Better Than Wolves Forum

So I've just gotten around to making a final world in anticipation of BTW's culmination. Figure by the time I get to villagers, definitive progress has been made. So here's the situation:

I spawned in a desert biome with...more desert and a small plains nearby and ocean all around, and I'm finding it hard to actually find any means of getting into those caves to hunt for iron or coal since...I can't find any surface coal. So no lighting.

My next plan was to make a long expedition for as long as it takes to find surface coal, come back, and hopefully find a steady stream of coal for lighting any subsequent spelunking. Question for the experienced is: do I have a better option? Traversing the world early game...especially the ocean, seems doable - but foolhardy.

I never rely on surface coal, I just dig for it. I certainly wouldn't travel large distances from spawn to find coal.

Worst case scenario, you can burn logs in a furnace. If you have a reasonably sustainable amount of food, you should be able to gather enough wood to last the night. Keep your shelter room small and the furnace will provide plenty of light to keep the gloom at bay. Even worst case scenario, you can burn bark and sawdust for light. I'd focus on digging through the top 'soft strata' with stone picks and you should find coal underground before too long, just don't forget to build furnaces and keep them stocked. It's expensive I know, but it's better than nothing. Hope that helps any.

Spend a bit of time hollowing out a base to live in- chances are you'll hit a coal seam anyway.
(Most of my experiences of early game coal is from digging bunkers)
-If the caves are shallow enough, you could get by with punching holes in the ceiling, or if you're lucky enough to find a lava flow.

Going further afield for some easier coal might be a worthwhile idea; you could pick up a lot of food or find a slightly easier place to set up- then colonise the desert once you have the resources to do so.

Yeah my hobbit hole didn't have coal. Looks like I'll have to terraform a bit then.

If I may make a suggestion, since you said you're near desert, desert and plains, why not go for L shaped skylights and keep it shallow? Nothing from a desert will get through a 1 block hole, but it'll keep the gloom at bay until you get torches.

There have been a few instances where it took me long enough to uncover coal while digging at night that I needed to build additional furnaces to light up the expansions to my starting hole. Birch logs burn for a good long while so it usually only cost me a few trees to keep that going until a coal vein intersected the building project.

It sounds like that is a spawn that is very lacking in wood. I have never managed to survive long enough for lighting beyond the initial furnace to matter if I wasn't able to find sufficient wood in the first two days. Some nomad time may be in order.

Aye, I think I just found out the hard way that making a forest out of two oak trees is not going to be easy. I set out earlier to find more wood and hit landfall half a day's travel from my island. It's gonna be an interesting project building my own forest...daunting, but interesting. And I found a vein of coal in a shallow pond, so that's lighting sorted.

One way to find coal quickly when there isn't any nearby surface coal is to used shovels to dig on top of the first strata of stone. Shovels last much longer, and when you need light, you just break the block above you because you're so close to the surface.

try digging into a neaby sand mountain/hill? many times theres a bunch of stone underneath maybe you'll find coal there :) worst case you'll get a lot of sand to make glass with and get some light into your underground base that way?