Operation Manual

CHAPTER 3: Gathering Resources
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time you think you’ll be in a tight spot, and you may just be able to make it through that
moaning zombie horde.
Q Tools—Tools can be wielded as weapons, but not very effectively. They are, however,
great at digging, chopping, hoeing, and setting Nether Portals on fire with the flint and
steel. You’ll also find shears for stripping the wool from sheep, a fishing rod, and a few
enchanted books that can add special powers to your tools.
Q Combat—Combat provides your weapons and armor, as well as the remaining enchanted
books that relate to combat items.
Q Brewing—The Brewing tab contains all possible potions and a number of the rarer ingredi-
ents required that don’t fit into other categories. Potions are incredibly handy. Caught out-
side at night? The Potion of Night Vision triples the brightness to almost daylight conditions.
You can learn more about brewing in Chapter 10.
Q Materials—Materials is the final catchall category, along with the miscellaneous and deco-
ration blocks. It differs because it is composed of secondary items that are derived from
another action. For example, killing a chicken can drop feathers, and you’ll need those for
the fletching on arrows unless you gather them from skeletons. Grow wheat to get bushels
that can be used to tame horses, donkeys, and mules.
There are two other tabs on the Creative inventory. In the upper-right corner is a compass
icon. This is the search bar. Just click on it and type in the item’s name.
In the lower-right corner is a chest. This is your Survival mode inventory containing any items
you were carrying when you switched to Creative mode. (This is empty if you started your world
in Creative mode.) You can shift items between the Creative mode inventory and your Survival
inventory . Any items you drag down to the quick access bar are common across both invento-
ries. Re -move items from your Survival inventory by dragging them down to the square filled
with an X.
The Bottom Line
Congratulations! You’ve now learned everything you need to know to understand how your
character is doing, improve your tools for better longevity, hopefully not get lost on your trav-
els, and create your first mob-proof outdoor shelter.
These are the keys to Minecraft. Just remember to head back to your chest often to store the
valuables you’ve gathered, or build other chests further afield.
You might also want to consider building a pillar and platform on top of your new shelter.
It can help you survey your terrain and acts as an easy-to-see landmark when you’re out and
about. Put some torches on top because mobs can spawn on any platform, no matter how
small, and you don’t want to poke your head up through the platform only to discover a
creeper on a short fuse.
The next chapter is all downhill—deep into your first mine.
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