Diamond Stories

[DaveYanakov]

It just became a whole lot harder to find easy wall or temple diamonds. So far my failure to find the gemstones in the walls of two large cave networks with three ravines has prompted me to begin exploring the local area in earnest rather than simply making a nether portal and skipping straight the three kilometer mark. Post your new adventures, successes and failures in your quest to harvest obsidian here.

[Taleric]

Started a new world just after the change to dungeons and temples.

After 5 days mucking about the surface snatching ore at night I had an iron pick, leather armor and plenty of food. Prior to stratification I would have laddered or made stairs down to diamond and redstone at this point. NOPE! Very good :).

I then realized to cave deep I would need to make caches as I went. So another few days gathering wood and food till I started my attack. Slow and methodical, half slab paths everywhere I trekked the whole thing. This was when I found the lowest point to be a ravine. That took another long while and once done with the whole complex I had smelted to about 28 iron ingots but no diamonds.

Awesome! I got some redstone from that and went back to spawn. Making a massive pumpkin, hemp and chicken farm. I set out with a map putting markers from spawn to interesting cave opening. also in the event of death a way back. Then I picked cave system number two yielding 5 glorious diamonds!

Now my dilemma, I am level 40 and want to enchant bad. I need the pick bad and am unwilling to strip mine cause I could lose it with no replacement if the yield is poor! I decide to nether and get blaze so I can smelt my chest of used tools.

Spending a large amount of time build a base around my new systems I tap my 3rd mine complex. This one leads down to a deep abandoned mine shaft system. Near the end I poke around the lowest part for caves and get 5 more diamonds.

That is where I am at now about to start my grinder and SFS factories. I skipped writing all the epic battle and heart racing moments. Progression was very gradual and thought out, I am loving every moment. The cave complexes are special to me for all the time and effort put into their exploitation. They just look cool with all the half slabs, caches ect.

The play time has gone up 10 fold from vanilla and it is so satisfying.

[myrkana]

managed to spawn near a deep chasm in our (me and my bf on a lan game) current world :D day number 4 or so I got enough iron for a pick and headed down the side using ladders and a waterfall. Now I've gotten a few diamonds, one creeper oyster and about 10 or so iron nuggets :)

Had some problems due to not being able to dig through the third layer with my iron pickaxe but using sand/dirt we managed to knock the ores out of the holes and to us.
Next up is creeper killing xD once i get an iron axe or two haha

Probably time to restock wood soon and then I'll be making a foray into the mineshaft thats down there :D also theres a fortress so maybe some diamonds present there? :o

[ExpHP]

Moon ♦, Day ●

Ravine discovered that extends down to a thick layer of very dark stone. Although similar in appearance to surface stone, it does not respond to iron tools, and is likely igneous in origin. Entering this chasm would seem to be ill-advised, as it will be difficult to return to the entrance.

Moon ♦, Day ●

Blue sparkle observed at bottom of ravine, across a sea of lava. After this, sensations of relief and delight were experienced. This resulted in a temporary lack of judgement, which resulted in a brief sensation of falling followed by severe pain and moderate feelings of regret.

Moon ♦, Day ●

Legs recovered to usable condition. Source of blue light identified as diamonds - two of them, less than the expedition goal. Exploration continues along the path of the sea of lava.

Moon ♦, Day ▰?

Diamonds noted at a branch in path. Location was marked with an excessive number of torches, and exploration continued along current path to collect more iron.

Moon ♦, Day ▰

Current location appears to be the center of the monsters' lair. They are aware of my presence and have amassed themselves in great number outside my hastily constructed defenses. An Iron Sword on the brink of shattering was salvaged from a Zombie, and 4 more diamonds have been found.

Shortage of Wood noted.

(the next few pages consist of a series of roughly drawn, incomplete maps)

(no date)

Current location: Still in the heart of the enemy base. Current theory: I have stepped through a one-way dimensional rift, and the Society erased my memories of it. All ways lead deeper. All ways are filled with monsters. Currently in possession of 8 diamonds, but lack the alchemical ingredients required to work with them. Critical shortage of wood noted.

(the next few pages are completely illegible. Entries have been written on top of each other without regard to spacing, orientation, size, and placement, as though the author could not see what he was writing)


And it ends there...

[Kmand]

Dear lord, the very likely prospect of getting lost in a deep-layer cave with no way to break out hadn't really occured to me yet. Seems like FC just cranked the terror level up to 11.

[Mud]

Dear lord, the very likely prospect of getting lost in a deep-layer cave with no way to break out hadn't really occured to me yet. Seems like FC just cranked the terror level up to 11.

Ladders become a very valuable commodity in 4.80.

[ExpHP]

As does anything to make sure your trail is damn well marked - clearly and unambiguously. And just practicing moderation in general when exploring complicated networks.

I always place torches on the right, and I still ended up completely and utterly lost.

[SterlingRed]

As does anything to make sure your trail is damn well marked - clearly and unambiguously. And just practicing moderation in general when exploring complicated networks.

I always place torches on the right, and I still ended up completely and utterly lost.

I usually don't have trouble. I always explore caverns to the right and up first before anything else. When I hit a dead end, I backtrace to the last intersection, and block off the dead trail. Then I continue proceeding with right and up as my most preferred routes. If the cave I'm following doubles back into an area I've already explored, I block it off there, treat it like a dead end, and go back the way I came. This lets me explore nearly 100% of a cave network, while always having a trail I can head back to the main entrance on.

[Zhil]

The only problem I find are those places that branch in three dimensions. The sort of wide open spaces with multiple stories. You can't REALLY find a system to map those. It's just cheese.

[MaxAstro]

I just block up every path save one with a wall with holes in it (which I only use for blocking paths I haven't explored), and then I take them one at a time.

[ExpHP]

Erm, I feel like I may have caused the thread to go a bit off-topic... Can we go back to diamonds and how they will tease us for all of eternity?

[Mud]

Emeralds are supposedly rarer than Diamonds; in my current world (started for HCS) I have 21 Emeralds (from mining) and 0 Diamonds. Hoping my luck is going to turn around soon though.

[SterlingRed]

A lot of it has to do with emeralds are available at higher layers. If you only mined in the diamond layers, on average you would find more diamonds than emeralds I believe.

[Mud]

A lot of it has to do with emeralds are available at higher layers. If you only mined in the diamond layers, on average you would find more diamonds than emeralds I believe.

Fair enough, about 12-14 of them were from the diamond layers though.

:edit: 32 Emeralds now, been spending quite a few hours at diamond level with no luck. I ran my map through MCMap Live (which I didn't want to do for spoilers) and found there is in fact diamond ore I'm just having bad luck.