I dig a diagonal shaft down to the bedrock, then work in strips every few vertical steps going either side of the shaft, it's worked so far in the two shafts I've dug - I've found gold, diamonds and tons o' coal and iron. I've found a fair few caverns as well.

 

General question - last night I was buggering about in a cavern (YJ) and fell into lava, I used the /back command when I respawned but couldn't find the stuff I was carrying - does that burn up in the lava, or would it exist still, but be bobbing about under the surface?

Fairly sure it burns in lava. Often when you die in lava and you're at the edge of some rock your items will come of out you on death and land around you so some will burn in the lava and some will land on the nearby rock and be saved meaning you can get them back using /back.

That's good, but I need want diamonds, not iron etc... You usually find plenty of iron/gold/coal/lapis lazuli as well anyway. And diamonds are most plentiful in layers 10-16, hence me stripping that. What I hadn't realised is that you can actually leave 3 blocks between the mining galleries not just 2, because mineral/ore veins are at least 2 blocks wide. That meant I was digging inefficiently for f'in ages :(

I think the likelihood of lava also decreases a lot above a height of 10, or at least that's what it looks like to me so far. Fewer lost diamonds, woo hoo!

To answer your question, and dropped blocks/resources/etc will burn when they touch lava :(

:C I was thinking that if they survived within the lava you could maybe douse it with a bucket o' water and collect your stuff back!

How far do you dig out horizontally?

 

To stop me going too far I dig as far as a stone pick takes me.

Space shuttle monstrosity! Big ugly hole! What is it with you people? Just don't shout at me when I've built the whole thing and want it moved somewhere else :p

And I noticed Patch has cleared some stuff away for me last night. Thank you :D Hopefully I'll get a chance later to do some too.

I don't go too far - I try and stick to a system, so I would dig the first gallery with the ceiling as level 16, and go about 25 blocks, then keep adding galleries spaced 3 blocks apart until I have 10 or so in parallel; I'll then go below my starting point and dig a parallel setup in (hopefully) the same xy layout, so that the floor between them is one block high.

 

When I finished that, I'll go back to the level above and expand the first shaft another whatever blocks, rinse and repeat. I think all this ensures I find virtually everything in that space, and it seems to be quite scalable as long as you can find your way back... Putting torches consistently on one side helps with that.

Nice, I'll try that technique out.

 

Providing everything's nice n'tidy navigation shouldn't be too hard - maybe just a torch showing where the main staircase shaft is. I can see what I'm mining even when there's no light source around.

 

Hmm, maybe my brightness is set too high. T_T

Definitely brightness or high gamma which is useful when mining

(bounce) I don't like making torches all the time. It all seems to be such a waste of coal and sticks.

Make charcoal, can use it just the same for torches etc.

He'd still have to make sticks, and use additional wood for the charcoal. Foo'.

Wood is renewable.

I think wood should be quicker to cut down.

Do diamond axes not go through it quick enough?

 

(only guessing - not had enough resources to make one myself!)

Yeah, but trees are /everywhere/. And once you've cut down a small forest, you usually have enough saplings to replant it again.

Diamond axes and picks see to do the job in the same time, but not quick enough.

 

My original issue with wood was having to go treking around for it but then I realised I should just plant my own little forest in my complex that I renew each time I cut it down.

The server is going very slowly tonight. Lots of lag and everthing taking a while to load.

I guess I should find a better time to torrent :$