I started my adventure about a week ago. I piddled around for about 3 days getting accustomed to the GUI and how the game works.I learned very quickly that farms are the way to go when collecting resources.
I have built an iron farm. It is 27 blocks off the ground.
Now I have managed to get it all built and stocked with villagers(worse than herding cats) and a zombie holding block of cobble. I left the area and went some 6-7 chunks away and when I came back the villagers and zombie are gone. I am irritated now as I spent 4 hours(made lots of mistakes and killed at least half dozen villagers.) getting the villagers and zombie set up.
Now I saw a few vids about something called a spawn chunk so I made a compass and went to the place it was pointing and marked the intersection of 4 chunks and that is where I built this iron farm. I built it here because lots of diff youtube creators say, if you want a farm to run all the time while in the over world it has to be built here. I tried to mark the spawn chunk limits but never could get it to work properly.
So I must be doing something wrong but have no idea what. IF I build within 6 chunks of where the compass points it should be the spawn chunk area right.
Second, sorry I can't really answer your question.
You're right about spawn chunks in principal, but regardless if they were in spawn chunks or not, neither villagers, nor named (or holding or wearing something) zombies—named anything—should ever de-spawn (as in, permanently disappear). Yes, when you walk away from them, they are eventually "unloaded," but when you return to the area, the chunks are reloaded and those entities should appear again in the same place they were when they were unloaded. That's all generally speaking.
However, Minecraft is terribly glitchy. It sounds like you suffered from a glitch to me, though I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Others with more knowledge than I are certain to give better advice.
Personally, I wouldn't mess with an iron farm even for finishing up a full beacon. By the time I'm ready to construct a full beacon, I usually have so much iron in excess that I don't have to do too much mining to get the rest. After that, It starts to really pile up in the chests. Of course, everyone plays and enjoy Minecraft differently. That's just been my experience.
I have read that they are a whole lot simpler in 1.14, though.
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My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
I've never bothered with farms of any sort (of course, besides the basics like a crop farm, animal pen, and a place for growing trees); I regularly mine all the iron required for a level 4 beacon every two days - with total of nearly a third of a million ore mined over a 100 day period, including 8742 blocks worth of iron (a level 4 beacon requires 164, and a 6 beacon pyramid requires 244, which is still only about 3 days per beacon) - all of these resources are simply seen as a byproduct of caving for fun which also happens to meet my needs (the amount of iron I use is quite low, mostly for anvils to repair my gear and if I played in 1.9+ not even that):
Likewise, you can get tons of XP by mining quartz in the Nether, and as long as you don't regularly die and lose your gear you only have to do this one time, making its non-renewability a non-issue (it is also possible to reset the Nether by deleting its files without affecting any other dimensions, as I've done to reduce the size of backups (I never return to or build anything important in either the Nether or End); console editions even let you do this with an in-game option):
So I am really new to the game. I am not much for mining endlessly. At this point I am trying to automate iron production so I can get enough iron to make stuff. Right now I have a stone pick and one iron pick(used for rare materials only).
I have not even found enough iron to replace my armor when it breaks. Spending 25 or so iron on new armor is a big expense for me right now. I've had the game for just over a week now.
Understood! Like I say, it sounds like a glitch wiped out your entities—though it could have been a lot of things. Glitches of that nature are unfortunately more common than one might expect. Glitches in general are a common occurrence in Minecraft.
It sounds like you're mining too shallow.
Make your way down to the lava layer either by digging stairs down or simply caving. If you press F3 to pull up the debug screen, the lava layer is at Y-level 11. At Y=11, dig a straight 1x2 shaft for about as long as your attention span will allow collecting all the resources. Then, dig 1x2 tunnels going out from that first shaft every four blocks or so (shaft, block, block, block, shaft, block block, block, shaft, etc.). This process is called branch mining. You'll find lots of iron in less time than it would take to even make an iron farm, but additionally, you'll have coal, redstone, lapis, gold, and diamonds, too!
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My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
Yeah, sounds like you had a random glitch.[/p]
Iron farms are essential for me. I use the same one you’ve built, and it works a charm. Stick with it and restock the villagers/zombies. The day will come when you need 700 hoppers for a project and it’s great to have the resource to hand. Spawn chunks are a 23x23 area of chunks around world spawn. There’s plenty of youtube vids detailing how you can accurately mark them out. If you put your iron farm within them, it will run 24x7.[/p]
However, that said, you’re just starting out in this world. Spend a few days caving at Y11 and get good stock of resources. This will give you a solid footing to begin with.[/p]
I think I figured it out the iron mine I built just is not that good. The previous one from the original post.
Villagers keep ending up on the end of the beds and I think they just fall off.
I have since tried a new design. I am going to stick with this mine idea for the time being. I had to line the floor with bottom slabs to keeo golums from spawning around the iron mine.
I mined down to y5 and cleared out a 26x26x26 space and built it there. it is also on a spawn chunk. It actually works.
But now I have a new problem. My windows 10 PC rebooted and now it is not loading my save game. I looked in the appdata folder and the save is still there but I have no idea how to get the game to load it. It's not even showing up in the menu of available games.
how far away from the villagers can the golums spawn?
I hope somebody can help you get your world back, I'm afraid I don't know much about that.
There is a special thread for asking for help with that, if you ask there you might get the attention of somebody knowledgeable who isn't interested in iron farms.
I hope somebody can help you get your world back, I'm afraid I don't know much about that.
There is a special thread for asking for help with that, if you ask there you might get the attention of somebody knowledgeable who isn't interested in iron farms.
There's no need to put the iron farm down low, Sharpe103 was talking about a mine, that's tunnels you dig through the rock to find ore.
The Wiki (third button on the green menu bar at the top of the page) says
"The iron golem then has a chance to spawn in a 16×6×16 cuboid area centered above and below the location of the villager who spread the gossip."
Personally I can't make heads or tails about which heights they can spawn on but it's clearly saying up to 16 blocks horizontally.
Yep yep I know a bit about mining and where to find various items like diamonds and such.
Now that I have lost my game and am starting over I have dug a mine 10x10 all the way back down to y5. at the bottom I have started a branch mine. I will over time expand the shaft and make it bigger. I plan to build my empire all up and down this shaft. At this time I am still using stone tools. I have found a few caches of diamonds but I will not collect them until I have the proper enchants from fishing(I built my fishing station last night but have not used it more than 10min so far. ) to get mending and efficiency on a diamond pick.
I really like the idea of automating my farms and resource gathering. I do plan to build that iron farm at the bottom of the shaft again. I am going to play with the layout a bit to see if I can increase the spawn rates. Automating resource collection was what has drawn me to this game in the first place. That and just building stuff in general. I like that there are no gravity physics.
So for all you guys that mine everything manually, remember I am new to the game I might have 20 hours played at this point. I don't have tools that can virtually insta mine thousands of block in a few min. I am using stone picks and it takes like 5 whacks per block to get 1 block of stone. I can appreciate how easy it must be once you have what in my view at this time is equivalent to godlike powers. I will get there eventually. I am not there yet.
P.S.
Thanks to all of you for your helpful tips, links, and info.
Yep yep I know a bit about mining and where to find various items like diamonds and such.
Now that I have lost my game and am starting over I have dug a mine 10x10 all the way back down to y5. at the bottom I have started a branch mine.
Experienced players know to branch mine at Y=11—and not lower—because that's the layer where lava is at your feat. If you mine one layer higher (Y=12), you risk falling into a hole with lava at the bottom. If you mine any lower, you risk running directly into the lava. Mining at Y=5 will not net more resources because the resources are replaced by lava. So, regardless of danger, mining below Y=11 is inefficient.
So for all you guys that mine everything manually, remember I am new to the game I might have 20 hours played at this point. I don't have tools that can virtually insta mine thousands of block in a few min. I am using stone picks and it takes like 5 whacks per block to get 1 block of stone. I can appreciate how easy it must be once you have what in my view at this time is equivalent to godlike powers. I will get there eventually. I am not there yet.
We understand what it's like to be new. Just have fun and play the game however you like, including building auto farms. We're just saying to build an iron farm for fun, not iron, and certainly not iron for equipment. Build an iron farm for iron for epic projects (in which case, you'll probably want an epic-project-sized iron farm).
Experienced players generally use your their very first three diamonds to make a diamond pick, which they then use as their general pick. You'll be amazed at how long it lasts.
The amount of time you save using a diamond pick will net you far more diamonds than "saving" diamonds by using stone or iron picks.
Whatever you do, don't horde diamonds in chests like sacred objects. Use them. If there's one thing I could go back in time and tell my Minecraft self, that would be it.
Of course, I was a lot more prone to death back then. There's nothing worse than losing your diamond gear to lava. Which is why I always carry a bucket of water on my hotbar, and, once I get to the Nether, a fire resistance potion.
Experienced players know best of all the pain of loss, because boy have we ever felt it!
Have fun!
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My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
Mining at Y=5 will not net more resources because the resources are replaced by lava. So, regardless of danger, mining below Y=11 is inefficient.
This is highly misleading - lava does indeed "replace" resources ("replace" as they can only replace stone, not because, as so often assumed, caves/lava generate later on) but so do caves above y=11, and cave density reaches a maximum higher up (caves alone peak just above layer 11, ravines and mineshafts peak around layer 30). Most of the lava below y=11 is due to caves filled with lava, otherwise there is no special world generation to increase the amount of lava, aside from the occasional lava lakes found at any elevation.
In fact, you'll find slightly more diamonds deeper down; this chart shows an increase in ores down to the uppermost bedrock layer (most obvious with coal due to its abundance); in all of my modded worlds I mine below lava level since I have an extremely rare and valuable ore that is most common below it, and in the last such world I found about a 0.9% ratio of diamonds (with the same density as vanilla) to blocks mined from the tunnels - as the Wiki indicates you should get for a tunnel spacing of 3 blocks (a tunnel every 4 blocks. They also indicate that you can double the ratio, up to 1.7%, by increasing the spacing to at least 6 - equivalent to a diamond ore found every 59 blocks mined. Iron ore is about 6 times more abundant than diamond between layers 5-12, so this translates to one iron found every 10 blocks mined. In either case, this is effectively about 14 times the abundance as a percentage of all blocks).
I don't have much issue with lava either, despite playing on worlds with much more extensive cave systems than in current releases (example of a mine I made; I could have extended it much further to the east with only a few small pockets of lava, which I actually mine straight through, unless they are too extensive, as in another world). Otherwise, it is very easy to avoid lava since it moves so slowly - just don't mine right up against the end of the tunnel (I also always hold shift out of habit when mining, even when mining ores in the ceiling).
No, it isn't. I wasn't about to type a book like you just did to explain why experienced players mine at Y=11. Misleading him would be to tell him to mine below Y=11. I didn't read all that, so if that's not what you're saying, disregard.
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My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
No, it isn't. I wasn't about to type a book like you just did to explain why experienced players mine at Y=11. Misleading him would be to tell him to mine below Y=11. I didn't read all that, so if that's not what you're saying, disregard.
I was saying that you think that lava significantly reduces the amount of resources below y=11 when that simply isn't true at all, any more than caves replace resources above y=11 (since most of the lava below y=11 is nothing more than caves which are filled with lava, otherwise you have those little ponds of water and lava at any altitude):
(this is an old chart from Beta 1.7.3 but it accurately shows the amount of lava below layer 11, unlike a newer chart, and the distribution of caves hasn't changed since then. The peak layer of cave density is around layer 12).
(note that the amount of ores does not drop off until you get down to layer 4, due to bedrock displacing stone)
(believe it or not, this mine is entirely below lava level, in fact, at y=1, where the rarest and most valuable ore generates in TMCW, hence why I mine so deep down. I sure did have a lot of difficulty dealing with lava - or maybe not, despite cave systems which are far more extensive than in vanilla versions since 1.7. This also explains why digging straight down isn't as bad as popularly thought)
Experienced players know to branch mine at Y=11—and not lower—because that's the layer where lava is at your feat. If you mine one layer higher (Y=12), you risk falling into a hole with lava at the bottom. If you mine any lower, you risk running directly into the lava. Mining at Y=5 will not net more resources because the resources are replaced by lava. So, regardless of danger, mining below Y=11 is inefficient.
We understand what it's like to be new. Just have fun and play the game however you like, including building auto farms. We're just saying to build an iron farm for fun, not iron, and certainly not iron for equipment. Build an iron farm for iron for epic projects (in which case, you'll probably want an epic-project-sized iron farm).
Experienced players generally use your their very first three diamonds to make a diamond pick, which they then use as their general pick. You'll be amazed at how long it lasts.
The amount of time you save using a diamond pick will net you far more diamonds than "saving" diamonds by using stone or iron picks.
Whatever you do, don't horde diamonds in chests like sacred objects. Use them. If there's one thing I could go back in time and tell my Minecraft self, that would be it.
Of course, I was a lot more prone to death back then. There's nothing worse than losing your diamond gear to lava. Which is why I always carry a bucket of water on my hotbar, and, once I get to the Nether, a fire resistance potion.
Experienced players know best of all the pain of loss, because boy have we ever felt it!
Have fun!
I am at y5 ...just because if was the lowest level where I could still mine without hitting impenetrable bedrock. No special reason. My master plan for my base is to dig a gigantic shaft then put all my automation's up and down the shaft. It will be called Shaft City.
I have run into lave several times and died only once so far. I now make a point to put a puddle in each branch so i can extinguish myself if need be. I also plan to put and ever flow water feature by using kelp to make all the water blocks source blocks.
I have been hoarding my diamonds but will go ahead and start using it for basic mining. This idea does make since now that you have pointed it out to me.
I lost a full set iron gear and a diamond pick by sleeping in a best to close lava and water and the water glitched me through a cobble stone wall right into a lava puddle.
Thanks for the good advice.
Lava over all is not much of a problem for me. I typically use gravel to replace it. If I am being lazy I will avoid it untill I feel like dealing with it and will normally get above it and repeat the gravel process. I do tend to find lots of ores and such around lava though. I just treat lava as a more aggressive mob types block. It just takes a little more effort to deal with.
I am at y5 ...just because if was the lowest level where I could still mine without hitting impenetrable bedrock. No special reason. My master plan for my base is to dig a gigantic shaft then put all my automation's up and down the shaft. It will be called Shaft City.
Now that is a great reason to mine at Y=5!
"Shaft City," heh heh.
I have been hoarding my diamonds but will go ahead and start using it for basic mining. This idea does make since now that you have pointed it out to me.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. In my first world (now five years old), I horded diamonds for almost two whole years. When I started playing hardcore regularly, I quickly learned from my own experience that the best way to get diamonds was to use them! With Mending now, diamonds are largely debased.
I lost a full set iron gear and a diamond pick by sleeping in a best to close lava and water and the water glitched me through a cobble stone wall right into a lava puddle.
Ouch. Losing diamonds hurts. Bad. But, it's Minecraft's numerous glitches that can really kick a guy in the teeth. Unfortunately, you got both in one dose.
Thanks for the good advice.
You're very welcome! I hope out of all the advice you get on the forums, "play however you enjoy" is always the theme.
Lava over all is not much of a problem for me. I typically use gravel to replace it. If I am being lazy I will avoid it untill I feel like dealing with it and will normally get above it and repeat the gravel process. I do tend to find lots of ores and such around lava though. I just treat lava as a more aggressive mob types block. It just takes a little more effort to deal with.
Get this, I always leave lava because I think it looks cool and ominous. I've learned to respect it, not fear it—but it's equipment-eating properties make it the most dreadful monster in the game, like you say. Only the void is worse, but it doesn't seem so much like a hostile force. Lava is molten hate.
I also enjoy knocking monsters off the sheer cliff sides of lava-bottomed ravines or pushing them into gouts with my Punch II (and no other enchantments) bow that I always carry.
Have fun! Keep up updated with your progress.
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My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
Well now I have my kelp farm, cow pen, sheep pen and chicken coup/cooker set up.
I dry kelp and turn it onto block then use it to smelt and make smooth stone and other polished stones. I continuing to expand my mine shaft. It is not ready to start building in it yet.
I just built my anvil and enchanting table(will watch some vids to learn how to use it.)
Next I am going to build a sugar cane farm. So I can make lots of books.
I think I will hold off on the diamond pick until I can get efficiency and mending on it.
I am nowhere near getting a beacon yet. I have watched vids of how people deal with a wither and it seems a bit tedious and I am not ready for that.
Right now I am questing to find bamboo.
PS. is there a way to look at a map and tell what level it is? I am trying to make a map wall.
WHOOO HOOO jsut started doing some enchanting and got my Fortune 3 pick axe. I just mined 57 diamonds. I now have a full set of dimond armor and working on getting the enchants for it now.
I found a zombie spawner right under my base. I have set up a spawn farm and can get levels pretty easy which works great with the enchanting table.
I need to be more diligent with the cow breeding so I can make more books.
I still have not set up my auto sugar cane farm.
I am working on a villager breeder atm as I want some mending books for my silk touch pick,fortune pick and all armor.
I used a skeleton spawner as an XP farm for years. They are a bit slow, but with Mending, you'll never need another set of equipment—unless you lose it, of course! Carry a fire resistance potion or bucket of water!
Say uhhh how big are the game worlds. I am guessing they are measured by number of blocks or chunks or some such.
So last night I finned my village breeder.
I modified this farm breeder. I dislike confining any creature in a 1 block cell. I just will not do it. So I built the farm portion extended two of the corners in to 3x3 bedroom/work area(composters). I now have two farmers that fornicate like mad. I had to raise the roofs in the bedrooms by 1 block so i have 2 air blocks over the beds. I then put one block trap door exclusion tunnels at the entrance to the bed rooms and the babies fall into it and get water transported to my "waiting" room where I have lined the walls with lecterns so I will train a few villagers to have mending books and several to buy paper.
I also built a 20 piston sugarcane farm.
next I am going to build my iron farm.
I always seem to have more to do than time to do it. I also get distracted really easy. I am going to have to start making a to do list for each day so I can try to stay focused.
I started my adventure about a week ago. I piddled around for about 3 days getting accustomed to the GUI and how the game works.I learned very quickly that farms are the way to go when collecting resources.
I have built an iron farm. It is 27 blocks off the ground.
Now I have managed to get it all built and stocked with villagers(worse than herding cats) and a zombie holding block of cobble. I left the area and went some 6-7 chunks away and when I came back the villagers and zombie are gone. I am irritated now as I spent 4 hours(made lots of mistakes and killed at least half dozen villagers.) getting the villagers and zombie set up.
Now I saw a few vids about something called a spawn chunk so I made a compass and went to the place it was pointing and marked the intersection of 4 chunks and that is where I built this iron farm. I built it here because lots of diff youtube creators say, if you want a farm to run all the time while in the over world it has to be built here. I tried to mark the spawn chunk limits but never could get it to work properly.
So I must be doing something wrong but have no idea what. IF I build within 6 chunks of where the compass points it should be the spawn chunk area right.
So what am I doing wrong?
First of all, welcome!
Second, sorry I can't really answer your question.
You're right about spawn chunks in principal, but regardless if they were in spawn chunks or not, neither villagers, nor named (or holding or wearing something) zombies—named anything—should ever de-spawn (as in, permanently disappear). Yes, when you walk away from them, they are eventually "unloaded," but when you return to the area, the chunks are reloaded and those entities should appear again in the same place they were when they were unloaded. That's all generally speaking.
However, Minecraft is terribly glitchy. It sounds like you suffered from a glitch to me, though I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Others with more knowledge than I are certain to give better advice.
Personally, I wouldn't mess with an iron farm even for finishing up a full beacon. By the time I'm ready to construct a full beacon, I usually have so much iron in excess that I don't have to do too much mining to get the rest. After that, It starts to really pile up in the chests. Of course, everyone plays and enjoy Minecraft differently. That's just been my experience.
I have read that they are a whole lot simpler in 1.14, though.
My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
My Quest for Elytra Complete! (Pic Intense, End-Game Spoilers)
[Journal & Pics] After a Year and a Half, I Finally Found a Jungle
FrozenCore: Hardcore Death; 3/20/15 to 5/3/15; Eight Weeks on a Frozen World in Pictures
I've never bothered with farms of any sort (of course, besides the basics like a crop farm, animal pen, and a place for growing trees); I regularly mine all the iron required for a level 4 beacon every two days - with total of nearly a third of a million ore mined over a 100 day period, including 8742 blocks worth of iron (a level 4 beacon requires 164, and a 6 beacon pyramid requires 244, which is still only about 3 days per beacon) - all of these resources are simply seen as a byproduct of caving for fun which also happens to meet my needs (the amount of iron I use is quite low, mostly for anvils to repair my gear and if I played in 1.9+ not even that):
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/discussion/2992751-the-results-of-100-play-sessions-of-caving
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/survival-mode/2173592-so-i-often-talk-about-how-much-i-cave
Likewise, you can get tons of XP by mining quartz in the Nether, and as long as you don't regularly die and lose your gear you only have to do this one time, making its non-renewability a non-issue (it is also possible to reset the Nether by deleting its files without affecting any other dimensions, as I've done to reduce the size of backups (I never return to or build anything important in either the Nether or End); console editions even let you do this with an in-game option):
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/survival-mode/295580-xp-from-mining-nether-quartz
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
So I am really new to the game. I am not much for mining endlessly. At this point I am trying to automate iron production so I can get enough iron to make stuff. Right now I have a stone pick and one iron pick(used for rare materials only).
I have not even found enough iron to replace my armor when it breaks. Spending 25 or so iron on new armor is a big expense for me right now. I've had the game for just over a week now.
Understood! Like I say, it sounds like a glitch wiped out your entities—though it could have been a lot of things. Glitches of that nature are unfortunately more common than one might expect. Glitches in general are a common occurrence in Minecraft.
It sounds like you're mining too shallow.
Make your way down to the lava layer either by digging stairs down or simply caving. If you press F3 to pull up the debug screen, the lava layer is at Y-level 11. At Y=11, dig a straight 1x2 shaft for about as long as your attention span will allow collecting all the resources. Then, dig 1x2 tunnels going out from that first shaft every four blocks or so (shaft, block, block, block, shaft, block block, block, shaft, etc.). This process is called branch mining. You'll find lots of iron in less time than it would take to even make an iron farm, but additionally, you'll have coal, redstone, lapis, gold, and diamonds, too!
My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
My Quest for Elytra Complete! (Pic Intense, End-Game Spoilers)
[Journal & Pics] After a Year and a Half, I Finally Found a Jungle
FrozenCore: Hardcore Death; 3/20/15 to 5/3/15; Eight Weeks on a Frozen World in Pictures
Iron farms are essential for me. I use the same one you’ve built, and it works a charm. Stick with it and restock the villagers/zombies. The day will come when you need 700 hoppers for a project and it’s great to have the resource to hand. Spawn chunks are a 23x23 area of chunks around world spawn. There’s plenty of youtube vids detailing how you can accurately mark them out. If you put your iron farm within them, it will run 24x7.[/p]
However, that said, you’re just starting out in this world. Spend a few days caving at Y11 and get good stock of resources. This will give you a solid footing to begin with.[/p]
I think I figured it out the iron mine I built just is not that good. The previous one from the original post.
Villagers keep ending up on the end of the beds and I think they just fall off.
I have since tried a new design. I am going to stick with this mine idea for the time being. I had to line the floor with bottom slabs to keeo golums from spawning around the iron mine.
I mined down to y5 and cleared out a 26x26x26 space and built it there. it is also on a spawn chunk. It actually works.
But now I have a new problem. My windows 10 PC rebooted and now it is not loading my save game. I looked in the appdata folder and the save is still there but I have no idea how to get the game to load it. It's not even showing up in the menu of available games.
how far away from the villagers can the golums spawn?
I hope somebody can help you get your world back, I'm afraid I don't know much about that.
There is a special thread for asking for help with that, if you ask there you might get the attention of somebody knowledgeable who isn't interested in iron farms.
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/discussion/297844-official-corrupted-save-recovery-thread?page=107
There's no need to put the iron farm down low, Sharpe103 was talking about a mine, that's tunnels you dig through the rock to find ore.
The Wiki (third button on the green menu bar at the top of the page) says
"The iron golem then has a chance to spawn in a 16×6×16 cuboid area centered above and below the location of the villager who spread the gossip."
Personally I can't make heads or tails about which heights they can spawn on but it's clearly saying up to 16 blocks horizontally.
Just testing.
Yep yep I know a bit about mining and where to find various items like diamonds and such.
Now that I have lost my game and am starting over I have dug a mine 10x10 all the way back down to y5. at the bottom I have started a branch mine. I will over time expand the shaft and make it bigger. I plan to build my empire all up and down this shaft. At this time I am still using stone tools. I have found a few caches of diamonds but I will not collect them until I have the proper enchants from fishing(I built my fishing station last night but have not used it more than 10min so far. ) to get mending and efficiency on a diamond pick.
I really like the idea of automating my farms and resource gathering. I do plan to build that iron farm at the bottom of the shaft again. I am going to play with the layout a bit to see if I can increase the spawn rates. Automating resource collection was what has drawn me to this game in the first place. That and just building stuff in general. I like that there are no gravity physics.
So for all you guys that mine everything manually, remember I am new to the game I might have 20 hours played at this point. I don't have tools that can virtually insta mine thousands of block in a few min. I am using stone picks and it takes like 5 whacks per block to get 1 block of stone. I can appreciate how easy it must be once you have what in my view at this time is equivalent to godlike powers. I will get there eventually. I am not there yet.
P.S.
Thanks to all of you for your helpful tips, links, and info.
Experienced players know to branch mine at Y=11—and not lower—because that's the layer where lava is at your feat. If you mine one layer higher (Y=12), you risk falling into a hole with lava at the bottom. If you mine any lower, you risk running directly into the lava. Mining at Y=5 will not net more resources because the resources are replaced by lava. So, regardless of danger, mining below Y=11 is inefficient.
We understand what it's like to be new. Just have fun and play the game however you like, including building auto farms. We're just saying to build an iron farm for fun, not iron, and certainly not iron for equipment. Build an iron farm for iron for epic projects (in which case, you'll probably want an epic-project-sized iron farm).
Experienced players generally use your their very first three diamonds to make a diamond pick, which they then use as their general pick. You'll be amazed at how long it lasts.
The amount of time you save using a diamond pick will net you far more diamonds than "saving" diamonds by using stone or iron picks.
Whatever you do, don't horde diamonds in chests like sacred objects. Use them. If there's one thing I could go back in time and tell my Minecraft self, that would be it.
Of course, I was a lot more prone to death back then. There's nothing worse than losing your diamond gear to lava. Which is why I always carry a bucket of water on my hotbar, and, once I get to the Nether, a fire resistance potion.
Experienced players know best of all the pain of loss, because boy have we ever felt it!
Have fun!
My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
My Quest for Elytra Complete! (Pic Intense, End-Game Spoilers)
[Journal & Pics] After a Year and a Half, I Finally Found a Jungle
FrozenCore: Hardcore Death; 3/20/15 to 5/3/15; Eight Weeks on a Frozen World in Pictures
This is highly misleading - lava does indeed "replace" resources ("replace" as they can only replace stone, not because, as so often assumed, caves/lava generate later on) but so do caves above y=11, and cave density reaches a maximum higher up (caves alone peak just above layer 11, ravines and mineshafts peak around layer 30). Most of the lava below y=11 is due to caves filled with lava, otherwise there is no special world generation to increase the amount of lava, aside from the occasional lava lakes found at any elevation.
In fact, you'll find slightly more diamonds deeper down; this chart shows an increase in ores down to the uppermost bedrock layer (most obvious with coal due to its abundance); in all of my modded worlds I mine below lava level since I have an extremely rare and valuable ore that is most common below it, and in the last such world I found about a 0.9% ratio of diamonds (with the same density as vanilla) to blocks mined from the tunnels - as the Wiki indicates you should get for a tunnel spacing of 3 blocks (a tunnel every 4 blocks. They also indicate that you can double the ratio, up to 1.7%, by increasing the spacing to at least 6 - equivalent to a diamond ore found every 59 blocks mined. Iron ore is about 6 times more abundant than diamond between layers 5-12, so this translates to one iron found every 10 blocks mined. In either case, this is effectively about 14 times the abundance as a percentage of all blocks).
I don't have much issue with lava either, despite playing on worlds with much more extensive cave systems than in current releases (example of a mine I made; I could have extended it much further to the east with only a few small pockets of lava, which I actually mine straight through, unless they are too extensive, as in another world). Otherwise, it is very easy to avoid lava since it moves so slowly - just don't mine right up against the end of the tunnel (I also always hold shift out of habit when mining, even when mining ores in the ceiling).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
No, it isn't. I wasn't about to type a book like you just did to explain why experienced players mine at Y=11. Misleading him would be to tell him to mine below Y=11. I didn't read all that, so if that's not what you're saying, disregard.
My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
My Quest for Elytra Complete! (Pic Intense, End-Game Spoilers)
[Journal & Pics] After a Year and a Half, I Finally Found a Jungle
FrozenCore: Hardcore Death; 3/20/15 to 5/3/15; Eight Weeks on a Frozen World in Pictures
I was saying that you think that lava significantly reduces the amount of resources below y=11 when that simply isn't true at all, any more than caves replace resources above y=11 (since most of the lava below y=11 is nothing more than caves which are filled with lava, otherwise you have those little ponds of water and lava at any altitude):
(this is an old chart from Beta 1.7.3 but it accurately shows the amount of lava below layer 11, unlike a newer chart, and the distribution of caves hasn't changed since then. The peak layer of cave density is around layer 12).
(note that the amount of ores does not drop off until you get down to layer 4, due to bedrock displacing stone)
(believe it or not, this mine is entirely below lava level, in fact, at y=1, where the rarest and most valuable ore generates in TMCW, hence why I mine so deep down. I sure did have a lot of difficulty dealing with lava - or maybe not, despite cave systems which are far more extensive than in vanilla versions since 1.7. This also explains why digging straight down isn't as bad as popularly thought)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I am at y5 ...just because if was the lowest level where I could still mine without hitting impenetrable bedrock. No special reason. My master plan for my base is to dig a gigantic shaft then put all my automation's up and down the shaft. It will be called Shaft City.
I have run into lave several times and died only once so far. I now make a point to put a puddle in each branch so i can extinguish myself if need be. I also plan to put and ever flow water feature by using kelp to make all the water blocks source blocks.
I have been hoarding my diamonds but will go ahead and start using it for basic mining. This idea does make since now that you have pointed it out to me.
I lost a full set iron gear and a diamond pick by sleeping in a best to close lava and water and the water glitched me through a cobble stone wall right into a lava puddle.
Thanks for the good advice.
Lava over all is not much of a problem for me. I typically use gravel to replace it. If I am being lazy I will avoid it untill I feel like dealing with it and will normally get above it and repeat the gravel process. I do tend to find lots of ores and such around lava though. I just treat lava as a more aggressive mob types block. It just takes a little more effort to deal with.
Now that is a great reason to mine at Y=5!
"Shaft City," heh heh.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. In my first world (now five years old), I horded diamonds for almost two whole years. When I started playing hardcore regularly, I quickly learned from my own experience that the best way to get diamonds was to use them! With Mending now, diamonds are largely debased.
Ouch. Losing diamonds hurts. Bad. But, it's Minecraft's numerous glitches that can really kick a guy in the teeth. Unfortunately, you got both in one dose.
You're very welcome! I hope out of all the advice you get on the forums, "play however you enjoy" is always the theme.
Get this, I always leave lava because I think it looks cool and ominous. I've learned to respect it, not fear it—but it's equipment-eating properties make it the most dreadful monster in the game, like you say. Only the void is worse, but it doesn't seem so much like a hostile force. Lava is molten hate.
I also enjoy knocking monsters off the sheer cliff sides of lava-bottomed ravines or pushing them into gouts with my Punch II (and no other enchantments) bow that I always carry.
Have fun! Keep up updated with your progress.
My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
My Quest for Elytra Complete! (Pic Intense, End-Game Spoilers)
[Journal & Pics] After a Year and a Half, I Finally Found a Jungle
FrozenCore: Hardcore Death; 3/20/15 to 5/3/15; Eight Weeks on a Frozen World in Pictures
Well now I have my kelp farm, cow pen, sheep pen and chicken coup/cooker set up.
I dry kelp and turn it onto block then use it to smelt and make smooth stone and other polished stones. I continuing to expand my mine shaft. It is not ready to start building in it yet.
I just built my anvil and enchanting table(will watch some vids to learn how to use it.)
Next I am going to build a sugar cane farm. So I can make lots of books.
I think I will hold off on the diamond pick until I can get efficiency and mending on it.
I am nowhere near getting a beacon yet. I have watched vids of how people deal with a wither and it seems a bit tedious and I am not ready for that.
Right now I am questing to find bamboo.
PS. is there a way to look at a map and tell what level it is? I am trying to make a map wall.
FLASH NEW UPDATE!!!!!!!!
WHOOO HOOO jsut started doing some enchanting and got my Fortune 3 pick axe. I just mined 57 diamonds. I now have a full set of dimond armor and working on getting the enchants for it now.
I found a zombie spawner right under my base. I have set up a spawn farm and can get levels pretty easy which works great with the enchanting table.
I need to be more diligent with the cow breeding so I can make more books.
I still have not set up my auto sugar cane farm.
I am working on a villager breeder atm as I want some mending books for my silk touch pick,fortune pick and all armor.
You're off to the races now!
I used a skeleton spawner as an XP farm for years. They are a bit slow, but with Mending, you'll never need another set of equipment—unless you lose it, of course! Carry a fire resistance potion or bucket of water!
For books, I like to just raid strongholds.
Have fun!
My short story-like journals; quick-and-easy reads:
My Quest for Elytra Complete! (Pic Intense, End-Game Spoilers)
[Journal & Pics] After a Year and a Half, I Finally Found a Jungle
FrozenCore: Hardcore Death; 3/20/15 to 5/3/15; Eight Weeks on a Frozen World in Pictures
Say uhhh how big are the game worlds. I am guessing they are measured by number of blocks or chunks or some such.
So last night I finned my village breeder.
I modified this farm breeder. I dislike confining any creature in a 1 block cell. I just will not do it. So I built the farm portion extended two of the corners in to 3x3 bedroom/work area(composters). I now have two farmers that fornicate like mad. I had to raise the roofs in the bedrooms by 1 block so i have 2 air blocks over the beds. I then put one block trap door exclusion tunnels at the entrance to the bed rooms and the babies fall into it and get water transported to my "waiting" room where I have lined the walls with lecterns so I will train a few villagers to have mending books and several to buy paper.
I also built a 20 piston sugarcane farm.
next I am going to build my iron farm.
I always seem to have more to do than time to do it. I also get distracted really easy. I am going to have to start making a to do list for each day so I can try to stay focused.
The world is 60,000,000 X 60,000,000 blocks. And 256 blocks high.
That's 24 times the surface area of the Earth!
(But the volume is a lot less.)
Though the outermost chunk is blocked off by a barrier.
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Overworld
And the Nether and End are the same size.
Just testing.