A couple of days ago on another thread, I was involved in a discussion regarding the useful life of diamond pickaxes. I can't remember the thread title and the discussion was a little OT anyway, so I've started this thread to report.
At that time, I reported that I had about 1.5 stacks of obsidian and had used about a 1/4 of the pickaxe's life. However, when I got home and looked more closely at the life bar, I realized that I actualy had only used about 1/8th of the life of the pickaxe, so I was mistaken that the useful life of the pickaxe was probably going to top out about about 500+ pieces of obsidian. Since then, I've encountered a major, major set of lava lakes at the edge of my mine that I've been trying to bring under control so that I can safely mine for diamonds in the layers beneath them.
Rather than fill them in with gravel this time, I decided to turn them into obsidian and mine them layer by layer to test the life of my pickaxe. Well, the lava lakes also happened to be about 6 layers deep. Anyway, even with significant losses of obsidian blocks falling into lava below them, I now have mined about 640 blocks of obsidian in my chest and I still have about 1/4 of life left on that pickaxe. So, the conclusion is that a diamond pickaxe is good for 1,562 uses (as per the Wiki) and a "use" equals 1 block mined (not swings).
BTW, does anyone have some great design ideas for 640 blocks of obsidian? I'm thinking of making my lighthouse black and white stripes using obsidian and iron blocks.
Thanks for doing that.. i used two further diamond pickaxes but never kept up with counting .. :| Regarding the obsidian, you could prepare an enderman overworld farm for the update
LOL - I am known among my friends to be somewhat tenacious. Also, I have found that it is possible to multi-task (e.g. be on the phone or another computer) while mining obsidian in Minecraft.
Nice to hear confirmation - I have been distracted, of late, by a "glass-tunnel-through-a-lava-lake" project and haven't mined a single stitch of obsidian since our discussion.
(In answer to what I expect is your unasked question, yes, I am extending a tunnel along the floor of a lava lake that is about 9 layers deep. Using glass, gravel and really fast mining and placement work, it is possible to do without having to place any lava overhead.)
McGizmo, I tweeted 4J a couple of weeks ago trying to confirm whether the endermen would be the old versions, or the new nerfed ones with no reply. Could the old endermen not move obsidian?
UU_A - as to what to do with 10 stacks, my tower (in the stickied photos) took 11 :-)
BTW, does anyone have some great design ideas for 640 blocks of obsidian?
Obsidian is good for a vault. I like it using it as interior flooring. Obsidian and glass checkerboard (with sandstone under the glass) looks really nice, imo.
I built a fortress with it... stone on the outside, but an obsidian core... three interior floors, one of them 3 blocks high, plus roof & floor, built in nether portal, etc... let's see.. roughly 560 blocks of obsidian total. I didn't waste a pick on them though, since I had lots of iron. 27 buckets made it easy work to cast the thing in place.
The core is intended as an "anti-griefer" haven, since the outer walls are all trapped with TNT & rigged to blow if tampered with. Obsidian in large quantities makes for great skirting for a structure at ground level to prevent against creeper attacks Especially when playing on "hard".
Obsidian is good for a vault. I like it using it as interior flooring. Obsidian and glass checkerboard (with sandstone under the glass) looks really nice, imo.
Hmm - I've been thinking the purple and black reminds me of a carpet design in one of the office towers I go to regularly.
I built a fortress with it... stone on the outside, but an obsidian core... three interior floors, one of them 3 blocks high, plus roof & floor, built in nether portal, etc... let's see.. roughly 560 blocks of obsidian total. I didn't waste a pick on them though, since I had lots of iron. 27 buckets made it easy work to cast the thing in place.
The core is intended as an "anti-griefer" haven, since the outer walls are all trapped with TNT & rigged to blow if tampered with. Obsidian in large quantities makes for great skirting for a structure at ground level to prevent against creeper attacks Especially when playing on "hard".
I was thinking it would certainly strengthen the sort of lighthouse I'm thinking about building (e.g. http://www.westpointlighthouse.com/ ). Combined with using iron blocks for the white stripes, It would certainly be stronger than using black and white wool.
I don't consider a waste of the pickaxe though - I got 7 diamonds out from under the one lava lake alone.
That's a great idea, you have a video of that in action?
No, but the few tests I've done work pretty well. Outer layer is stone, behind that is sand, then the obsidian. Along the top of the sand is an active redstone line leading to an inverter, which leads to nearby TNT (either in the wall itself or under the ground in the vicinity). Dig through one block of sand and you break the line above & trigger the boom-boom.
No, but the few tests I've done work pretty well. Outer layer is stone, behind that is sand, then the obsidian. Along the top of the sand is an active redstone line leading to an inverter, which leads to nearby TNT (either in the wall itself or under the ground in the vicinity). Dig through one block of sand and you break the line above & trigger the boom-boom.
Well, it's a pretty well known fact that tool durability is determined by the amount of blocks you mine. If you were to take that same diamond pick axe and use it to clear out an area for your slime spawner room, it would wear down pretty fast.
Well, it's a pretty well known fact that tool durability is determined by the amount of blocks you mine. If you were to take that same diamond pick axe and use it to clear out an area for your slime spawner room, it would wear down pretty fast.
Yes, and that's right where this discussion sort of started on the other thread. I thought, however, that even just using this pickaxe to mine obsidian that I wasn't getting near the 1,562 uses the Wiki stated and I thought maybe it was a typo. So, when I encountered these huge lava lakes, I decided to test it out (curiosity killing the cat and all that). Right now, I tend to use an iron pickaxe for everything but obsidian. The difference in the amount of time it takes to mine stone with an iron pickaxe vs. a diamond one I don't see as being all that significant. That is, the time saved to me is not really worth the wear and tear on the diamond pickaxe; particularly when I'm mainly spelunking and really only picking at small amounts of blocks here and there. If I'm drift mining, I tend to not want to go at full tilt anyway, since I tend to wind up with lava in the face syndrome... been there, done that, died. LOL
A couple of days ago on another thread, I was involved in a discussion regarding the useful life of diamond pickaxes. I can't remember the thread title and the discussion was a little OT anyway, so I've started this thread to report.
At that time, I reported that I had about 1.5 stacks of obsidian and had used about a 1/4 of the pickaxe's life. However, when I got home and looked more closely at the life bar, I realized that I actualy had only used about 1/8th of the life of the pickaxe, so I was mistaken that the useful life of the pickaxe was probably going to top out about about 500+ pieces of obsidian. Since then, I've encountered a major, major set of lava lakes at the edge of my mine that I've been trying to bring under control so that I can safely mine for diamonds in the layers beneath them.
Rather than fill them in with gravel this time, I decided to turn them into obsidian and mine them layer by layer to test the life of my pickaxe. Well, the lava lakes also happened to be about 6 layers deep. Anyway, even with significant losses of obsidian blocks falling into lava below them, I now have mined about 640 blocks of obsidian in my chest and I still have about 1/4 of life left on that pickaxe. So, the conclusion is that a diamond pickaxe is good for 1,562 uses (as per the Wiki) and a "use" equals 1 block mined (not swings).
BTW, does anyone have some great design ideas for 640 blocks of obsidian? I'm thinking of making my lighthouse black and white stripes using obsidian and iron blocks.
LOL - I am known among my friends to be somewhat tenacious. Also, I have found that it is possible to multi-task (e.g. be on the phone or another computer) while mining obsidian in Minecraft.
(In answer to what I expect is your unasked question, yes, I am extending a tunnel along the floor of a lava lake that is about 9 layers deep. Using glass, gravel and really fast mining and placement work, it is possible to do without having to place any lava overhead.)
McGizmo, I tweeted 4J a couple of weeks ago trying to confirm whether the endermen would be the old versions, or the new nerfed ones with no reply. Could the old endermen not move obsidian?
UU_A - as to what to do with 10 stacks, my tower (in the stickied photos) took 11 :-)
Obsidian is good for a vault. I like it using it as interior flooring. Obsidian and glass checkerboard (with sandstone under the glass) looks really nice, imo.
The core is intended as an "anti-griefer" haven, since the outer walls are all trapped with TNT & rigged to blow if tampered with. Obsidian in large quantities makes for great skirting for a structure at ground level to prevent against creeper attacks Especially when playing on "hard".
That's a great idea, you have a video of that in action?
Hmm - I've been thinking the purple and black reminds me of a carpet design in one of the office towers I go to regularly.
I was thinking it would certainly strengthen the sort of lighthouse I'm thinking about building (e.g. http://www.westpointlighthouse.com/ ). Combined with using iron blocks for the white stripes, It would certainly be stronger than using black and white wool.
I don't consider a waste of the pickaxe though - I got 7 diamonds out from under the one lava lake alone.
No, but the few tests I've done work pretty well. Outer layer is stone, behind that is sand, then the obsidian. Along the top of the sand is an active redstone line leading to an inverter, which leads to nearby TNT (either in the wall itself or under the ground in the vicinity). Dig through one block of sand and you break the line above & trigger the boom-boom.
Oooo - I may have to try that!
Yes, and that's right where this discussion sort of started on the other thread. I thought, however, that even just using this pickaxe to mine obsidian that I wasn't getting near the 1,562 uses the Wiki stated and I thought maybe it was a typo. So, when I encountered these huge lava lakes, I decided to test it out (curiosity killing the cat and all that). Right now, I tend to use an iron pickaxe for everything but obsidian. The difference in the amount of time it takes to mine stone with an iron pickaxe vs. a diamond one I don't see as being all that significant. That is, the time saved to me is not really worth the wear and tear on the diamond pickaxe; particularly when I'm mainly spelunking and really only picking at small amounts of blocks here and there. If I'm drift mining, I tend to not want to go at full tilt anyway, since I tend to wind up with lava in the face syndrome... been there, done that, died. LOL