The golden rule of Minecraft: Never dig straight up or straight down.
If you dig directly above you, you risk having water, sand, gravel, monsters, primed TNT or anvils (those two are only likely to be discovered in multiplayer games, but yes, those hurt), or maybe even lava drop down on you.
That reminds me of a mistake I once made in a Minecraft Pocket Edition game. I was desperate for iron for shears, since there weren't many sheep around and I didn't want to kill too many for a bed. I dug straight down from the surface (uh-oh!) planning to pillar-jump my way back up.
I guess it's okay to dig straight down if you're in Pocket Edition. It doesn't have massive underground cave systems that you're definitely going to die if you fall into them, whether by mobs, lava, or just fall damage. But in the computer version... It can take weeks in Minecraft to explore and light up a cave system or ravine. And it'll probably be overflowing with mobs. If you absolutely must dig down, hit F3. It's in the row of "F" keys at the top of your keyboard. It shows the debug info screen, which is a information menu that covers the upper right-hand corner of the Minecraft window. It includes:
If you dig directly above you, you risk having water, sand, gravel, monsters, primed TNT or anvils (those two are only likely to be discovered in multiplayer games, but yes, those hurt), or maybe even lava drop down on you.
That reminds me of a mistake I once made in a Minecraft Pocket Edition game. I was desperate for iron for shears, since there weren't many sheep around and I didn't want to kill too many for a bed. I dug straight down from the surface (uh-oh!) planning to pillar-jump my way back up.
I guess it's okay to dig straight down if you're in Pocket Edition. It doesn't have massive underground cave systems that you're definitely going to die if you fall into them, whether by mobs, lava, or just fall damage. But in the computer version... It can take weeks in Minecraft to explore and light up a cave system or ravine. And it'll probably be overflowing with mobs. If you absolutely must dig down, hit F3. It's in the row of "F" keys at the top of your keyboard. It shows the debug info screen, which is a information menu that covers the upper right-hand corner of the Minecraft window. It includes:
- Your x, y, and z coordinates
- The biome you're currently in
- The amount of light that's hitting you
- Your speed
- Whether you're touching the ground or not
- A whole bunch of other technical things (see the Minecraft Wiki page on it for details)
There are two main ways you can use the debug info screen if you're planning to dig straight down. The first is that you can use the Minecraft wiki or other resources to figure out if there might be hazards around your layer (layer is another term for your y-value). Note that your head is 1.62 blocks above the block you're standing on, so your y-value will almost always end in .62 and the actual layer you're at is your y-value minus 1.62. For example, no one likes digging underneath them and falling into lava. Lava is found frequently from bedrock up to about layer 50. From there, it is less and less frequent, and when you get to layer 88 and above, there's none at all. Using this info, I can tell you that it's generally not a good idea to dig straight underneath you if you're pretty far down in your mine.
The second way you can use your debug screen to decide whether to dig up or down is pretty awesome. But first, a Minecraft mini-lesson about Blocks, Items, Particles, Sprites, and Entities.
Minecraft blocks are pretty self-explanatory if you play Minecraft. Items are objects in Minecraft that can't exist outside the player's inventory, like an iron ingot or a diamond (except for thrown items that are waiting to be picked up by a player, of course, upon which they become entities). Particles are two-dimensional icons that appear in-game, like the purple End and Nether particles and the hearts that appear around animals and villagers when you're breeding. Sprites are two intersecting 2-dimensional images like flowers, sapling, and mushrooms. Finally, there's entities. These are moving, interacting things. (Sorry for the bad description.) Here's some examples: animals, anvils, primed TNT (non-primed TNT is a block), all mobs, the player, etc. Gravity always applies to entities, and they can be pushed around by water and lava.
You know how the player's name appears floating over the player's head on Minecraft multiplayer servers? If you press F3, a little tag like that will appear over every entity, even ones that you can't see because of blocks in the way. It's really handy, because you can spot dungeons and large clusters of mobs underground, and you generally don't want to run into those.
Note: Many experienced Minecraft players consider using F3 in-game as cheating and using F3 is disabled on many Minecraft multiplayer servers. If you're planning to publicize your Minecraft work, make sure you mention whether you're going to use F3 or not.
The second way you can use your debug screen to decide whether to dig up or down is pretty awesome. But first, a Minecraft mini-lesson about Blocks, Items, Particles, Sprites, and Entities.
Minecraft blocks are pretty self-explanatory if you play Minecraft. Items are objects in Minecraft that can't exist outside the player's inventory, like an iron ingot or a diamond (except for thrown items that are waiting to be picked up by a player, of course, upon which they become entities). Particles are two-dimensional icons that appear in-game, like the purple End and Nether particles and the hearts that appear around animals and villagers when you're breeding. Sprites are two intersecting 2-dimensional images like flowers, sapling, and mushrooms. Finally, there's entities. These are moving, interacting things. (Sorry for the bad description.) Here's some examples: animals, anvils, primed TNT (non-primed TNT is a block), all mobs, the player, etc. Gravity always applies to entities, and they can be pushed around by water and lava.
You know how the player's name appears floating over the player's head on Minecraft multiplayer servers? If you press F3, a little tag like that will appear over every entity, even ones that you can't see because of blocks in the way. It's really handy, because you can spot dungeons and large clusters of mobs underground, and you generally don't want to run into those.
Note: Many experienced Minecraft players consider using F3 in-game as cheating and using F3 is disabled on many Minecraft multiplayer servers. If you're planning to publicize your Minecraft work, make sure you mention whether you're going to use F3 or not.
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