How to use a compass in Minecraft

Modified Sep 24, 2021 10:29 GMT

A compass in Minecraft is a nifty item that can help players navigate to the world spawn point or to a lodestone.

At some point during their lives, most people end up getting lost. When this happens, a compass can help guide a person back to familiar surroundings, by indicating what direction leads north.

Minecraft players can get lost in their world too, and a compass can be the perfect tool to find their way back home. A compass will naturally help guide a player back to the spawn point of a world, or can be tethered to a lodestone.

This article will be breaking down how to acquire a compass in Minecraft and how to use one as well.

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How to get a compass in Minecraft

In order to use a compass, Minecraft players will need to acquire one first. There are three different ways to get one:

#1 Crafting

This is probably the simplest way for a player to obtain a compass. All it takes it four iron ingots and a single piece of redstone dust to craft at a crafting table.

Iron ore and redstone ore can be mined in all biomes throughout the Minecraft Overworld, when players use at least a stone pickaxe. Then a player will need to smelt each piece at a furnace. Then just craft at a crafting table, and presto... a new compass!

#2 Looting

Compasses have the potential to naturally spawn in chests found inside a map chest of a shipwreck, the library chest of a stronghold, and the Cartographer's chest in a village.

#3 Trading

If bartering is what a Minecraft player prefers, they can trade with an expert-level librarian villager for a compass. This mob has 50% chance to sell a compass in Java Edition, and a 33% chance to sell one in Bedrock Edition. The cost across both platforms is the same, at four emeralds.

How to use a compass in Minecraft

Natually a compass will always point a player to the spawn point of the world, when the player is in the Minecraft Overworld. The compass is always relative to the player, so it will always conveniently point a Minecraft player in the correct direction

The compass will continue pointing to the location of spawn even if it is dropped.

Inside of the Nether or the End, a compass will point in random wild directions. However, if a player useds a compass on a lodestone it will guide them back to that location, even in the Nether. This will make a compass look like an enchanted item, so do not be alarmed when this happens.

Hopefully, this information will help Minecraft players out there from getting lost!

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Edited by Nikhil Vinod