Guide:Getting started

Greetings, newbies and noobs of Better than Adventure!. This page is a guide for your first few days and nights in this Beta mod for Minecraft. This guide will assume that you already know the basic details of Minecraft!

Your First Day

1. Chop down some trees.

The first thing you'll want to do is locate around three trees and mine all of their logs. Any trees should do for now.

2. Craft some wooden planks.

Craft the logs gathered from the trees into wooden planks. Use the crafting grid in your inventory to do as such. Depending on the type of tree you chopped down, your wooden planks may be colored differently. Any color of wood will work, and you can mix different colors of wood in the following crafting recipes.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Planks	Oak Log	4

3. Craft a workbench.

Use four of the wooden planks you created to fill the grid and craft yourself a workbench. The workbench is used to craft more advanced items. It will be a fundamental part of your play experience.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Workbench	Planks

4. Craft your first wooden pickaxe.

Place down the workbench and use it to craft sticks, by placing two wooden planks in a vertical column. Then, craft a wooden pickaxe by using two sticks and three wooden planks. Viola, now you have your first pickaxe! Pickaxes can be used to mine blocks like stone which would normally take a long time to break with your fist and wouldn't drop anything.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stick	Planks	4

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Wooden Pickaxe	Planks + Stick

5. Optionally, craft a wooden sword.

It may be worth crafting a wooden sword as well if you prefer to take the game slowly. You can easily get a more effective stone sword very quickly, so you can skip this step unless you want the Time to Strike achievement. You can craft a wooden sword by using one stick and two wooden planks.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Wooden Sword	Planks + Stick

6. Mine some cobblestone.

Locate any exposed stone and mine at least 10 blocks of stone to get yourself cobblestone, using the newly crafted wooden pickaxe. If there's no exposed stone, just dig through the dirt until you find some. Just remember the golden rule; never dig straight down!

7. Craft some stone tools.

The next tier up from wooden tools are stone tools! Using cobblestone and sticks, craft yourself a stone sword, pickaxe, axe and shovel. You may need to craft yourself more sticks.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stone Sword	Cobblestone + Stick

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stone Pickaxe	Cobblestone + Stick

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stone Axe	Cobblestone + Stick

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stone Shovel	Cobblestone + Stick

8. Gather some more wood.

Now that you have a proper axe, it'd be worth your while to find some more trees and quickly gather some more wooden planks. Wooden planks are very useful for building a shelter.

9. Find some pigs and kill them for food.

You'll need food to heal yourself if you get injured. Finding some pigs and killing them with your stone sword will supply you with raw porkchops.

10. Find some sheep and gather wool.

Night is likely fast approaching by this point, and if you want a bed to sleep through the night and/or set your respawn point to somewhere more safe, you'll need to gather some wool. Find any sheep and kill it for wool; you'll only need one piece.

11. Mine some coal ore.

You'll need some coal ore for both torches and fuel to cook food or smelt ores. Mountainsides will likely have exposed coal ore, but if you can't find any, just dig into the side of a hill or mountain until you find some.

12. Craft torches.

You can craft some torches with sticks and coal. You won't need a workbench for this, as it fits within the crafting grid if your inventory. Make sure to save some coal, as you will need it for later.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Torch	Coal + Stick	4

13. Make a shelter for yourself.

Using the opening that you just mined out whilst gathering coal, you can mine yourself a shelter by digging deeper into the terrain. Then, you can place some torches to light up the room, place down your workbench and furnace, and then craft yourself a wooden door using six wooden planks. And voila, your first home!

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Wooden Door	Planks	3

14. Craft a furnace.

You should have a plethora of stone left over to craft yourself a furnace. A furnace can be used to cook food and to smelt minerals!

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Furnace	Cobblestone

15. Cook some porkchops.

Use the furnace to cook the raw porkchops you gathered from the pigs. This will boost the recovery from three health points to eight. To smelt an item, place it in the top slot of the furnace, then place a fuel source in the bottom slot. The best fuel source at the moment is coal, but if you're running short of it, you can also use wooden planks. Keep in mind that one piece of coal smelts eight items, while one piece of wood smelts only one and a half items.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Cooked Porkchop	Raw Porkchop

16. Kill some zombies.

It's likely either approaching night or already night by now. In vanilla Minecraft, you would be able to craft a bed using just wooden planks and wool. However, in BTA, you'll have to face the monsters of the night in order to get the final resource necessary to craft a bed: cloth. If you aren't confident in your skill, you may be better off mining throughout the night to gather better gear. However, if you are confident, find some zombies that have spawned during the night and kill them with your sword to gather cloth!

17. Craft a bed.

Swiftly retreat to your cavern base, and craft yourself a bed using three wooden planks, one wool and two cloth. Viola! You have now survived your first night in Minecraft! Something you should remember, however, is the nightmare mechanic. If the area around your bed is not lit up or enclosed, a monster will spawn while you're trying to sleep, making sleeping impossible. So, make sure your home is fully enclosed and lit up!

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Bed	Cloth + White Wool + Planks

Your Second Day and Onwards

Congratulations, you've made it through your first day (and night) of Better Than Adventure! Or the second as well, if you were taking your time. This next section will see the general progression you'll be faced with up until the Nether!

18. Mine some iron ore.

Next, you'll want to mine some iron ore. Iron ore can be mined and smelted into iron ingots, which you can craft into tools, armor, and various other useful items. Iron ore typically generates at lower Y levels in the world, so you will want to start digging downward from your cave base. Make sure to dig in a stair-step pattern, and never dig straight down! You could get stuck without a way to go back to your base, or you may fall into a cave full of monsters or lava.

Once you find iron ore, you'll be able to mine it with your stone pickaxe. Make sure not to mine it with your wooden pickaxe, or else it will drop nothing. Upon mining the iron ore block, one raw iron ore item will drop.

19. Smelt your raw iron into iron ingots.

You may notice that if you try to use your raw iron ore to craft items, it won't work. This is because it needs to be smelted down into iron ingots first. To make iron ingots, simply put your raw iron into the furnace, similarly to how you cooked your porkchops earlier. If you found any extra coal while mining, you can use it to smelt your iron.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Ingot	Raw Iron Ore

20. Craft an iron pickaxe.

One of the first tools you should craft with your newly smelted iron is an iron pickaxe. Iron pickaxes will mine blocks much faster than stone pickaxes. You can also mine more types of ores with it. It is crafted in the same way as the stone and wooden pickaxes, except with three iron ingots.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Pickaxe	Iron Ingot + Stick

21. Craft a chest.

By now, your inventory is likely filled with a lot of items. You can store some of those items in chests. Chests require eight wooden planks to be crafted. Each chest provides around one inventory's worth of storage space. However, if you place a second chest next to your first chest, it will become a double chest which can store twice as many items!

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Wooden Chest	Planks

22. Mine for more resources.

At this point in the game, you have much more freedom and do not have to follow a linear path. There are many different ores to mine and items to craft. Your first task should be to extend your mine down until you find basalt. This signifies that you are at a level in which more types of ores appear. Here are the types of ore to look out for:

• Redstone Ore: Used to make redstone powered items. Can be placed on the ground as redstone dust to transmit electric signals.
• Gold Ore: A general material used in crafting. You can use it to make golden tools, but they don't last very long and aren't recommended. You need to smelt the raw gold ore similarly to iron ore.
• Lapis Lazuli Ore: Used as a blue dye.
• Diamond Ore: Used to craft the fastest tools in the game. This is the rarest ore you can find.

Once you've collected some redstone ore and you have some extra iron ingots, consider crafting a compass. Having this item in your inventory will allow you to see your coordinates in the world. Make sure to note down the coordinates of important places such as your base in case you get lost.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Compass	Iron Ingot + Redstone Dust

23. Craft more iron tools and iron armor.

Now that you've gathered some more iron, smelt it down into ingots. This is a good time to make some armor to protect yourself from mobs. Note that you may want to skip making iron boots, as leather boots are more useful later on for growing crops.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Sword	Iron Ingot + Stick

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Axe	Iron Ingot + Stick

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Shovel	Iron Ingot + Stick

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Helmet	Iron Ingot

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Chestplate	Iron Ingot

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Leggings	Iron Ingot

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Boots	Iron Ingot

24. Set up a wheat farm.

If you don't want to rely on killing pigs to get food, you can farm wheat. To start farming, you'll need a hoe.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stone Hoe	Cobblestone + Stick

You can make a hoe out of any material you want, but the stone hoe is typically sufficient. Higher tiers do not offer any benefits other than increased durability. You will also want to craft a bucket. Buckets allow you to move liquids such as water and lava around.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Bucket	Iron Ingot

Now you can begin gathering seeds. You can get seeds by breaking the tall grass around your world with your hoe. Note that seeds won't drop unless you break grass with your hoe. Next, start making farmland by right clicking grass or dirt blocks while holding your hoe. You will notice that the farmland will eventually dry up unless the farmland block has water up to four blocks away from it.

The way you chose to make your farm is up to you. Typically, farms will either have rows of alternating farmland and water:

Or a field of farmland with a single block of water in the middle:

Notice that some of the patches of farmland are a darker brown color. These blocks are hydrated, and won't dry out. Crops planted on them will grow significantly faster than crops grown on dehydrated farmland. Hydration will automatically spread over time if water is near your farmland.

Next, hold your seeds and right click the farmland blocks. You will plant the seed. Seeds grow slowly over time, and eventually mature into full grown wheat. The final stage of wheat is more yellow with brown at the tips:

Once a seed has grown fully into wheat, break it by left clicking it. It will drop one wheat item and a random number of seed items for replanting. Once you have three wheat, you can craft a piece of bread. Bread heals six health points. As time passes, you will eventually acquire an abundance of wheat, allowing you to self-sufficiently grow food without going hunting for pigs.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Bread	Wheat

You may notice that you keep trampling your farmland whenever you walk over it. To negate this, collect four pieces of leather by killing cows. Use the leather to craft leather boots, then equip them. You will no longer be able to trample farmland.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Leather Boots	Leather

25. Mine some diamond ore.

Diamonds are used to craft some of the best tools and armor in Minecraft. You may already have found some by mining, but if you haven't, try mining at Y=11. This is one of the best places to mine for diamonds. Be careful about mining under Y=10, because that is where lava pools begin to generate.

Once you find three diamonds, craft a diamond pickaxe. You don't need to smelt your diamonds into ingots, so just put them in the crafting grid like so:

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Diamond Pickaxe	Diamond + Stick

Congratulations, you've crafted the fastest pickaxe in the game! You will be able to mine out large areas of stone significantly faster than with any other tool. This will make it easier to find even more diamonds in the future. Once you've found some more, you can craft diamond variants of your tools and armor.

Entering the Nether

Now that you're set with diamond gear, it's about time you start exploring the Nether, an alternative dimension with a hellish atmosphere. However, while it is scary, it's not too dangerous if you're confident and know what you're doing. So, don't go hitting any pigmen!

26. Locate a lava pool and create obsidian.

Obsidian is an import resource that you will want to become familiar with. It is the most durable resource in the game, taking a long time to mine and being immune to explosions. It can only be mined with a diamond pickaxe. While obsidian is a great building block, the main use is for creating portals to the Nether, a hellish alternate dimension filled with strong monsters and lava.

You can create obsidian by having water spill out on top of a lava pool. Use a water bucket to bring some water down to an underground lava pool, then place it on top of the lava. The lava will quickly cool and become obsidian. You can mine it with your diamond pickaxe, but be careful not to accidentally fall into the lava blocks below! You may want to stand at the side of the lava pool and sneak by holding Shift, then begin mining the obsidian while holding W. You will pick up the obsidian block without falling into any lava below you. Make sure to mine fourteen pieces of obsidian for the next step.

27. Build a portal to the Nether!

You need one more item to enter the Nether: A fire striker. This item allows you to place fire anywhere in your world. To craft one, you'll need one iron ingot and one piece of flint. Flint can drop from gravel blocks, which are commonly found underground. Use your shovel to break them faster. Once you've gotten a piece of flint and an iron ingot, place them anywhere in your inventory crafting grid:

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Fire Striker	Iron Ingot + Flint

Now you are ready to build your portal frame. Build a rectangle using the fourteen obsidian you collected earlier like so:

Next, right click the top of one of the two obsidian blocks at the bottom of the portal with your fire striker in your hand. Suddenly, a glowing purple portal will appear inside the portal frame! Don't step into it just yet, as there is still a lot of preparation to do. It is very easy to die in the Nether, so it's best to go prepared.

28. Preparing for the Nether.

You will want to gather plenty of food before going to the Nether, either by farming or hunting pigs. Make sure to always have several pieces of food in your inventory at once.

An important item to obtain before going to the Nether is a bow and arrows. Crafting a bow requires sticks and string.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Bow	Stick + String

You can get string by killing spiders which spawn at night. They will try to jump at you and hit you like zombies. At this point, if you have iron armor and at least an iron sword as well as plenty of food, you should be mostly safe venturing out at night.

Next, you will need to craft arrows. Arrows require flint, sticks, and feathers dropped from chickens to be crafted. Remember, you can get flint by digging out gravel. Additionally, you can get arrows by killing skeletons, which drop 0-2 arrows upon death.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Arrow	Flint + Stick + Feather	4

Next, you may want to obtain enough diamonds for diamond armor. Diamond armor gives you good general protection against everything, as well as high protection against fire damage. The Nether is full of fire and lava, so it may be a good idea to find enough diamonds for full diamond armor. It is crafted in the same way as iron armor, just with diamonds instead.

With your upgraded armor, bow and arrows, a few stacks of cobblestone for building, and plenty of food, you can finally step into your Nether portal and enter the Nether!

29. Surviving the Nether.

The first thing you may want to do upon entering the Nether is surrounding your Nether portal in cobblestone. This is because ghasts, a common monster encountered in the Nether, can shoot fireballs at your portal, which will destroy it. If you don't have your fire striker, you'll become stuck in the Nether without any way out other than death.

To deal with ghasts (the large ghost-like white mobs flying around the Nether), you will want to fire at them with your bow. Ghasts take two arrow shots to kill. Additionally, you can try punching back the fireballs they shoot at you, although this is very risky. If you are able to hit back a fireball at a ghast, it will take some damage. You can use this strategy to kill ghasts even after you run out of arrows, but it can take a lot of practice to master.

The other mob you'll encounter are zombie pigmen. These are decaying pig-like monsters holding golden swords. They will wander about aimlessly and won't attack you. However, if you attack one of them, all zombie pigmen in the surrounding area will run towards you and start attacking you. It is typically best to leave them alone, however they can drop raw porkchops and very rarely raw gold ore, so it may be worth killing some if you're running out of food.

The main resource you'll find in the Nether is Nether coal ore. Mining it drops a much more powerful version of coal called Nether coal. This ore is very important for progressing further in the game. One piece of Nether coal smelts 32 items, and you can craft eight torches with a single piece. Make sure to gather up plenty of this valuable resource.

Additionally, the Nether can be used for fast travel over long distances. Walking one block in the Nether is equivalent to walking eight blocks in the Overworld, so you can create portal networks to more efficiently travel around your Minecraft world.

What Now?

Congratulations! You've finally journeyed through the Nether and reached just about the peak of the general progression. And now you're probably wondering what you can do now. Everything beyond this point isn't in any particular order, as you almost certainly have the gear to face just about anything by now.

Craft a blast furnace.

Once you've gotten some Nether coal, you can craft a new type of furnace called the blast furnace. This furnace smelts items faster than normal furnaces, and can be used to obtain items that can't normally be obtained from smelting in a normal furnace. You'll need one piece of Nether coal and eight iron ingots to craft one.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Blast Furnace	Iron Ingot + Nether Coal

Note that the blast furnace will only accept certain types of fuel, being Nether coal and olivine, a special mineral which you can get by blasting cobbled basalt. Nether coal will only be able to blast 16 items, while olivine can blast 2 items. However, olivine is a renewable resource, and it's easy to get large quantities of it by smelting cobbled basalt. Because one piece of olivine can smelt two pieces of cobbled basalt, you can get infinite quantities of fuel for your blast furnace.

Craft some steel tools and armor.

Admittedly, diamond tools aren't actually "the best". Different tools in BTA have different capabilities and purposes. While wooden, stone and iron tools are ultimately worse than every other option, being reserved only for progression or emergency panic crafts, gold, diamond and steel tools all have their own special benefits.

Diamond tools, while the fastest, are not the best in terms of durability. In fact, steel tools take the cake for best durability in the game in terms of tools, but, as you may have guessed, sacrifice some speed as a result. In general, steel tools are typically better, but larger projects or mining expeditions may see diamond tools being more useful. As for gold tools, while they aren't as good as the other two in general, they offer a unique capability similar to silk touch in modern Minecraft, in that most blocks mined with gold tools will drop as the block itself.

Armor possesses similar traits, in that different materials will offer different, unique perks and detriments. However, you can read the Armor page for more on that.

Blasting iron ingots in a blast furnace will get you crude steel, which is then used to craft steel ingots. You can then use these with the generic tool, weapon and armor crafting recipes to get steel variants of the respective items.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Ingot

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Steel Ingot	Crude Steel

Originally written by Terbo, expanded by many more, such as Mjdxp, Lilsips and LukeisStuff!

"bta is the best mod in the hit game minecraft"