06-09-2016, 12:29 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-09-2016, 01:29 AM by Rowebot.
Edit Reason: added updated statistics
)
For those who do not read ban threads, I got wordy when replying to an "x-ray"er. Figured the info was too good not to repeat here to more readers.
When I first started in MC, I obsessively used MCEdit to clear 1000 x 1000 areas of stone, dirt, gravel and sand to study diamond distribution in a number of single player worlds and different biomes. I wanted to find the most efficient diamond mining strategy. Turns out biomes don't matter much.
Natural caves are not much better than the same linear distance of tunneling. I would MCEdit air to glass, then remove dross, fly around to see how many diamonds were against glass thus visible in caves.
Finger mining at y==11 is the most efficient method (diamond/stone ratio) that I have found by a tiny fraction than the next best alternative. Finger mining is tunnels 13 blocks apart then every 3 along the tunnel finger in 5 at chest level on both sides -- lots of turning.
I prefer driving 1x2 tunnels every 4 blocks which is way easier to do mindlessly -- tunnel straight -- 100 block long tunnels side-by-side are much better because I have tunneled 1000 straight and not found any diamonds but lots in a tunnel 4 blocks over. Yes diamond pockets tend to line up for 50 to 500 blocks at a time just often enough that I prefer to line up my tunnels over the first diamond pocket I find.
There is another method of drilling shafts down from higher up that is supposed to be slightly more efficient but I have not seen experimental numbers for the method; someone was way more obsessive than me and compiled numbers and graphs on the 2 methods that I use. When I grind, I want mindless -- straight tunnels are easiest.
Take out every type of ore you find (diamonds tend to be in ore clusters) and pockets of dirt/gravel; many times you will expose the diamonds above or below you.
Both methods find all the diamonds available in an area 4 high and some above/below as well, which at y==11 is 1/2 the diamonds in an area. The remaining half are not worth the double effort compared to just mining another virgin area at y==11 for another 1/2; double effort because you have to repeat all the mining 4 blocks above for 1/4 and 4 blocks below y==11 for 1/4.
Every 1000x1000 area will yield about the same number of diamonds as any other 1000x1000 area. You will find about 45% of the diamonds at y==11, 25% at y==7, 25% at y==15 and 5% is below y==6 or above y=19. Yes, you will find 100x100 with very few diamonds around y==11 and the next 100x100 will have almost all the diamonds around y==11. But those are rare, over 1000x1000 this averages out.
Now if you are tempted to xray -- DON'T! -- HT's default ban setting for xray is level "hardcore" -- perma ban -- your one life on HT is over.
If you find diamond pockets without drilling the equivalent of 100 to 150 x 2 blocks of tunnels on average PER POCKET, your mining will get scrutiny by multiple experts time and time again via logs and watching you in real-time. That is the average tunneling I had to do per diamond pocket on the old HT PVP server to get a full chest of diamond blocks (9 chests of diamonds) without any help!
People want to use xray to avoid that tunneling (grinding), or equivalent cave exploring distances. Sorry, you cannot avoid being detected if you do not grind, and if you grind to cover your xray, why risk of being banned.
Correction, for 1.8 the 4 high bands for mining are:
y==11 at the top -- pro is at level of lava lakes -- has roughly 30% of diamonds and the most of other ores
y==7 in middle -- has roughly 30% diamonds -- con is below lava lakes
y==3 at bottom -- has roughly 30% diamonds but bedrock interferes with tunneling dramatically
When I first started in MC, I obsessively used MCEdit to clear 1000 x 1000 areas of stone, dirt, gravel and sand to study diamond distribution in a number of single player worlds and different biomes. I wanted to find the most efficient diamond mining strategy. Turns out biomes don't matter much.
Natural caves are not much better than the same linear distance of tunneling. I would MCEdit air to glass, then remove dross, fly around to see how many diamonds were against glass thus visible in caves.
Finger mining at y==11 is the most efficient method (diamond/stone ratio) that I have found by a tiny fraction than the next best alternative. Finger mining is tunnels 13 blocks apart then every 3 along the tunnel finger in 5 at chest level on both sides -- lots of turning.
I prefer driving 1x2 tunnels every 4 blocks which is way easier to do mindlessly -- tunnel straight -- 100 block long tunnels side-by-side are much better because I have tunneled 1000 straight and not found any diamonds but lots in a tunnel 4 blocks over. Yes diamond pockets tend to line up for 50 to 500 blocks at a time just often enough that I prefer to line up my tunnels over the first diamond pocket I find.
There is another method of drilling shafts down from higher up that is supposed to be slightly more efficient but I have not seen experimental numbers for the method; someone was way more obsessive than me and compiled numbers and graphs on the 2 methods that I use. When I grind, I want mindless -- straight tunnels are easiest.
Take out every type of ore you find (diamonds tend to be in ore clusters) and pockets of dirt/gravel; many times you will expose the diamonds above or below you.
Both methods find all the diamonds available in an area 4 high and some above/below as well, which at y==11 is 1/2 the diamonds in an area. The remaining half are not worth the double effort compared to just mining another virgin area at y==11 for another 1/2; double effort because you have to repeat all the mining 4 blocks above for 1/4 and 4 blocks below y==11 for 1/4.
Every 1000x1000 area will yield about the same number of diamonds as any other 1000x1000 area. You will find about 45% of the diamonds at y==11, 25% at y==7, 25% at y==15 and 5% is below y==6 or above y=19. Yes, you will find 100x100 with very few diamonds around y==11 and the next 100x100 will have almost all the diamonds around y==11. But those are rare, over 1000x1000 this averages out.
Now if you are tempted to xray -- DON'T! -- HT's default ban setting for xray is level "hardcore" -- perma ban -- your one life on HT is over.
If you find diamond pockets without drilling the equivalent of 100 to 150 x 2 blocks of tunnels on average PER POCKET, your mining will get scrutiny by multiple experts time and time again via logs and watching you in real-time. That is the average tunneling I had to do per diamond pocket on the old HT PVP server to get a full chest of diamond blocks (9 chests of diamonds) without any help!
People want to use xray to avoid that tunneling (grinding), or equivalent cave exploring distances. Sorry, you cannot avoid being detected if you do not grind, and if you grind to cover your xray, why risk of being banned.
Correction, for 1.8 the 4 high bands for mining are:
y==11 at the top -- pro is at level of lava lakes -- has roughly 30% of diamonds and the most of other ores
y==7 in middle -- has roughly 30% diamonds -- con is below lava lakes
y==3 at bottom -- has roughly 30% diamonds but bedrock interferes with tunneling dramatically
/Rowebot