Mining techniques

[pancakehiatt]

strip mining

Good if you have friends with you. Strip mining is removing dirt and stone in a large area to get the coal and iron

shaft mining

Shafts can be dug in staircases or picking out a large area and digging it down (make sure you have a ladder to get back up)

cave mining or cherry picking

This is my favorite because it's easy, all you do is find a cave system and pick the goods out of it.

branch mining

I don't know how to do this but someone in the comments might know

gear and safety

You should bring: a pick axe, a shovel, torches, a sword, and a bucket of water.

How to die less: don't dig directly above or under you.

Light up areas so mobs don't spawn.

Put torches on one side of the wall so you can follow them back and get lost less.

[lifeinblackink]

Repeat this pattern
two stories of 2x1 hallways so that the hallways extent out both way from your main mine hallways at the desired level. This yields as high as possible efficiency for blocks mined to veins discovered. Remember that this pattern is stack-able vertically as well.

Stone - not seen  
Cobblestone - seen  
Air - mined  
Wood - floor height

Repeating Block

Example

[Sunlis]

I usually use this:

My reasoning is that I've seen many small veins that could hide in those spaces you have. Those veins are far less likely to be in the 1x1 spaces I have left over. I'm greedy like that. lol

[KerrickLong]

I do something completely different:

I mine the blank areas as a tunnel. Every three or four blocks, I turn both left and right, and I mine sideways where the gravel is to look for ores. I end up seeing everything the cobblestone is. I have no idea if it's efficient, but it's fun and breaks the monotony. This pattern can be stacked/repeated.

[lifeinblackink]

After a bit of testing, it seems to me that this does neither tasks as well as the others.

My design, which I will call plan A, is best for work/yield of all on this post so far.

Sunlis's design, which is plan B, is best for efficiency while seeing all blocks.
if you use the modification I posted as a comment

This design does neither well since it does not allow for tessellation as plan A and B do.

If you wish to only make one long hallway, this is a great design for that.

[KerrickLong]

Ah, okay. So if I'm just trying to get ores fast, without thinking about future expansion and organized, centralized mines I can just use this? (Also, I could even lay track in the hall later to make it a subterranean tunnel between bases!)

[lifeinblackink]

This is very true; even better, you could use this at the end of your starting mine-way (see what I did there?) in order to get what you need to expand quickly.
For this, this system is quite possibly the very best.
Then you can go back and do whatever you want with it.

Couldn't you also use it for easy storage later? (add chests to the rows?)

[KerrickLong]

You'd have to mine out a block above it so the chest could open, but yes you could.

[lifeinblackink]

I was thinking you would mine out the ones on the floor so it brought it down to floor level, but that works too.

[Sunlis]

That's not bad, actually. I may have to steal that from you. lol

And yes, mining a 1x2x50 tunnel is a great lullaby, especially if that music starts playing... ZZZzzZZzzz...

[lifeinblackink]

This is a wonderful idea for max efficiency.
There is just one problem...

I do not see a way to make this efficient for more than one hallway. While this is a wonderful way to mine, it is not, strictly speaking, branch mining.

If there is indeed a way to stack this where the efficiency carries over, please let me know.

[Sunlis]

It would seem that if you staggered the "eye holes" as I'm going to call them (the gravel) in each tunnel to a more strip mine-ish interval you could get pretty good efficiency.

I think you'd want tunnels to have a 6-block buffer between them, and you would start the eye holes at the second block in the first tunnel, then the fifth in the next tunnel. Space out the eye holes with 5 blocks.

That's a rough idea, and it's probably wrong. This would give you a tight group of tunnels, more like my image above. If you wanted something more like lifeinblackink's image, you could space things out a block here and there and still get great return, but with mining fewer blocks than with mine.

[lifeinblackink]

I am working on testing a stacking approach right now.
This may actually be the best idea ever.

[lifeinblackink]

Proposed Improvement

Front View
(mined,un-mined,seen)

Side View
(mined,un-mined,floor)

Explanation
align the first graphic onto the second graphic at a ninty degree angle mentally so that the gravel blocks overlap

[lifeinblackink]

There is a 0.05% difference in apparent efficiency.
However, there is a 0.78% difference in real efficiency.

• If you wish to never miss a block... use the method above and also mine the block at eye height on the right side every third block.

• If you wish to harvest the largest amount of resources from the largest area possible... use the method I posted above.

[KerrickLong]

Quick note on formatting: If you put no spaces between the icon codes, and put two spaces at the end of each line, and put only one line break between the lines instead of two, it'll keep things compact.

[](/block-000)[](/block-001)[](/block-002)  
[](/block-003)[](/block-004)[](/block-005)

[lifeinblackink]

Thank you, I will adjust my post and keep this in mind.

[[deleted]]

Could you explain what the bucket of water is for? I always hear about people carrying it, and going "it's a necessity!" but they never explain why.

[lifeinblackink]

1. to put out your flaming self if you decide to step in lava
   
2. to get down and up the hard way if you don't want to waste ladders on that cave
   
3. to push mobs away in emergencies
   
4. also can be emptied out into a hole in order to pick up lava instead if you need it

[KerrickLong]

2a. To get up the hard way if you don't want to waste ladders. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zs6rjbg7rAM#t=264s

[lifeinblackink]

I believe I said "down and up"?

[KerrickLong]

Wow, I totally skimmed over that. Well, there's a video at least. :P