Basic Survival

Survival in Minecraft Beta was quite different from the modern versions today. As Better than Adventure is based on Beta 1.7.3, it inherits all its features, and adds many of its own on top. Don't worry, surviving and progressing in BTA won't be as hard as some modern tech mods. Depending on the world type you choose, your survival plan will differ; accordingly, for this guide we will be playing on the extended default world type.

Step 1: Scouting

The first thing you should do in every new world is to walk around and get a sense of your area. If you are happy with the terrain, animal quantities and the biomes you can safely stay. If not, walk further out and craft a boat if necessary.

Tip: press the R key to open the guidebook. It will initially contain crafting recipe silhouettes that will automatically reveal as you discover the items needed for those recipes. The tooltips will have a number of question marks that match the number of letters of the item's name, so you can guess what item you might need.

Step 2: Hunting

While exploring the area you should be killing any animals that get in your way - don't worry, they respawn and cannot be bred in BTA. Try aiming for pigs and sheep first, as those will give you porkchops and wool respectively. These will likely be more useful in your first few days than leather armor, save that for once you have a rudimentary base. Making a bed in BTA requires 2 cloth, 3 wooden planks and 1 wool to be crafted in the workbench. In order to get some cloth, you will need to slay some zombies.

Step 3: Building

This step is ultimately modeled by each player to their liking, but the general direction is to get a safe place for you to craft and store your valuables, which is most easily done by digging the side of a mountain. Once you are prepared enough, you can build anything you want.