FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hello all,

What's your solutions to getting in and out of a mine quickly? I'm mining at around 600 nodes deep at the moment, but I frequently want to get back to the surface, so I can dump my exploits, as well as stock up on wood for new tools/torches. But I noticed that it is starting to take quite a while to climb up and down. My mine is basically a straight staircase (one node down, one node forward).

Personally, I enjoy playing the game without stuff like flying/teleporting. Makes it more a challenge... but having said that, climbing 600 nodes is a little boring when you have to do it several times per hour.

How do you deal with this? Try to fall down (into water?)? Teleport?

Use a ladder system. If you play with the "fast" privilege then holding the action button and moving on a ladder is really quick but careful because you will get fall damage if you don't stop in time.

We need carts that can actually be loaded with stuff.

I dont care for using them (carts) as vehicles much,
but if you could load up a few carts and push them to the surface
that mod would actually be 1000x more useful for mining.

Build yourself a sneak elevator. It's cheap (free even). You can fall down it in bursts and hit the sneak button to brake from time to time to keep from hitting the bottom. Going up is blazing fast and takes no thought.

Mine straight down two blocks wide. On one wide wall dig out every other block as you go down.
XO
OX
XO
OX
XO
OX

Going up is simply the sneak button (SHIFT) and the space bar. *Vrooooooooom*
Down... just jump in and fall. Sneak button to hit the brakes.

Kinda fun :D

I make sure I have lots of tree with me and set up a work station in the mine. I smelt all the ore and make it into blocks so there isn't as much to carry. I make chest's and put the cobble in them. I don't care a whole lot about the cobble.

Napiophelios wrote:We need carts that can actually be loaded with stuff.

The technic mod has them if i remember correctly.

mushroom pore from ethereal negates fall damage.
place some at the bottom and jump down. it's 100% safe (unlike water).
to get back use the /sethome and /home commands.

if your mineshaft is a stair, you might want to replace the stone blocks with stairs. (cobble is the cheapest).
you can walk up and down without using the jump key.

if you have the travelnet mod installed, carry a travelnetbox in your inventory.
place it, go home, fill your chests, return, pick up the box and go on.

Thanks for all the feedback.

What is 'mushroom pore from ethereal'? Is it part of the regular mod (the one that is installed standard)?

I'm building a staircase, but it appears that this is quite a bit of work too, and I am not yet convinced that its construction is worth the time and material investment. I actually need all the cobble that I dig, because of a stupidly large project that I have on the surface.

The best advice for me (with my current playing style) is to just bring more supplies, and to melt ores into blocks while down in the mine. Basically, reduce the travel time by going up and down less frequently.

Thanks again!

My quickest way in and out of mines is using the Compass GPS mod, I set a point in my house for returning then set or move way-points as needed in my mine shafts or in huge cave systems.

The best type of mine is where you just dig a shaft straight down, since it's easy, quick (to reach the depth to find valuable ores), and the entire shaft is lit up by the sunlight. just make sure there are NO opaque blocks above the tunnel, or else it won't work. You can even use Travelnet elevators to go up and down, or use a sneak elevator I guess.

What is 'mushroom pore from ethereal'? Is it part of the regular mod (the one that is installed standard)?

ethereal is a mod by Tenplus1 that brings a set of fantasy styled biomes into mapgen v7.
viewtopic.php?id=7656
one of them is the "Mushroom Biome" where you can find giant mushrooms instead of trees.
inside the cap of those mushrooms you can find the mushroom pore.

You could also use water, I think. Maybe even have a stream of water running along one side of your mineshaft, so you don't have to keep placing ladders.(this might flood the hole though, so IDK.

(side view)
S=stone
W=water
=air

I prefer two ways:

1) Elevators
2) Ladder + Fast (only if 7 sticks >= 2 ladders)

It's annoying to get all the way up again without fast, so it would be helpful to have a spawn or home function.

Krock wrote:I prefer two ways:

1) Elevators
2) Ladder + Fast (only if 7 sticks >= 2 ladders)

It's annoying to get all the way up again without fast, so it would be helpful to have a spawn or home function.

I almost never climb back out of mines, I either /home or /spawn, or I use elevators (that's why vertical mineshafts are so great!)

ExeterDad wrote:Build yourself a sneak elevator. It's cheap (free even). You can fall down it in bursts and hit the sneak button to brake from time to time to keep from hitting the bottom. Going up is blazing fast and takes no thought.

Mine straight down two blocks wide. On one wide wall dig out every other block as you go down.
XO
OX
XO
OX
XO
OX

Going up is simply the sneak button (SHIFT) and the space bar. *Vrooooooooom*
Down... just jump in and fall. Sneak button to hit the brakes.

I knew there was this thing called a 'sneak elevator,' but hadn't seen a clear explanation. Thanks!

ExeterDad wrote:Build yourself a sneak elevator. It's cheap (free even). You can fall down it in bursts and hit the sneak button to brake from time to time to keep from hitting the bottom. Going up is blazing fast and takes no thought.

Mine straight down two blocks wide. On one wide wall dig out every other block as you go down.
XO
OX
XO
OX
XO
OX

Going up is simply the sneak button (SHIFT) and the space bar. *Vrooooooooom*
Down... just jump in and fall. Sneak button to hit the brakes.

Kinda fun :D

you can do this in a one block wide space, if the gravity is low enough (like with moontest).

You don't have to put the blocks on a flat face like in exterdad's example, but you can move the right side forwards one block and it won't take up as much space. Like so:

I usually dig straight down, with some additional holes from time to time (at diffrent heights) to get a sneak elevator for braking. As soon as inventory, craft grid and bags are filled with material, /home teleports me to my chests. Finding back to the entrance of a complex cave system won't work anyway - I've given up on that. And returning to the bottom of the mine works by jumping into the shaft and pressing shift from time to time. The in-built partial sneak elevators allow me to reduce speed and land safely somewhere down. If the server has mobs installed, some mobs may fall on my head. Or I on theirs.

The moontest server is really awesome, because you can build sneak elevators with larger gaps between the holes, and also if you hold the run button while climbing a ladder, you'll shoot up really high.

I just made a mod that you might like. It is called mymineshaft.
You can make the shaft and place it in a vertical hole. You can go fast up and down the shaft. If you hit the bottom going fast you will not get hurt.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11564

Those of you who dig straight down: How do you deal with the lava lakes and caverns? It would appear to me that if you just dig straight down, you'll eventually remove the last stone and plunge into a large empty cavern, or worse, into a lava pool?

Magz_builder wrote:Those of you who dig straight down: How do you deal with the lava lakes and caverns? It would appear to me that if you just dig straight down, you'll eventually remove the last stone and plunge into a large empty cavern, or worse, into a lava pool?

If you are digging down while creating a sneak elevator, you hold SHIFT (sneak). You will not fall.

Magz_builder wrote:Those of you who dig straight down: How do you deal with the lava lakes and caverns? It would appear to me that if you just dig straight down, you'll eventually remove the last stone and plunge into a large empty cavern, or worse, into a lava pool?

And often on servers you have 2 home positions: the one of unified inventory and the /home

Magz_builder wrote:Those of you who dig straight down: How do you deal with the lava lakes and caverns? It would appear to me that if you just dig straight down, you'll eventually remove the last stone and plunge into a large empty cavern, or worse, into a lava pool?

It is very rare, and unlike in minecraft, most minetest servers let you keep your items when you die, or just create bones which aren't destroyed by lava.

It's definitely worth it to dig straight down rather than make stairs or mine in caves, because caves are even more dangerous if there are hostile mobs, and digging down is faster and doesn't require any torches.

12Me21 wrote:It is very rare, and unlike in minecraft, most minetest servers let you keep your items when you die, or just create bones which aren't destroyed by lava.

Rare?
I'm playing a default game (bsaically no additional mods, no interference with the world creating settings or whatever), and I went through 4 lava lakes and at least 10 caverns, some of which were 10-15 nodes high at places, before hitting 1000 nodes depth, when I dig down diagonally (one down, one forward).

This is the only game so far that I dig really deep, so my data set is quite limited.

Magz_builder wrote:

12Me21 wrote:It is very rare, and unlike in minecraft, most minetest servers let you keep your items when you die, or just create bones which aren't destroyed by lava.

Rare?
I'm playing a default game (bsaically no additional mods, no interference with the world creating settings or whatever), and I went through 4 lava lakes and at least 10 caverns, some of which were 10-15 nodes high at places, before hitting 1000 nodes depth, when I dig down diagonally (one down, one forward).

This is the only game so far that I dig really deep, so my data set is quite limited.

hmm... I've dug down to -10000 on moontest and only hit one or 2 lava lakes, though I think they're less common there, and there's a glitch on the server where, if you die in lava, you respawn in the same place and are invincible. (sometimes)

I also have done some mining on Just Test; I've only gone down to around -600, but I have only hit one small cave.

I think it might be more likely to hit lava lakes while digging diagonally down, but I'm sure it also has to do with the servers that I play on.

If you have water in the shaft when you go down then you can swim up fast enough. Only issue is that you dig slower so you are not ahead of the water and you will have to dig sideways every so often for air.

Anyone tried making a pile of TNT, sitting on top it, lit it, to get blown out of the mine?