ailiujiarui/mineai/mining-and-ores

Mining and ores (1.21.1)

Tool tiers

A block that needs a better tool than the one used breaks slowly and drops nothing.

Golden tools mine fast but harvest only what a wooden one does. Axes are the right tool for wood, shovels for dirt, sand, gravel, clay and snow, hoes for leaves, hay, sculk and moss, shears for wool, leaves and cobwebs.

Recipes: a pickaxe is 3 of the material over 2 sticks; an axe 3 + 2 sticks; a shovel 1 + 2 sticks; a sword 2 + 1 stick; a hoe 2 + 2 sticks.

Where ores generate (overworld, Y = height)

Numbers are the 1.21.1 placement ranges. "Peak" means the height where that ore is most common; "uniform" means equally common across the range.

Below Y 0 the stone is deepslate and every ore is its deepslate variant (deepslate_iron_ore, deepslate_diamond_ore …); they drop the same items. Deepslate takes about twice as long to mine as stone. The bedrock floor starts at Y -64.

Nether ores: nether quartz and nether gold everywhere between Y 10 and 117; ancient debris between Y 8 and 119, most common around Y 15 (see the_nether).

What ores drop

Fortune (I-III) multiplies the drops of coal, diamond, emerald, lapis, redstone, quartz, copper, iron and gold ore; Fortune III averages about 2.2x for single-drop ores. Silk Touch drops the ore block itself, which can be mined later with Fortune or smelted directly (no extra yield).

Mining ore also drops experience (except iron, copper and gold, which give it when smelted).

Underground hazards

• Lava: open cave air below about Y -54 is filled with lava (the deep lava level), and lava lakes and springs appear at every depth. Lava flows 3 blocks per spread in the overworld (7 in the Nether).
• Gravel and sand fall when the block under them is removed; a column of them can bury whoever stands below.
• Water pockets (aquifers) sit inside caves at any height; breaking into one floods the tunnel.
• Darkness: hostile mobs spawn wherever the block light is 0, which is most of every cave.
• Deep dark biomes (below about Y 0, under mountains) hold sculk sensors and shriekers; enough noise summons the Warden (500 HP). Ancient cities are in the deep dark.
• Silverfish hide in "infested" stone blocks below Y 64 (they look like normal stone but break instantly).
• Mining straight down risks dropping into a cave, lava or a ravine; the block under the feet is the one not seen.

Other materials underground

• Obsidian forms where flowing water meets a lava source block; lava pools are common around Y -54 and below. Ruined portals already contain obsidian.
• Clay in lush caves, rivers and swamps; dripstone in dripstone caves; amethyst geodes (smooth basalt shell) from -58 to 30.
• Mineshafts (oak planks, rails, cobwebs) cut through caves at many heights; their chest minecarts hold iron, gold, diamonds, rails and bread. Cave spider spawners sit inside cobweb-filled rooms.