What's the best level to mine Emerald Ore?

Question

I mine for diamonds at level 10, what level should I mine at for Emerald ore?

Asked by fredley

Answer

As is written here, you can find Emeralds between 1 and 30. But I don't think it's worth the time and materials you need to mine for Emeralds, since they are 1/40 times as common as diamonds.

Emerald Ore is approximately 1/40 as common as Diamond Ore (174 Emerald Ore in 2382 chunks, compared to 6637 Diamond Ore).

I think a better way to get Emeralds is to sell stuff like, coal (since you can use charcoal for your furnaces, or you can try sell charcoal, but I'm not sure that it will work.), weat (since it's renewable.), wool (since you can build a sheep farm.) or rotten flesh (if you have a zombie grinder.).

Answered by cedi

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What happens when you take out the blue wool from a desert pyramid?

Question

New to Minecraft are desert pyramids with a bunch of colored wool in them. The wool at the very center is blue and apparently a "surprise" is deployed if you were to remove it.

What does happen exactly? The pyramid collapses? TNT fountains? Mega-charged-creeper army? An ancient curse turns into a mooshroom? Eleventy thousand chickens suddenly attack you Zelda style?

Asked by badp

Answer

There is a deep pit with 4 chests (which contain various items: iron and gold ingots, diamonds, emeralds, bones...) and a pressure plate in the middle. Underneath the pressure plate are 9 blocks of TNT which explode after some time if you step on it.

The player in this screenshot is in the place of the removed blue wool block. One piece of sandstone at the bottom has been removed by me to show the TNT. The room is well lit because there is a hole in the ceiling right above the blue block.

You can easily avoid the pressure plate if you dig out one of the adjacent blocks to the blue one (note that now the pit will be much darker), but the fall is still quite deadly and takes 4 hearts.

And here is a video that demonstrates this:

Answered by BlaXpirit

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What's the maximum number of powered rails in a row that's useful?

Question

I'm going through my rail network, replacing boosters with powered rails. However I'm finding that unlike boosters, which 'break' the laws of minecraft physics (by giving the cart much more momentum than its speed should allow), powered rails can't propel carts over very long distances, and it seems that even making a very long boost doesn't help this.

How should I cluster my powered rails for maximum efficiency? How many should I put at a time, both on flat, and inclined stretches?

Update

I've un-answered this question and added a bounty to reflect the changes in 1.6.

Asked by fredley

Answer

For inclines in 1.6 (tested), one powered rail at the bottom of a slope will boost a cart with a player in it up 6 blocks before needing another boost.

EDIT: TaviRider has made another great video showing all the powered rail things in 1.6.

Answered by The Communist Duck

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How to be self-sufficient in the sky?

Question

Along the topic of this question, I was wondering whats the minimum amount of stuff you need from the surface to be self sufficient living in the sky?

I tried living in a cave for long time and it wasn't a challenge enough. I though that I could build a floating sky platform a live up there.

Consider the following problems:

• grass: of course you could build a dirt stair and wait for it to grow, but isn't there a much easier way? something like bonemeal maybe?
• animals: they are pretty hard to bring up there
• metals: I heard you can create stone putting together lava and water, but what about iron and coal and other fundamental metals?
• ...

How would I manage it?

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

The renewable resource page on the Minecraft Wiki is a great help.

I did something like this on an adventure map ("Land Claster" or something like that) where you're thrown onto a floating island and there are a half dozen others you can build towards. I might recommend a pre-made adventure map like this so you can learn by experience.

As far as what you need to build stuff versus living in a cave; the easiest renewable building material is wood. You need dirt to grow it, but you never consume it. Metals, strictly speaking, are renewable, but you can only get gold from Zombie Pigmen (in the nether), and iron from killing (personally, mob grinders don't work unless they just weaken them) Zombies. In order to get into the nether to get gold you'll need lava, water and diamond (or loose blocks of obsidian). Lava and water can also be combined in a cobblestone generator to create infinite amounts of stone (using a slightly less infinite amount of wood).

Animals yes, and you'll want some grass to feed the sheep and be able to use bone-meal to force some tall grass to get wheat seeds or flowers. Bone meal is free; almost too easy in a sky map with limited spawn space; you'll be rolling in it once you get a grinder going, along with tons of absolutely useless gunpowder.

Sand/glass is another non-renewable resource, along with other minerals; gravel, redstone, lapis lazuli, etc. "Coal" proper isn't renewable, but you can make the next best thing; charcoal, endlessly with your tree farm.

Answered by Nick T

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What is this texture for?

Question

Hey so i was making a texture pack when I saw this:

What is this texture for?

Asked by Dutch Clark

Answer

As per this wiki page, it's the texture for the Ender Dragon Egg:

Answered by gnovice

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Minecraft delay trap

Question

Im making a trap so that when an object is removed from the pressure plate it blows up but im a bit stuck. The pressure plate does not change the state of the redstone torch on the endblock. I need it to be on when an item is removed from the pressure plate, thus blowing up the player.

Asked by mrminecraft3000

Answer

You can remove the top torch and replace it with redstone to do what you want. In fact you can even remove the first two wood blocks and replace them with redstone.

This design has a serious flaw, though: the dropped item will despawn after 5 minutes, causing the trap to activate even if there is no player around. To work around that, you can use a dispenser and a long timer. After e.g. 4.5 minutes measured by the timer, the dispenser would drop another item on the pressure plate, so when the first item despawns, the pressure plate will still be on.

Answered by Kcats

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Is Minecraft (PC) Controller-Friendly?

Question

Am I able to use a controller to play the PC version of Minecraft? If so, can I just plug it in and play or do I have to do something else before being able use one?

Asked by Jonny B

Answer

There is no built-in controller support on the PC version of Minecraft. You will need something like Xpadder to change each controller input to a keyboard/mouse input in order to use a controller.

Answered by Ampersand

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How do I sprint in Minecraft?

Question

I've seen a couple of videos of people sprinting in Minecraft (1.8). How do you do so?

Asked by Rapida

Answer

Double tap and hold your W key.

Answered by ProSay

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Why can't I get Zombie Pigmen to spawn?

Question

I have spent the last several days making a Zombie Pigman Grinder/Gold Farm. this is on Minecraft SMP, and so this took a while. Now it is built, and I cannot get any Zombie pigmen to spawn for the life of me. I have waited at the base/ collection area of the trap for 10 minutes - and none spawned. Here are some screenshots of the trap:

This is the base of the trap, where the Zombie pigmen fall, and I can collect the gold nuggets here.

Looking up at the top of the trap. Basic working principle is that the pigmen spawn up there in the spawning area and walk onto the open gates as if they were solid blocks, then fall 30 blocks to their death.

Spawning Area, from the right side.

Spawning area, from the left side.

I know that they are spawning because there are a lot outside. I'm playing on the server 50.56.92.111, on Normal difficulty. Thanks so much for taking the time to help me solve my problem!

Asked by William

Answer

The answer you are looking for is hidden inside you own question: "there are a lot outside". The game randomly checks places to put mobs and since the outside is much larger than your trap, most of the zombie pigmen spawn there. The mob limit is exhausted pretty much instantly and the game doesn't spawn any more, unless some of the existing mobs de-spawn or get killed.

You will get zombie pigmen to spawn in your trap eventually, but you may have to wait hours for just a few spawns. You need to prevent spawning outside your trap to improve rates of your trap. This is very difficult to do in the nether, since you can't use light or water to prevent spawning. That is why you don't see zombie pigmen traps, building one is a monumental project. Notice for example here a huge area is covered with half-slabs to prevent spawning.

The spawnable area is +/- 8 chunks from each chunk where there is a player (minus the chunks on the edges of that area). If a single player is online, mobs spawn in 240x240 blocks area centered on the player chunk, that is roughly +/- 120 blocks from the player.

Answered by Kcats

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How can I control each piston of a pile of 8 pistons?

Question

Is there a way to be able to control (make it open or close) each piston (separately) of a pile of 8 pistons put like this:

    P
    P
    P
   ...
    P

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

I don't believe this is currently possible. It is possible to isolate the inputs to each piston such that they can be independently extended, but the problem arises when you want to independently retract them. Here is the key point from the "Bugs" section of the Minecraft Wiki for Pistons:

If two extended pistons are one above the other, the lower one cannot retract until the upper one retracts (video explanation). If the top one will start extending while bottom one is still retracting, the last will start extending as well.

The only possible solution I can think of (which isn't ideal) would be to retract all higher pistons whenever a given piston needs to retract, then return them to their previous state (extended or retracted) after a brief delay. This is the only way to ensure that a given piston can retract, but would require some messy redstone circuitry.

Here's hoping that this bug will be fixed in the future.

Answered by gnovice

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Is there a tree with a fixed height?

Question

Is there a tree that once grown (from sapling to tree) it has always a X height and remain that amount forever?

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

No trees grow after their initial transformation from sapling to tree. You can limit the height of oak trees by building a ceiling (so that large trees don't grow). The height of the trunk will still vary though.

The most uniform type of trees are birch trees:

The trunk will grow to be 5, 6, or 7 blocks tall.

Spruce and jungle trees vary wildly and should be avoided.

Answered by fredley

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Are there any blocks that spiders cannot climb?

Question

I'm building a spider spawner exp farm, and I have everything planned out.

Now the only thing is to build it. But what material should I use?

Are there any blocks that a spider (either type) just cannot hold on to the sides of?

My farm should function if there are none, but it would be a huge boost to convenience and efficiency if there are any such blocks.

Keep in mind that this question is not the same as this question which just asks how to make your house safe from spiders.

Asked by Mr Smooth

Answer

Spiders can climb:

• Any solid block, that is, one that obstructs the players movement. This includes 'solid' blocks such as stone, wood, dirt etc. as well as 'transparent' blocks such as fence, glass panes and iron bars.

• Ladders and creeper, exactly as the player can.

Spiders cannot climb:

• Blocks which do not impede the player, such as grass, sugar cane, fire or flowers.

• Water or lava, but will behave as other mobs (swim/drown, burn).

• Nether portal blocks (they can climb the surrounding obsidian though).

Answered by fredley

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What features differ between the XBLA and PC versions of minecraft?

Question

What differences does the Xbox 360 version of minecraft have compared to playing on the PC?

EDIT: At the risk of this being too localized, I'm asking more about differences exclusive to each platform, not just differences of features that will most likely be added in future updates (for example, crafting). Otherwise, I feel like this question could become similar to a "What is the difference between Minecraft version x and version y" question, which isn't really what I'm asking. A simple "the XBLA minecraft runs version x of minecraft" is enough for that.

Asked by PileOfDuty

Answer

According to the Minecraft Wiki, the Xbox version is closest to Beta 1.6.6. It's not version 1.2, although it is expected to be updated to it eventually. It is most likely somewhere between 1.0 and 1.2.

Here are a few key differences between the versions.

• Local 4 player split-screen multiplayer (requires HDTV, won't work on SD)
• Limited to 8 player online play (apparently cross platform multi, but not too sure about that)
• Newly designed crafting system
  • Seems to use a list for crafting, so you don't need to remember recipes
• World's limited to 1024x1024x64 blocks (PC is ∞X∞X256, expected to be increased in later versions)
• Cannot change difficulty mid-game
• Can't use mods, texture packs, or add player skins (8 skins included in game)
  • Texture packs and mods support is expected much later
• Includes tutorial mode
• Kinect support is expected to be added later

The next version release is expected to be version 1.7 (1.7 changelog)

Answered by Dracs

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How do I make a piston go up and then down?

Question

I'd like to make a piston go up and down just once (then I'll make this thing repeat forever), how do I do that? How do I give the piston the order to go down after it went up in a single tick?

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

You want to use a monostable circuit. This turns any input pulse into a pulse with an exact length (in ticks). Hook this up to your clock and you can pulse the piston on for 1, 2, or however many ticks you want.

By tweaking your clock speed and monostable circuit you can get very precise piston pulses, e.g. 1 tick on, 5 ticks off; 3 ticks on, 7 ticks off etc.

sethbling, noted redstone genius, gives a very good guide to monstable circuits, as well as other redstone components in this video:

Answered by fredley

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How can I automatically mine wood?

Question

Is there any way to go from wood blocks to items without manual intervention?

I'd like to mine wood automatically without having to use my hands/tools.

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

Currently, the only way to get from a wood block to a wood item without manually breaking it is to fuse TNT close enough to the wood block. Unfortunately, TNT will also do the same to any block within a certain radius and there is a ~70% chance that no item will drop from the destroyed block.

Answered by blubb

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How can I play Minecraft in fullscreen mode in Linux?

Question

How can I play Minecraft in fullscreen in Linux? On my system, I only get a windowed mode with a quarter of the screen size and the rest is black.

I am using ArchLinux and the awesome awesome window manager.

Asked by xeroc

Answer

Press F11.

Be aware that currently (= version 1.2_02) I am experiencing an issue with controlling the GUI with the mouse when coming back from full screen. You might want to maximize the game window instead, for the time being.

Answered by badp

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Transparent items like glass

Question

Are there any other materials that are transparent and could be used in replacement of glass?

PS: Is there any other way to cook glass without sand? ( Near my house I have basically no sand :( )

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

Leaves are slightly transparent and can be harvested with shears. Unlike "natural" leaves, harvested and replaced leaves will not decay for want of a tree.

Fences are probably the cheapest alternative, you can stack them as much as you like in recent patches.

Iron Bars would also work; they function similarly to glass panes.

If you're in a snow biome and patient, Ice would work. Lay down a single layer of water source blocks, expose it to air (vertically), wait for it to freeze and repeat. Be sure not to put torches near it!

That said, I might make a little trip and try to stock up on a ton of sand (4 stacks or so), if you convert it to glass panes you can break and replace them (unlike blocks) so even if you remodel you won't be losing anything.

Answered by Nick T

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How many items can produce light?

Question

I was wondering, leaving the torch and the jack o' lantern apart, how many items and which can produce light?

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

There is a list of light-emitting blocks on the Minecraft Wiki.

These blocks along with the light levels the produce are as follows:

• Fire - 15
• Jack-O-Lantern - 15
• Lava - 15
• Glowstone - 15
• End Portal Block - 15
• Active Redstone Lamp - 15
• Torch - 14
• Lit Furnace - 13
• Nether Portal Block - 11
• Redstone Ore, when touched - 9
• Active Redstone Repeater- 9
• Lit Redstone Torch - 7
• Brown Mushroom - 1
• Brewing Stand - 1
• Dragon Egg - 1

While not technically blocks, additional light sources include:

• Sunlight - 15
• Sunlight when raining or snowing - 12
• Sunlight, when thundering - 10
• Moonlight - 4

Additionally:

Certain blocks will only allow light to pass through diffusely. These are water and ice, which reduce light by an additional 2 levels per block, and leaves, which diffuse sunlight but only reduce light by the normal 1 level per block.

There are also quite a few lighting bugs to consider.

Answered by OrigamiRobot

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Minecraft TNT Mining

Question

I've got some TNT and a way to set it off, but I'm scared I might destroy precious minerals like diamonds, redstone or gold. Is there a way to set it off, but in a safe way? I know water stops it but then the TNT wouldn't do anything.

Asked by mrminecraft3000

Answer

If by a safe way you mean one where the TNT wouldn't destroy valuable resources, then no.

TNT is somewhat impractical for mining, because only about 30%-ish of the destroyed resources actually drop as items (wiki). So if you don't want to risk destroying diamonds and such, don't use TNT — at least when you're deep enough for the resources to occur.

Answered by lunboks

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How to play mincraft in fullscreen mode?

Question

Is there anybody who can play Minecraft in fullscreen and can tell me how to do this in Linux. On my system I only get a windowed mode with a quarter of the screen size and the rest is black.

I am using ArchLinux and the awesome awesome window manager.

Asked by xeroc

Answer

Press F11.

Be aware that currently (= version 1.2_02) I am experiencing an issue with controlling the GUI with the mouse when coming back from full screen. You might want to maximize the game window instead, for the time being.

Answered by badp

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