Hello EMC people! I am CaiusDahLupus, co-founder of Winterfell and owner of the SMP8 Horse Shack. I like would to offer some of my personal tactics for dealing with caverns, abandoned mineshafts, and well, adventuring. Since this is such a broad topic, I will start off with Cavern Exploration. For starters, some armor and a sword is nice to have, but not needed. Obviously you will need a pick or six, some food, and some torches. However, people often forget that you can place, store items in, and move and enderchest as you go to increase yields from mining. In addition to this, you should also bring wood or store spare picks in said enderchest so you do not run out of tools. As for food, I highly suggest bringing melons as they are cheap and quick to plant and grow, so long you carry bone meal, a water bucket (optional) and a hoe. Now that we have that all set up, you are ready to head in. For starters, NEVER EVER DIG STRAIGHT DOWN even though it may be very tempting. The deeper you go underground, the risk for digging into lava grows dramatically. Seriously, just dig a stair case type design diagonally down. Now as you dig, you should be placing torches to your left. Why? So when you are coming back up, all you have to remember is "To the right, to the light!". Simple, derpy, but it has saved me so much frustration. Now for food farms underground. Remember how I said to bring melons? Good. What you do is carve out a small 5x5 room or so wherever you please and make some of your melons into seeds. Right in the middle you should place water and cultivate the dirt around that. This is where your bone meal is vital. Use that stuff until the vines are full grown. You may have to wait for the actual melons to grow, but now you do not have to return to the surface for food. Next up, the Abandoned Mineshaft guide!
