit houses you can have a mine built right into the back of your house, how handy! But overall the best reason to use this style is that it provides amazing creeper control.

But to every design is a flaw. It's easy to mine out of the side of the mountain by accident or fall down a shaft which we all know can be bad news when you're busy surviving. And when you have large rooms it's quite a challenge to keep it sufficiently bright enough to stop hostile mobs from spawning. And with all buildings with plenty of space and lighting passive mobs tend to spawn inside which can be annoying but has the upside of providing wool, pork, and leather.

But if you're taste is more realistic then going with a standard 4 wall house is your thing. They can take up more resources then some will be able to get for a first night in survival. But once you spend a day or two gathering wood and cobblestone you can make a decent house out of it. Just make sure to glass the windows and make a door which I failed to do because I don't live in such a house.


But once constructed they have some benefits. If constructed on water you don't have to worry as much as hostile or passive mobs spawning or at least you can defend against them before they reach your house. They can also be tastefully constructed with easy materials to collect. They are very useful if you just want outposts when exploring so you can spend a night in bed without having to worry about the boogie man skeleton jockey.


But because it's so useful there are some obvious draw backs. You either have to make glass for windows or not have windows all together and just live by torch light. That's more a an aesthetic problem then anything but to some even in survival it's a big deal. But the main draw back is the walls. They're so thing, a measly one block of either wood, cobblestone, or dirt, that if you have a run in with a creeper you'll be spending the day fixing the damage and cursing Notch for such a creature.

Now if you absolutely must get away from hostile mobs, lets say for you bad asses that play in hard mode, then the best choice is either to make a fortress in a mountain Hobbit style or to live in the sky. And since we've covered Hobbit houses lets talk about building above the ground. Now since only a couple blocks have physics enabled pretty much anything besides gravel or sand will be fine building material.

Now building off the ground helps with your creative side due to lack of physical restrictions. But it is also practical because of the supreme mob protection it offers over any other style of housing. That alone is attractive enough of an idea to want to construct vertically instead of horizontally. Just remember that when building outside of edges to be crouching(shift). But this is possibly my personnel favorite to build because you can always add more or take something away without much hassle.

The main drawback to such a design for a house is how it eats materials. Once you start building you'll see how quickly you can run out a a chest of cobblestone stacks. But depending on what materials you use to build, i.e wood, you have to be careful about certain items. Be especially careful when installing incinerators as well as anything to due with lava or fireplaces. This is a real worry when you use a lot of wood like I did. If you do I think you need two blocks of non flammable material between the source of fire and anything flammable.

And for all you first nighters who stumble across this while googling how to survive the first night in Minecraft or anyone who is caught in a bind we have an easy no skill required house for you. Good for escaping hostile mobs when needed. Known as a survival hole. Dig three block down and place the top block back when you get in.

Despite the no experience required and the boring sit and wait till the sun comes, survivor holes can be quite effective; even though not everyone will choose for th long term because it just isn't what people want in a house. But all kidding aside this can save your life if you're being chased by a horde of zombies or have a skeleton mobs chasing after you like Daniel-San.



Now go out and scrap that old house and try building something new. If you have a mob problem. Build a mountain fortress. if you need to save your ass, make a survival hole. And enjoy these pictures that couldn't fit in the main article.

Tree farm on the house in the sky. Self sustaining is a good thing.

Survival holes look a lot more ominous at night when there is virtually no light. Good thing there is light here.

Sky houses can lead to some great rooms in the sky.