Strategies You Use to Find Your Way Home after HC Spawn?

[heypaint]

I die alot. Rarely, I recognize where I spawn and can just hike home. I'm wondering what strategies people are using to help find their way home without having to build a new base and mine down to redstone to make a compass?

I have a base and some wheat and cows and a little iron. I'm thinking that I should build regularly placed structures along the points of the compass away from my base? If so, how do you decide how far out? How tall etc?

Or what other strategies are people using? Or do I just die alot; maybe I should take up bowling instead?

[abzu93]

Early game I do a lot of hunting, and as you know, you have to go further and further out until you get a way to lead a couple back. I drop high dirt columns and stick a torch on if I can afford to. That way when I die (not if), I have a better chance of running into them. It's a slow process overall but it is so damn satisfying when it pays off.

[dawnraider]

I just build a base every time, making markers as I go back. I also mark where I explore so that a) I don't get lost while exploring, and b) I can find my way back from anywhere in the radius eventually, or until then, find my way back if I get lucky and spawn by one. I very rarely die (I never have in my current world started 4.89112, and I am looking for a fortress, so all of my markings have come from exploration.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, take your time, be patient (which should help you die less too), build up small bases when you die and make sure they are marked well and stocked with some basic provisions (wood, cobble, food) so you can make use of them again later, lay down landmarks indicating the closest base when you're traveling about, and eventually you will find that death becomes less and less of a problem as your world develops.

Initially you may be looking at a 3-4 hour recovery upon death in a new world. In my current world though, I've played enough in it while doing things like the above that death rarely takes me more than 10 to 20 minutes to recover from because I almost inevitably spawn within sight of something that directs me back home, and usually come across a small shelter along the way that provides me with the basics to get there.

[EtherealWrath]

I always walk west until I find something I recognise/get a compass. Why west? Well you'll always see night before it sees you.

[emptychild]

I'm a huge fan of the respawn shack. When you die if you have to make a little base spend a little extra time and keep it stocked for the next time you appear there. I can't tell you the number of times that I died on the official server and happened upon "Flower's Respawn Shack" which had a little food and a stone arrow pointing to spawn. I always made sure I left the food as good or better than when I found it and it really made death not such a bummer.

[ion]

first stages i try not to run too far away from spawn base, after when i get redstone and some iron i make some max zoomed out maps and start filling them. also i disdain going through the nether to find villages so i always know my way back home when i find 2 or more different biomes after death. i just map everything when searching for wheat.

[FlowerChild]

I'm a huge fan of the respawn shack. When you die if you have to make a little base spend a little extra time and keep it stocked for the next time you appear there. I can't tell you the number of times that I died on the official server and happened upon "Flower's Respawn Shack" which had a little food and a stone arrow pointing to spawn. I always made sure I left the food as good or better than when I found it and it really made death not such a bummer.

Hehe...yeah, for people that play on the official server, I think those respawn shacks of mine really acted as a clear example of how important such forward planning can wind up being :)

[Mr_Hosed]

In one of my last worlds (several months now) I found that HC Spawn was rather erratic in where it placed me, but tended to occur in clusters. No idea if that's the algorithm or not, but I found this allowed me to start building up a second base at a new spawn (or close to) with the intent that this was my new main base. I found just trying to rush to redstone was a sure-fire death-wish. After 4 or 5 deaths I started spawning near enough to these satellite bases that I was able to start developing each one further along.

After I had a base at redstone I would gear up for making shelters and markers with supplies on my trek back to spawn. It does take a while doing this and I raged a few times at cheesy deaths though...

[FlowerChild]

I fixed a bug awhile back that was causing excessive clustering.

[milkmandan]

Packed dirt slab roads everywhere. The one time I died, I made a dirt road back after getting a compass and have just been expanding them when we get about 10 stacks of packed dirt stored up. We've got mostly ocean to the south, so plan is to head due south until hit ocean (or a road), make a boat and keep the shore on the right. Now with hats and the ocean being dangerous at night, not sure if the plan will stay the same.