4 best tips for mining large areas in Minecraft

As the name of the game would hint at, mining is a core gameplay feature of Minecraft. Players mine for valuable ores and other underground structures containing precious loot in the title. While they can randomly mine a few tunnels and explore caves, if they are focused on excavating a large area for valuables, they will have to prepare themselves accordingly.

Here is a list of four tips to mine large areas in Minecraft.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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List of 4 great tips to mine large areas in Minecraft

1) Create an iron farm to craft loads of iron pickaxes

The iron farm will allow you to craft loads of iron pickaxes for mining (Image via Mojang Studios)

When players start out in a new world, they will gradually progress from wooden pickaxe to stone, and then to iron. If they are aiming to mine out a large area, they will need loads of iron ingots to make decent pickaxes. Since looking for iron ores frequently can slow them down, the best way to efficiently mine a large area is to first create an iron farm.

The farm will start giving infinite iron ingots, and this will allow players to craft lots of pickaxes. Though they can still make a bunch of stone pickaxes with the cobblestone they mine, iron pickaxes are a lot more durable and faster in mining. This is quite important when planning to cover large areas through mining.

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2) Apply efficiency enchantments to pickaxes

Players can enchant pickaxes with the efficiency enchantment to make them faster (Image via Mojang Studios)

While iron pickaxes are quite durable and fast, players will need to be faster if they are planning to mine a massive area. Though they can craft diamond pickaxes, they will not be able to craft many of them for a larger project.

To further increase the mining speed of pickaxes, players can apply efficiency enchantments. In simple terms, this power-up reduces the time it takes for a tool to break a block. Applying this enchantment will increase a pickaxe's mining speed, helping blocks break more blocks in a given time.

If players want all their pickaxes to be enchanted with decent efficiency enchantment, they can hire a librarian villager who solely trades efficiency enchanted books for a few emeralds. This way, miners will always have an efficiency enchantment book to apply to their pickaxes.

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3) Do branch mining

Branch mining is one of the best ways to clear a large underground area (Image via Mojang Studios)

Branch mining is considered the best method for clearing out a large area. In this type of mining, players create a main tunnel, from which they branch out to the left and right directions.

The branches can be several blocks long, and can also become a main tunnel for more branches. Branch mines can be two or three blocks wide to at least cover two or three Y levels.

The distance between two branches must only be two blocks. This is to ensure that players do not miss any valuable blocks between two branch tunnels. Players should have stacks of torches that they can place at regular intervals to prevent hostile mobs from spawning.

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4) Keep a fortune pickaxe for valuable blocks

Keep a fortune pickaxe to mine out valuable blocks (Image via Mojang Studios)

Apart from the efficiency enchantment on pickaxes, players must also have one or two pickaxes with the fortune enchantment. This powerup allows players to extract more valuable loot from a special block while mining.

For example, if players find diamond ores, they usually extract one diamond from one block with an unenchanted pickaxe. With the fortune enchantment, however, they will be able to extract more than one diamond from one block.

Hence, to make their efforts and time count, they must have a fortune pickaxe to acquire more valuables while mining.

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